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It isn't something he's conscious of at first. It's his gaze lingering longer than it should, the gentle frizzle of pleasure in his fingertips when he brushes them against Dick's shoulder after a job well done. It's working side-by-side with him and not wanting it to come to an end. It's the carefully established trust of two people fighting beside one another.
There's nothing sexual about it at all in the beginning. Well, there's the teasing, the things Midnighter says to everyone that could be construed by some as flirting. But it's just him, just who he is, and it's not unique to Nightwing.
For months, there's nothing outside the norm for any partner Midnighter's ever had. There's warmth, closeness, the desire to ensure Dick's okay. Normal things, for normal people.
He doesn't notice how he looks at him or how his fingertips feel different when he touches him or how he brings him up more and more often when he's at home.
It isn't until the dreams start that he realizes anything's off kilter. It isn't until he wakes up in the middle of the night, balls so tight he's about to bust, that he realizes the feelings aren't just attraction to a hot body but attraction to Dick himself. When his hips arch and his prick slides along the sheets, when his body rocks and he holds his breath to not be too loud about this, and when he cums and its Dick's name he mouths silently to the night air, he knows he should feel shame, guilt, something besides pleasure. The thing is… he doesn't.
Even in the light of the morning after, seeing Apollo sleeping soundly beside him, cum dried on the sheets, he doesn't feel anything except the lingering tingle of pleasure. Logic provides that he should at least wince because his husband was right there while he thought of another man and got off. The good feeling of the morning after such a wonderful release tells him it's okay, that there's nothing wrong with what he did. After all, it's not like he cheated.
He doubles down on everything being just fine when a few minutes later Apollo slides his arms around him from behind, nuzzles into his neck, and Midnighter relaxes back into it. He still feels all the love he always has, feels all the wonder of being married to such a handsome, intelligent, and kind man. He's sure everyone fantasizes about someone else from time to time and he's certain it's all going to be okay.
Weeks pass and he works more and more closely with Dick. Their ops take longer and longer in the field, the pair of them together for days on end before Midnighter returns home, worn out and exhausted to curl up in his husband's embrace. The longer he's gone, the more time he spends with Dick, the more frequent the dreams and fantasies become. The more often he finds his gaze lingering on his partner's backside or his chest or that obvious bulge in his suit. And the more often that happens, the more often he finds himself sneaking off to relieve the ache inside him, bucking into his own hand with Dick's name prominent in his mind, though carefully never spoken aloud.
Yet, when he returns home, it's always to Apollo's bed, to Apollo's embrace, to Apollo's love. He thinks to question himself, to see if he's slipping away from Apollo or uncertain about their marriage or future together. The thing is… he's certain he loves Apollo with all he is. He desires him just the same, makes love to him whenever he can. Nothing has diminished there at all and it makes him feel squirmy and uncomfortable inside that he's sleeping with one man and frantically jacking off to another.
He tells himself it's a phase, it'll pass. That maybe he's just got a kink for things he can't have. It makes him feel better for a while, to think it's nothing more than that.
Less than a month later he finds himself in a bind, quite literally. He and Dick are tied up and pressed close together, their captor quite convinced that if he ties them up together then it'll make it harder for either of them to escape. He's wrong, it actually makes it easier, but Midnighter supposes at least this guy tried to put some thought into his actions, wrong as they may be. They're not tied together for long, maybe fifteen minutes before Dick's found a way to free them while the guy talks on the phone and paces back and forth on the other side of the room. They have him hog tied and his phone smashed to bits in record time and they're gone before anyone could even think to raise an alarm.
Midnighter's desires grow after that, his desire swelling within him. He finds himself coupling with Apollo more and more in a desperate bid to rid his mind of Dick's body pressed against his own. He goes from making love to his husband to fucking him a good half the time and he's certain Apollo has noticed the shift in his desires. Whereas he's always taken his time and worshiped Apollo's body, he doesn't always do that these days. Sometimes he takes charge and ends up fucking himself desperately on Apollo's cock, using it to satisfy his needs instead of using their time together as a tool to deepen their love.
