Their first meeting is at the last-ditch government agency meeting, super secret, very hush hush. They're not going to get any farther with Harley re: kids custody than they got with Egbert, she of the polite steel trap mind and canny grandmotherliness. He's just a random goon standing in the back row, unremarkable three-piece costume and five o'clock shadow at noon. Bro notices the cynical dark eyes in passing, the rumpled white shirt that must get him in a shitton of troubles with the tightasses he calls bosses, and then goes on about noticing the shoulders on the next man over and the cocksucking mouth on the one after that, along with stances and whatever he can deduce of the way they move and fight from their bodies at standstill.
--
Their second meeting is a near-miss. The agent dodges at the last possible second; Bro's bike borderline gooses him in passing. Okay bike for offroad business; he'd have hardly felt the bump if the asshole hadn't.
--
Their third meeting isn't a miss at all, only the agent's teammates are nowhere near his level of skill and Bro has them down in about ten seconds. He proves harder to lure into a dark alley, cannier, but eventually Bro has whittled away his support to nothing.
He expects him to give way, at least for now, but the man stands his ground. He's fast like a striking snake and while he doesn't have the raw power Bro can deal out, he compensate by aiming his gun for Dirk when Bro dodges to avoid the tranq dart.
Choice between Dirk getting tranqued and him getting tranqued is not a choice. He hates himself for letting it hit, but he can carry a sleeping kid. Other way around, less so. He sweeps in under the man's guard and punches him in the stomach, hard enough to bend him over, and then he roundhouse kicks him in the fucking head.
As he's leaving with Dave in tow and Dirk limp in his arms, the guy manages to drag himself out of unconsciousness out of pure bloody-minded stubbornness just long enough to dart Bro in the back.
It's lucky as fuck the nanomachines Bro is beta-testing for Romy can screen them out before the bad loser asshole wakes up.
--
Their fourth meeting is in a hotel room. Like a switch thrown Bro wakes and he knows. He remembers the gas canister rolling in the room and Dirk still in the shower, yanking Dave out from under the bed where he'd been playing by the arm (what if he'd dislocated it who cared care later) and falling in three steps, right across the threshold, like a felled tree. Ceramic tiles rising to meet his nose. Pain. Black.
His kids have been taken, they've taken his kids, they've--
"They're on the bed."
Bro rolls on his feet at the first sound; he's in a fighting stance by the second word, though the comforting weight of the knives in his sleeve and boots is gone and
And Dave and Dirk are on the bed, piled together like puppies, knocked out boneless and insensible, no matter their natural resilience they're still so small and of course the gas would have been worse for them.
It takes him one second to check, one flick of his eye; they're breathing, everything else can wait.
The agent seated in the armchair in the corner looks him over, vaguely incredulous and entirely disdainful, and flicks Bro's own butterfly knife open, and closed, and open. "Getting sloppy, Strider. Europeans? Really? What next, Russians?"
Bro makes a show of snorting, of relaxing his stance. His heart is still in his throat. His kids, his kids, someone almost took his kids. Someone did, and the only reason they didn't get away with it has nothing to do with him, nothing, and everything with that rabid weasel who won't. Step. Off. His balls. "What, not after us this week?" he asks, lazy, bored, lying.
A flicker of irritation crosses the man's sallow face, and he slinks up on his feet, the butterfly knife snickety-clicking through a gesture smooth as, thoughtless as breathing. "Fucking politicians changing their goddamn minds, what the hell else is new. I'll get you next week." A snort. He stalks past him, to the door, tucking Bro's knife in his jacket's chest pocket as he goes. His lip curves down with disappointment. "Not such a fucking challenge in the end."
Bro hits him with the whole weight of his body behind his left hook, he hits him in the jaw, knocking him to the floor, and then he lands on him like a sack of bricks, knees and elbows first, and attacks him with his mouth.
His hands catch twin fistfuls of prematurely salt-and-pepper hair and he yanks him up into a vaguely sitting position, shoves him against the wall, and he kisses him so hard his own lip splits, it stings, he smears blood everywhere on that asshole's mouth -- gets bitten and he snarls, shoves his way between the man's slacks-clad knees, hips to hips, cock to cock -- and then he breaks the kiss and he bites that bruise already blooming on his asshole weasel-face.
