ok but DID I come back wrong, or did you build up an idealized version of me in your head that was easy to love while I was dead? but now that I'm real and alive and complicated again, you resent me for not being as simple and compliant as a mere memory?
do you resent me for coming back "wrong," or for coming back at all?
Inspired by a really, really sad movie (If you need the movie it's: Train Dreams)
Characters: Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Cassandra Cain, Tim Drake
Warnings: Reader Death, grief/mourning, unhealthy coping dynamics, ANGST
ᡣ𐭩 the batboys in bed: an armchair psych analysis (18+) ⸝⸝ .ᐟ
𝓘rene’s notes . . . this is very much for fun I am not a professional I’m just a student who also works in the field part time and I wanted to apply my studies here<3 if anyone wants my sources/more explanations lmk!
Bruce Wayne “Quietly rigid, devastatingly responsive”:
Bruce’s relationship to intimacy is built on two core things that formed him at the same time: the murder of his parents, and a brain that processes the world differently from most people’s.
His (implied) autism means he experiences reality through heightened sensory awareness and delayed emotional labeling. He feels first, understands later. His body reacts long before his mind catches up. So attraction doesn’t arrive as a thought. It arrives as physiological disturbance. Changes in breathing. Muscle tension. Fixation on small sensory details like the warmth of your skin or the sound of your voice.
Then trauma steps in.
His parents died because they were close. Because they were relaxed. Because they let the world touch them. So Bruce’s nervous system learned that intimacy precedes annihilation. That safety is temporary. That attachment is a liability.
Clinically, he lives in chronic hyperarousal. His baseline state is control. Monitoring. Containment. His moral code is part of this too. Not just ethically, but in a structure way too. A way to impose order on a world that once collapsed without warning.
So when he desires someone, it feels wrong in a very literal, bodily way. His system interprets it as risk.
He notices himself becoming distracted by you. His attention pulled off task. His body reacting when you are near. He does not think I want you. He thinks my focus is compromised.
When you touch him, even gently, it overloads him. His body wants it. His mind stalls. He goes very still, eyes dark, breath shallow.
“Slow,” he murmurs, voice low and tight.
You answer softly, “Okay, I’ve got you.”
That’s what breaks him open.
Because Bruce is aroused by co-regulation. By someone else holding the emotional container. By being guided through sensation instead of managing it himself. By permission.
He needs explicit reassurance, not because he lacks desire, but because his brain cannot distinguish pleasure from danger without verbal grounding.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel,” he admits, barely above a whisper.
“You don’t have to know.”
And something in him finally gives. Because control is how he survived his parents’ deaths. Control is how he prevented himself from falling apart. So letting go, even slightly, feels intimately dangerous. Like allowing himself to exist in a body instead of a system.
Dick Grayson “Attachment-seeking exhibitionist”:
Dick’s erotic psychology is shaped by being raised in performance.
His parents died in front of an audience, mid-performance, in the same space where love, joy, and attention had always existed. His earliest experiences of love were public, theatrical, something to be watched and consumed. And then that love was stolen in a way the world could see. His grief was spectacle.
That reality didn’t just teach him that grief and love can coexist, it imprinted on him the idea that he himself, too, could be something consumable, that his body, his charm, even his emotions could be for someone else’s gaze or satisfaction.
Clinically, he fits anxious attachment almost perfectly. He regulates through connection. He feels safest when emotional states are mirrored and validated. He needs feedback to know where he stands.
That is why his desire is so interactive.
He wants your reactions. Your voice. Your breath. Your responses to him. He’s aroused by evidence that what he is doing is landing.
He talks during sex. A lot. Checks in. Adjusts himself to your energy. Not really out of insecurity, relational feedback is just how his nervous system stabilizes.
“This okay?” He asks softly.
You answer, “Fuck, yes. Keep going.”
He exhales. “Okay. Yeah. I can do that.”
What disarms him the most is when you stop reacting and start holding.
When you’r steady instead of responsive. When you touch him without needing him to entertain you.
Because Dick’s deepest fear isn’t abandonment. It is being loved only for what he provides. Being charming, being bright, being the emotional center of the room.
So when he is wanted without performing, something in him goes quiet.
He stays closer. His voice drops. His touch becomes slower, more sincere.