If Apollo has a problem with it, he doesn't voice it. He certainly doesn't complain about the extra sex, the quickies in the living room or kitchen, doesn't complain when Midnighter straddles his shoulders and pushes his cock into his mouth in the middle of the night because he's so filled with need he feels like he's going to combust. He doesn't even complain when their roles reverse and Midnighter takes him from behind a couple nights in a row.
He has to check himself again every time it happens. Are his tastes changing? They are. Is he running from his growing desire from Dick? He is. Does he still love Apollo the same way? He's one hundred percent certain he does. Is what he's doing wrong?
He has no answer for the last one. No answer to satisfy himself or his desires or the question he's certain someone will ask him at some point.
He thinks to break off his partnership with Dick. He thinks to go back to calling him Nightwing and pretending he doesn't know who he is under that mask. He thinks to refuse himself when he gets the urge to think about Dick while he sinks his cock into his husband's ass.
He does none of those things.
He starts to feel the things he didn't initially. He feels shame and disquiet. He feels disgusted with himself for thinking about someone else while he's coupling with his husband. He feels upset and angry at his lack of ability to just stop.
His internal war becomes an external one in every predictable way. He snaps more often, jokes around less. He hits people a little too hard, takes the criminals down just a little too viciously and he knows he's trying to drive Dick away without ever having to admit to his sins. He pulls away from his own desires as if he's exited a room and left them behind, slamming the door behind himself. He goes from rampant needy sex and frantic jerk off sessions to quick tugs in the shower that are filled with hatred and not coupling with Apollo at all. It's like a switch has been flipped and he has no idea how to flip it back.
It's predictable that Apollo eventually asks him what's wrong, corners him in the kitchen and makes himself imposing in all the ways that Midnighter won't dodge. His words are gentle but Midnighter hears daggers that aren't there, senses anger that doesn't exist, because it's all wrapped up inside himself and it's his own dagger, his own anger, his own self-hatred that he feels in someone else's words.
He breaks so easily it'd be laughable if it weren't so pathetic. He tells Apollo he can't stop thinking about someone else when he jerks off – he leaves off that he's fucked him and thought about another man, that seems too hurtful to voice aloud – and he tells him that he hates that it's happening, hates himself for the thoughts. He swears he hasn't cheated and that he won't – though he questions the truth of that even as he says it – and he whispers that he still loves Apollo like he always has and that he'd never want this to come between them and that's why he's trying not to be sexual at all so maybe it will die inside him. If he can kill all the desires inside him, it'll all be okay.
He expects judgement, expects anguish exported as anger. He expects everything except Apollo's arms around him and his quiet words in his ear, telling him he's fully aware that Midnighter has always been attracted to Dick Grayson, that it's okay that he thinks about him, and that they can talk about what might help.
The conversation goes on longer than he's comfortable with, but he feels less like a shell of himself by the time he's on the way out the door. He hits a little less hard, stresses a little bit less, and when his eyes linger on Dick's thighs, he feels a tiny bit less ashamed.
It's only a few days before Apollo straddles him on the bed, grinds down against him until his cock is hard and leaking between them. He's not sure what he expected, but it wasn't his husband turning around so his back is to him, bending over so not much else can be seen, and telling him to fuck him. Once he's buried inside, thrusting up from the mattress and plunging deep inside, he understands. He understands when Apollo tells him to call him Dick, when he tells him to fantasize and that it'll be okay. He understand something else about himself when he does it without question, when he fucks Apollo hard and needy and desperately, panting Dick's name into the air of their bedroom like a rarely broken mantra. When he cums and it's like an explosion has gone off inside him, his world busting apart, he has to acknowledge that he's not just in lust with Dick Grayson. Some small part of him loves that man. It's not like how he loves Apollo. It's not big and grand and overwhelming. It's small and brewing and like a malignant growth he absolutely cannot cull from his heart. He thinks he should feel sick. Instead he's just glad he finally understands.