Bro's arm is bleeding, too, there's a sheet of nice wet warmth, he vaguely remembers the sudden line of cold when he was punching him, does he care? No. He starts trying to see if he can chew the asshole's neck open, or maybe it's a hickey, who the fuck cares, that asshole saved his kids for him.
Fingers tangle in his own hair, yank him back sharp and strong. He stares down at the man, his puffy, bitten mouth, all the blood Bro smeared on him, the bruises, the blood staining his rumpled white button-up shirt. He wants to see it on the floor, in pieces. He lets go with a hand to jerk it open.
The man hisses. "Knife. At your neck. Strider."
"Oh?" He answers, casual as he possibly can (not very right now, but enough to make the man's eyes flare.) "Didn't notice." He honestly didn't.
It's his own fucking knife, of course.
If Bro doesn't get to fuck him he is going to die.
Or kill him.
Killing him seems a little more likely. He's good with either one but before he has to decide the agent snarls and flicks the knife down between them, and it's Bro's tanktop that splits open, from chest to navel.
So does the skin underneath.
"One inch deeper," he's purring under his breath, maybe snarling, "one fucking inch deeper, wish I could -- just spill your guts out, so easy..."
Blood dripping in big fat drops to pool on a white shirt, black slacks against his jeans, crotch tented to match his own. The knife, razor edge. Fingers yellowed with nicotine, tendons in sharp relief, incongruously elegant. Artist's hand. Such a neat, precise cut. It burns down his chest, it burns in a line that goes straight to his cock, makes him grind down against that other cock, against that blade, makes him bare his teeth in something that's almost a smile.
"--you fucking crazy?! Don't push down when I'm--"
He knocks his own fucking knife out of the asshole's hand, because enough with that game and the agent jerked it away when it looked like Bro was going to open himself another slice so now there's space for that.
"Yeah," he breathe. "I am."
The agent's eyes are dark, so, so dark, iris and pupil indistinguishable even from a few inches away, dark shadows under there, he smells like cigarette and car exhaust and hotel shampoo, like Dirk's shampoo, like he touched Bro's kids when Bro was out, carried them back in, dumped his little boys on the bed like sacks of potatoes.
He probably had them killed, the foreign agents. He had them killed so it means Bro can't.
"... yeah, you are," the agent breathes back, "you're totally batshit insane."
Bro grinds his hips down nice and slow. There's still a hand caught in his hair; when he leans in the man pulls, but he doesn't stop before he's breathing against his lips. "You mind?"
A soundless, incredulous chuckle rasps its way out of his throat. "Shit, Strider, you've got to admire that level of crazy. I can't believe they let you within a three miles radius of those kids. Guess if they survive you they'll be unkillable, huh."
Bro twitches, eyes narrowing. He's backhanding him across the face before he's thought twice.
The problem with doing that is that the momentum means the man only has to shove half as hard into it to unbalance his stance. They kick and roll their way across the floor, once, twice, until they crash into the bathroom's doorjamb. Bro is underneath, wedged against the wall. The agent sneers at him, or maybe it's a smile, it's pretty hard to figure out.
"I am going to fuck you so hard," he -- holy fuck it is a purr -- and then he has another knife in hand and Bro isn't sure where it's coming from, and it's at his crotch and crazy as he is for pain and blood he'd need a lot more foreplay before he voluntarily goes that far, so he stills, lip curled into a snarl. "You'll feel me in your throat."
"Holy shit that was cliche," Bro sneers back, but the asshole only laugh a low smoker's chuckle, and then he grabs Bro's cut forearm and he squeezes. He has his nails digging in, and it burns. Bro chokes back a groan.
"You have such pretty eyes," he mocks, index and thumb popping open Bro's buttons as the rest of his fingers press the blade down across the hard lump of his cock, reverse-held like he thinks he's a fucking assassin. There's denim in the way but the knife is razor-sharp; he can almost feel the edge along his shaft right through the cloth. "That why the shades at night? Here I thought you were just -- that -- special."
-- his shades. Shit, his shades. He fell face down on the floor, knocked them askew, and then when he woke he, shit, he left them there, they weren't holding on and he was in such a hurry to be up and the asshole has been able to see his eyes from the beginning.