With Dick, intimacy feels like being chosen for who he is when he is not trying to be anything.
Jason Todd “Trauma-wrapped touch-starved body”:
Jason’s relationship to sex is the most tangled, the most bodily, and the most haunted.
He grew up in neglect. Chronic instability. Emotional abandonment. A childhood where affection was inconsistent and safety wasn’t guaranteed. His attachment system formed around scarcity. Love was something you had to chase, steal, or survive.
Then he finds his mother again.
And she betrays him.
And he dies.
And comes back.
Psychologically, Jason’s body becomes a trauma object. Like a lot of victims of trauma, it holds memory. Pain, violence, suffocation, resurrection. His physical self is inseparable from death. He experiences his body as something that has failed to stay dead.
There’s a core belief living in him that shapes all intimacy: No one is supposed to want a body that’s been a corpse.
He’s hyper-aware of scars, stiffness, the sense that his body is wrong. Altered. He often feels like his body is borrowed, or counterfeit, or something that doesn’t really belong in the category of living people. It’s like he’s occupying something that should not exist.
So he leads with roughness. Sexual confidence, reckless flirting, touching first, making everything loud and fast enough that no one can look too closely.
But when you touch him gently, something breaks through.
Not rushed. Not joking. Just slow, deliberate contact. Like you’re not afraid of what you will find.
“Don’t rush me,” he mutters, voice low and strained. “Please.”
You answer, “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”
And that’s when he unravels.
Jason uses sex as a way to access parts of himself that never got to grow up properly. The boy who wanted to be held. The boy who wanted someone to stay. The boy who wanted to be loved without having to fight for it.
In intimacy, he softens in a way that feels almost regressive. His voice drops. His movements slow. He becomes sweeter, quieter, more emotionally exposed than he ever allows himself to be.
Because that boy is still there. He just never had a safe place to exist.
His mommy issues aren’t about attraction to older women (though I dont think he’d rule out someone older). They’re more about wanting unconditional bodily acceptance. Someone nurturing, emotionally steady, who can desire him and care for him at the same time.
Because that tells his nervous system something radical.
That his body’s something that can be wanted instead of just being a corpse or a weapon.
And when the moment feels real, when he knows you’re not leaving, something slips out of him without permission.
“I love you,” he says quietly, like he’s surprised he is still capable of it.
After, he clings in small ways. Arm around you. Forehead pressed to yours. Staying physically close like if he holds on long enough, his body might finally believe it belongs in the world of the living.
Tim Drake “Overthinking sweetheart who just wants permission to exist”:
Tim’s desire is built around usefulness.
He grew up emotionally neglected in a quieter way. Parents who were there physically but distant, distracted, unavailable. He learned early that being competent is how you stay connected. That being needed is how you justify your presence.
Clinically, Tim is hyperfunctional. High cognitive control. Emotional restraint. Identity built around productivity and problem-solving.
So intimacy is the only space where his nervous system wants to stop being useful.
He starts careful. Attentive. Trying to read you, trying to do everything right. Checking in constantly.
“Just… tell me what you want,” he says softly.
You smile. “You. Right now. That’s enough.”
That’s what disarms him.
Because Tim’s aroused by being wanted without being evaluated. By being touched without being useful. By being desired without having to provide something in return.
When you take the lead calmly, confidently, without force, his body visibly relaxes. His shoulders drop. His breathing slows. His mind finally stops running scenarios.
He gets quiet, a little flushed, completely focused on you instead of his own thoughts. He melts into closeness. Becomes softer, more present.
After, he’s affectionate in that gentle, slightly clingy kinda way. Stays close. Talks more than usual. Lets himself linger in the space where he doesn’t have to be a tool.
Summary: Clark’s breath caught as his cock did, the tip forcing past the slight ripple of stitching. He moaned, thrusting again, a gasp on his lips as the sensation repeated.
“Oh, you feel so good.”
Staring at the cum coating the soft fabric of the plush’s cowl, the post orgasm guilt began to set in.
Words: 7k
Rating: Explicit
Relationships: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne
Tags: Plushophilia, Masturbation, Hand Jobs, Identity Porn, Mild Plot, Love Confessions, Getting Together, Minor Injuries