Their partnership is wrapping up, they're closing in on solving this case. There's pain in it that Midnighter both expected and didn't. He doesn't want it to be over and he certainly doesn't want to go back to not seeing Dick all the time. But another part of him is pretty convinced it'll be better this way; that he'll eventually rip off the tumor that is his love for Dick and go back to being the man he was before all of this.
Their final night, he shakes Dick's hand when he wants to hug him. He nods goodbye when he wants to tell him how he feels. He cracks a joke when he wants to cry. And he walks away when he wants to beg Dick never to go.
He hides it all away, tucks the pain of not contacting Dick or seeing him anymore somewhere deep down inside, locks it up and throws away the key. He's right about one thing at least. The longer he's away, the less time he spends with his hand on his cock thinking about him. He thinks he's doing okay, that he's hiding how much it hurts, that he's returning to the man he once was.
It's not until he walks into his kitchen and finds both Dick and Apollo sitting at the counter that he thinks to himself maybe he wasn't hiding it so well after all.
It's awkward, the man he feels the world for and the man that somehow came to own some adjacent part of his heart standing side by side, talking to him like this is somehow normal. It ramps up from awkward to unbearable every time Dick raises his bottle to take a drink, every time he knows his gaze is caught on him while Apollo is right there. His husband is actively watching him have the hots for another man and part of him wants to curl up and die from the humiliation of it. It's one thing to confess and it's another to force Apollo to witness the whole thing.
He feels sick. He feels alive. He feels eviscerated. He feels like he's burst apart with emotion at any minute. He feels calmer than he has in months. He feels like he's on the verge of a panic attack.
Overwhelmed, he manages to excuse himself to the bathroom. He isn't the least bit surprised when Apollo joins him a few minutes later, closing the door behind himself and leaning back against it without a word.
Midnighter has a million questions. He wants to know why Dick's here. If he's been invited or just showed up. He wants to know if Dick knows his horrible secrets. He wants to know if Apollo somehow knows the one thing he hasn't spoken aloud. He wants to know if Dick can leave now and if either of them know how much he hates himself right now. He wants to know if it's normal to feel like he's having a heart attack, if it's normal to feel like he's been gutted. He wants to know whose bright idea it was to bring torture into his own home. Most of all, he wants to know why the fuck he's put himself in this situation and how the hell to get out of it.
He asks none of that. He hangs his head in shame, swallows down the threat of bile, ignores the pang in his chest, and says he'll be out in a minute.
When Apollo crowds him to the counter, when he lifts his head back and turns it to an awkward angle to kiss him, he doesn't resist. When his husband does the world's fastest prep job and fucks him hard against the counter, he understands he's claiming him and he yields to it without question and bites his lip to stay quiet. It's fast and jarring, something he's not used to from Apollo and he wonders at it. It doesn't feel like anger or resentment and more importantly it doesn't feel like goodbye. It just feels like a man that has to stake his claim and is doing it the best way he knows how. Apollo doesn't let him cum and it's only after he's been tidied back up, every last hair put back in place, that he understands why.
The words are whispered against his throat, their eyes locked in the mirror. He's told he can have Dick and Dick can have him. He's told that Dick already knows the score and admitted he's attracted, and he's promised this won't change anything between him and Apollo, that there won't be jealousy or anger or resentment. He's told to get it all out and that if it's not all gone afterward, they'll talk, and that it's okay if that's what happens, too.
Midnighter knows he should feel afraid, should say no to this idea. Knows that there's certain expectations the rest of the world might place on this and they'd think it was a test or a lie or anything but what it appears to be. Only, he knows his husband better than that. He knows they're different than that. He knows Apollo would never put him in a position he wasn't comfortable with and he knows he's already examined the possible outcomes before he's acted.