He surges up, mashes their mouths together, wraps his non-bleeding arm around his head and yanks him back down, stuffs his tongue in his mouth and tries to choke him with his arm -- pretty hard, from the front, but he tries anyway. The agent growls and tries to push free, but if he takes one hand off Bro's crotch for leverage then Bro doesn't have any reason not to fight in earnest and he knows it. Bro's upper body strength is superior anyway so even with two hands he wouldn't necessarily manage to pull free.
Bro bites, arches his upper body up to press their chests together. His knees part so he can draw the soles of his feet up the man's calves, nestle them in the hollow at the back of his knees. The knife presses down, a few strands of denim part. The agent growls his irritation in his mouth. He tries to shake free; Bro lets him, because then he can trail rings of bruises down his sharkskin of a jaw. He wishes his teeth were sharper.
"Stop kissing me, you whore," the man grumps. It sounds so -- so sulky; Bro barks out a laugh before he can swallow it, and then of course he kisses him again, fucks his mouth with his tongue all wet and slick and powerful; he tastes like an ashtray, it's disgusting.
And then the man loses patience and slices off the rest of Bro's buttons and it's not a knife against his cock anymore, it's a hand, slipping in and gripping him nice and too tight, and he's pushing his hips up into it before he's thought twice.
"Goddamn --" he groans, tries to make it irritated instead of, instead of what it really is, bares his teeth when the other guy doesn't move back against him, just stares down like he's studying him. "Fuck me if you're going to, or are you trying to kill me of old age?"
"Huh, wonder if you'd beg."
The guy is between his thighs. That's a pretty bad place to be, technically speaking. Bro kicks up, hips lifting off the floor. His knee hooks the guy's shoulder. On account of the too-close wall, he doesn't manage to get both, in which case he could have reared the guy right back to land skull first into the floor. He just manages to pull him off about ten, fifteen inches. It's space enough for an elbow to the throat.
The agent twists, bendy like an eel; Bro only manages a good nice solid hit on his collarbone, which makes him choke, and then Bro is on him, toppling him over onto the cold tiles of the bathroom.
He is so fucking tired of dancing around and bitching, he wants to fuck and to bleed and to make him hurt for daring to save Bro's kids when Bro couldn't. He presses his superior weight on his forearm across the agent's throat. His body is heavy, awkward when he squirms out of his pants, kicks them off with vigorous annoyance, but at least the other guy can't use the time to shove him off when he's busy using both hands to keep from getting his trachea crushed.
Bro gets kneed in the ribs twice before he manages to pin the other guy's leg with his. It's a mad kicking, bucking rodeo in here, furious hissing and rage-black glares, and Bro leans in and he can't help but smile when he kisses his bruised lips, all light and nice and insulting as he knows how.
And then he feels behind him for the guy's slacks, shoves his hand in, fishes a nice long dick out, and sits back on it.
It burns; now there's four places on him that are bleeding. (The arm and lip are pretty obvious, and the chest will make for a nice scar, but his kids will never know about that last one.) He sinks on it -- as much as he can, he'd taking it dry and blood doesn't make for great lube, all little slide-and-snag jerks. He works on his breathing, deep and regular from the belly on up, he doesn't want to pant, that asshole doesn't deserve that.
It helps that the guy went still under him, quivering with tension and his hand tight enough to leave a bracelet of bruises around Bro's wrist. "Holy shitfuckingballs," the agent hisses between clenched teeth, "you're too tight, shit--"
Bro leans in and whispers, breathy as possible, "What are you, some kind of wimp?"
He gets an elbow to the chest, right on the knife slice, chokes on a pained moan; all his muscles clench. The man underneath him chokes, too, head briefly thrown back in uncontrollable -- pain, pleasure, both? Who the fuck cares. He's still hard inside Bro, he's -- oh. Yeah. That's all of it. Fuck. It hurts. It hurts all over, he's sore and bruised, he's still bleeding. He sucks on his lower lip, worries at the split with his teeth, eyes closing, rocks tentatively.
Oh yeah. Okay. Yeah.
The guy snarls something incomprehensible and bucks up. Bro chokes. He wasn't expecting that, wasn't ready for it. It makes stars of pleasure-pain burst their way up his spine daisy-chain style, he can't decide if he wants more. The guy gives him more anyway, without asking, clenches those long-fingered hands on Bro's hips to keep him from rising on his knees and bucks again and again. He's biting his own lip in concentration, he's scowling and sneering and sometimes he hisses between his teeth like an outraged cat, it should be hilarious. It's the best fuck Bro's ever had, and he's had a lot.