So he straightens and he leaves the restroom and he kisses his husband before he leaves and he kisses Dick when he steps closer. He pulls Dick with him into the spare room because it feels trashy to do it where Apollo sleeps. He wants to laugh at the lube and condoms on the dresser, but he doesn't so much as bat an eyelash. They fall onto the bed and it's like fire is searing through Midnighter's body, like he's being electrocuted by lust. He feels like breath is leaving him, like life will depart if he doesn't resolve the unyielding desire that's built up like an iron wall inside him.
He gasps at every touch, moans at every touch of Dick's mouth against his body. It's between frantic and sweet. It varies from so frenzied that Midnighter loses a button somewhere to the depths of the room and so tender that they stop to kiss like nothing else matters. They build like a crescendo and ebb like the tide, again and again until Midnighter can't stand a single second more without being inside the man he's desired so badly for so long he's forgotten what it's like not to want him. Dick accepts him with a groan and Midnighter marvels at the fact that they're doing it in such a position and seem entirely comfortable. Dick's kneeling, his back pressed to Midnighter's chest, Midnighter's hips jerking frantically against him as he claims him in some twisted parody to how Apollo just took him not fifteen minutes ago.
The bed springs creak and their breath pants on the air. Their union is reflected in the window glass and Midnighter watches them there as he takes Dick's cock in hand and strokes him in opposition to his thrusts. Dick looks taken apart, like he's high on what they're doing, his cock is hard as steel and his body is plaint like well-kneaded dough. He's easy to fuck, easy to plunder, and Midnighter puts all he feels into what they're doing.
He cums almost violently, surging up into Dick's body again and again as he shoots his load. Dick jerks in his hold with each thrust, grunting at every union of their body.
They stay there until Midnighter slips out, spent and flaccid and Dick's clearly about to reach for himself to finish the job, but Midnighter beats him to it, pushes down on his back until he's bent at the waist and he buries his face between those glorious globes and feasts on the ass he's thought of far too many times. He doesn't touch Dick's cock at all, leaves him utterly untouched as he licks and twirls his tongue. Dick shudders and whines and presses back and pulls away in constant movement under him. He's like granite by the time Dick cums, shouting Midnighter's name as he spurts across the comforter.
He doesn't hesitate to mount him and take him again, draping himself over his back and humping in a way he thinks is possibly more primal than anything else. He wonders if attraction can still be so base that it's built into pheromones and hormones and the need to mate instead of simply have sex. He feels needier than he can ever recall being and he feels like if someone told him he had to stops his hips, he couldn't do it. He's certain he'd pull out and keep humping the air at this point. Beneath him Dick pants and moans, encourages with his words and his sounds and his body. He fucks back against him and by the time he remembers to touch Dick's cock it doesn't take much before his lover's shooting against his palm, throbbing around his length. He cums buried deep inside him, moaning like he's in a fucking porno, and he doesn't care how it sounds because it just feels so damn good.
He thinks maybe that'll get it out of his system, that two near-primal fucks will empty his balls and his pent up desires. Hours later, trembling under Dick, shooting over his own chest, he thinks he was incredibly wrong to believe it'd be over so easily.
They fall asleep as the sun comes up.
When he wakes, Midnighter is warm between two bodies, both curled around him protectively. He's turned to Apollo in his sleep and it's his husband he kisses awake, his husband he's prodding with his morning wood. He gets a half laugh and a smile, a whispered joke about him being insatiable, and they whisper about what he and Dick did while Dick sleeps on as if nothing is happening, koalaed to his back.
Apollo reassures him that he meant what he said, that he'd understand if it wasn't all fucked out from their union, that he'd get it if there were feelings on either side. He leans past Midnighter and he coaxes Dick to relax his hold, to unbury his face, and he makes sure he knows it's him before he shares a tender kiss with him. It's hesitant and exploratory from both men, it's not heat and lust and something primal like it is between Midnighter and Dick. But it's sweet and there is a heat to it, a mutual desire that slowly burns a little brighter the longer they kiss. As they keep kissing, Midnighter between them, he can feel both of their cocks hardening against him, can feel with both start to rock against him, using him to alleviate the growing need and he finds he's extremely turned on by the idea of being used for them to mutually satisfy their lust for each other and he murmurs as much to the room at large, earning himself a few chuckles and a few more pointed thrusts.
It becomes a mission then, both men continuing to explore each other around him, squirming against him, outright humping him when it gets to be too much, their desire growing too large. Dick's the first to break, fishing out the lube from the tangle of sheets and pushing up inside Midnighter, starting to fuck him as he and Apollo rile each other up. They share words and moans and they act as if Midnighter's only there for them to get pleasure out of. Apollo orders Dick out of him, tells him he needs to use his hole, and as soon as he's vacated, he's filled again.
It's different than any other time he and Apollo have had sex. It's arousing in a way that's utterly outside the norm. He's never been used and while he doesn't think he'd like it all the time, he knows he'll want to do this again sometime. His prick is hard, his breathing is quick, and he's very much pleased to be between two beautiful men taking full advantage of his ability to take a dick without prep. Apollo fucks him like a man on a mission, panting against Dick's mouth, humping until the bed protests, until he's stiffening and growling out that he's cumming. Liquid heat fills Midnighter's passage and Apollo pulls out, splashing the last bit of it over his balls and his thighs. Dick replaces him immediately, his grip on Midnighter's hip bruising in force, a high needy sound coming from him with every thrust. There's a sound to their union now, a slick wet sound, and he relishes knowing that Apollo's cum is coating Dick's length. He shudders and nearly cums himself, narrowly holds himself back from it. Dick lifts his leg a little and Apollo puts his hand down to feel where they're joined at, touching Dick's cock as he fucks into Midnighter's ass. Dick pauses halfway out for a minute and Apollo strokes him like that, two fingers moving over the exposed part of his length, and that's how Dick cums, spraying his load into Midnighter's passage, rubbed off by Apollo's fingers.
Apollo whispers about feeling Dick throbbing and that's what does Midnighter in, that's what makes him cum so hard his hips buck and he makes the most absurd sounds as he messes the sheets beneath his prick. He lays in the puddle of his own cum, dripping with his lover's combined leavings, and he feels something like satisfied.
They talk about it later, about how it's been a while since Dick's had a relationship and how he's not honestly interested in looking anymore. They talk about how good they are in bed together, the two of them and the three of them. They talk and laugh their way through some necessary navigation of two married men and a single guy who's interested in being a piece of them but not in all senses of the equation. They share breakfast and lunch and Apollo watches Midnighter share his cum with Dick's throat on the living room couch. They watch a movie and Dick watches Apollo take Midnighter apart as though they're the movie.
They part with an agreement and Midnighter finds himself a new sort of normal. He has his and Apollo's sweet love, their own un-ebbing flame, their marriage and all the glorious things that come with that. He also has the flame hot desire that comes with his and Dick's unions, with late night booty calls and lazy mornings. The frantic sex in places Apollo would never be caught dead doing it. He has late night love making with Apollo and desperate hall quickies with Dick. He has laughter and conversation with them both. He watches them grow with each other and when they all join on those few nights a month they've set aside it's like being lit aflame and living inside it. It's hot and kinky and he always feels delirious with desire. He likes that they can all get off on watching one another and they all fit so well with each other it's irrelevant who ends up fucking, only that they do.
He likes that it feels carefree and real. That it feels tender and loving and like a fling at the same time. He likes that it hasn't changed him and Apollo and their love at all. And he likes that it's okay that he loves Dick too, even if it is a little bit different.
Most of all, he likes that he's flown too close to the sun and he's come out the other side a stronger man. He likes who he's become. Who they've become.