It's not even his technique, Bro's had virtuosi in how to make a body sing; it's not the pain, he's done scenes where it hurt worse, where his Dommes took him farther; it's... it's, he's not sure, it's --
The agent grabs a handful of his hair and yanks him down, growls in his face. "Pay attention to me when you're riding my dick like a two-bit whore, Strider."
"Why, you doing anything worth paying attention to?" Bro counters, and he'd sound bored if he could but he doesn't, so he just tries for purry and disdainfully amused.
Whoops, there the world goes, flipping around when he's not looking, and oh shit, oh shit, he's fucking him, he's really, he's, Bro can't think, it hurts and he can't get enough, can't breathe, his body seizes and his spine arches like it's turning into a bridge, a snake; he kicks blind and out of control, doesn't hit anything and gets his legs caught for his trouble, and the man heaves into his next thrust and Bro's head goes blank.
It takes him at least ten seconds to realize he's screaming. There's no other word for it, he's letting out noises and they're loud and sharp and he can't stop them, every thrust is like being stabbed, chases all the air out of his lungs, he can't breathe.
The other man is making noises, too, little breathy hah -- hah, panting hard but still quiet enough, and he leans in and smiles like a butterfly blade. "D'you hear that?"
"Fuck you," Bro manages. His eyes are wet. He wishes he had his shades, he'd give anything for his shades right now, it's so much his throat gets thick and tight and his eyes burn, he's going to cry.
"Yeah." A breathless laugh. "They can hear that."
Bro chokes, stops breathing, a hand slapped onto his mouth. Fuck, fuckfuckfuck, did his kids -- he's lying, has to be, but no, here's a little snuffling noise, baby-mumble. Dave. Dave's waking up, he'll be up in five minutes top, he'll be, he'll, he's six years old and here's his Bro getting fucked raw and he won't even see his face straight away, just their bodies from the waist down with all that blood painting some man's cock like a murder weapon, oh fuck, oh no. He starts kicking, squirming to drag himself further into the bathroom, but the agent has his thighs locked under his armpits and won't let go. He's laughing under his breath, rocking slow and sharp and laughing.
"Let go -- stop, let the fuck go, you can't -- nnngh!" Oh fuck, why does it still feel good, why is he hard enough to break rocks, his kids are going to see him, he's going to fuck up their development and they'll grow up just as warped as him, as self-hating and twisted inside and no, he can't, he's, why does this still feel good?!
"You don't really want me to. You want me to blow my load straight up your ass. Maybe all over your face, huh, maybe I'll make you lick me clean."
"You can't make me do anything," Bro snarls, low and dangerous.
"I think I can." He leans in, thrusts hard, one, two, three; Bro's head flies back almost hard enough to give himself a concussion. He can feel him breathing over his neck. "Beg me, Strider. Beg me to finish you in the bathroom, beg me to bend you over the toilet like the cockguzzling whore you are, and maybe I will."
Bro's hand shoots forward; he has his throat in hand in the next second, teeth bared, rage on his face like he has refused to show anyone in years, that fucker is destroying his self control, he's destroying everything, why does he exist. "Don't push it."
He's still laughing, even when it comes strangled by Bro's hand, his eyelids heavy and his smirk long and satisfied.
"Too prideful to even try?"
Bro would be, only then he hears the bedclothes shifting. He closes his eyes. Out of time.
"... Please fuck me in the bathroom."
No reaction. The thrusts slow down to nothing. He can't open his eyes to check, it won't help, he, shit.
"Please," he says again, quieter.
There's a breathless silence, and then the agent pulls out of him so fast it feels, for an agonizing second, like being torn open, like all the pain of entry squeezed inside a single instant. Burt stops breathing, to make sure he doesn't make noise. His upper arm is grabbed, he's pulled up; he stumbles along, something warm and wet rolling slowly down the back of his thigh.
The wall tiles are cold against his face, his chest. He closes his eyes. Arms come up around his waist from behind, trapping his arms, hold fit to squeeze the breath out of him. Dick nestling in his crack, he rocks back on it, sways; they sway together for a few quiet seconds, the man panting in his neck, nose in his hair. Weird. Nice.
Guiding the head of his cock inside him again. It burns. Yes. He bites at his own hand to muffle his noises.
Hands grabbed, pressed flat against the tiles, so nice and cool, but then he can't -- he tries to pull a hand back and gets it pinned to the wall again, and all the man's weight put into it, and into the next thrust.
"No -- can't -- can't wake them, make noise--"
The man's hand covers his mouth. Good solid grip, he could kill Burt like that, long and slow, he knows how to, Burt can tell. He lets his head roll back limply into the hold, throat arched.
The man thrusts up inside him, half his length in one go. Burt keens.
No. Wait. Muffled. That's good. Can't hear muffled. Still safe. Feels good. Feels good, more, more, he rocks back against the cock, the body at his back, all sinewy muscles and furnace heat, wiry chest hair -- his cock, yes, yes, deeper, he makes a noise in his throat, quiet and shaky, can't help it, can't stop it, rocks back to meet his thrusts. They're pressed together from the knees up, rocking together and he's so full, so, so full.
Teeth clamp down on the back of his neck and fingers tighten on his face; he has the vague thought that he'll bruise, he'll have finger-shaped bruises on his face, teeth marks too high for a collar to hide. He comes like a rockslide, an avalanche, it shakes him down to the core, he can't think, can't even breathe. He just shakes and leans into the body at his back, mind utterly, perfectly blank.
He's being pushed back against the wall. So cold. So nice. He rests his cheek against it, panting. Wet heat splatters against his ass, the small of his back. There's still a hand gripping his hip -- to keep him still he thinks, but he's not moving, nowhere he wants to be, he's good here.
The man is done. He's panting. Burt breathes with him, eyes closed.
Forehead pressed against his shoulder. Bristly hair. Hot puffs of air against his damp skin, one, two. S'nice.
Another little kiddie groan from the next room. Bro twitches. The agent jerks away. It's cold where their sweaty bodies were touching.
"I'll see myself out," he snarls like he's the one who was just made to beg for a fuck, and zips up his pants, and then he's gone. The door slams behind him. Bro breathes out and presses his forehead against the tiles. They're getting too warm to do him much good.
He limps to the doorway, checks on his kids. Still more asleep than not. Some blood on the floor, but they've seen worse. He lobs a towel to cover the worst of it, and chucks his stained, ruined clothes in the bin, or the vague direction of the bin -- no strength to bend over and pick things up just yet -- and then he steps into the shower and he slumps against the wall and he doesn't move for at least the next half-hour, not even when Dave peers in with his eyes huge and worried.
"No worries," he says, "bad guys are gone," and he hates, hates, hates the man some more for the way Dave's face lights up in absolute trust, like of course Bro saved them and this could happen in no other way and there is not even need to fret about it, matter solved. They saw pretty much nothing, probably they won't even have nightmares.
When he's done he bandages himself and gets dressed and packs up, shows his kids, once again, how to strip the room for DNA.
Try as he may he can't find his butterfly knife. They have to leave without.
--
The fifth time they meet, the guy is back to trying to kidnap his kids. Bro breaks his nose with a single well-placed fist.
--
The ninth time comes two years after the first. They're on each side of a huge conference table, Strider behind Egbert -- polite, friendly Egbert, he of the righteous wrath -- the crook-nosed agent behind some government asswipe or other. They're in a row, all interchangeable except for their ties, all smiling like they're trying to look thrilled by the accord Harley and Egbert shoved sideways up their asses. They're failing.
"... am sure Agent Noir will be delighted to coordinate on security issues with you, Mr. Strider," one of them is saying.
Huh. The asswipe has a name. That might be the most surprising thing he's learned today.
He nods, coolly polite, uninterested with every inch of him. "Nice alias."
"Thank you, Burt," the asshole replies, voice almost polite and eyes heavy-lidded and so, so dark, dark enough to drown in.
But no one fucking calls him Burt who wants to live. Bro is going to stalk him into a nice secluded corner, and then he is going to fuck him until he cries. ...And after that he is going to kill him.
He's sure there is no way the man is a good enough fuck that they'll never arrive at the homicide portion of the evening.