percabething

[percabething]

Reading the same fanfic every 5 hours

[percabething]

Fateful Beginnings

XLVII. “a great or little thing”

read on AO3 🦇

parts: previous / next

plot: Bruce sets his sights on further political engagement, and you grapple with a shift in plans.

pairing: battinson!bruce wayne x fem!reader

cw: 18+

words: 9.7k

a/n: hi hi !! this title is from the last episode of The Penguin, as you'll see why (no spoilers here! but i reference a 'subtle' part of a scene in it that's a potential easter egg. hint: curtains. double hint: minutes 35-36 in episode 8. i gasped when the episode aired and went 'oh shit, Bruce in my fic would freak'. lemme know if you check it out!)

also! i'm playing around with using content warnings, making them a lil less spoilery. so just bc i don't have one listed for a chapter doesn't mean nothing happens that could be intense/spicy! just that it doesn't push into a territory where i feel it would *require* a warning. happy reading friends, and as always, i'm all ears <3

He’d almost spilled his heart out to you. And he would’ve. He would’ve told you everything. Turned out a ‘clean’ break felt jagged and raw. 

Bruce sat in the lightless kitchen later that night nursing the barely-solidified pint. He’d driven home after you’d left, placed it in the freezer like a delicate, breakable thing, and took off to the nearest gravel road. The adrenaline coursed through him still, after he’d nearly spun into an oak tree off a late turn, but the ice cream gave him a focus outside of his recklessness. You were correct; the marshmallows were good. He wished he could tell you so.

Were you up right now, or was he alone sitting in the dark? Between bites, his attention wandered to the empty seat across from him. He wanted to berate himself over backing out every time he could’ve escalated things with you, but your presence remained tangible enough that he couldn’t. How could he possess the nerve to profess his feelings when just meeting your eyes knocked him clean out? It was easy to scream ‘why didn’t you’ when those eyes weren’t here.

He hoped that wouldn’t go away, the suffocating closeness of your breath tickling his skin and the weight of your gaze. Another bite. Caramel, smooth and sweet; his hands still tingled from touching yours. This throb in his chest and the carved emptiness in his gut was debilitating, which was why he sat alone in the kitchen instead of sleeping the heartache away in his bed. When he felt this bleeding in his core, these flashes of body-freezing, mind-numbing anxiety, he usually slept in the basement. His bedroom had proved refuge in the years following his parent’s death, when this feeling was a constant ache. To sit in there when he felt hollowed-out was to die another death when he already didn’t feel much alive. 

Thankfully he’d returned after Alfred turned in; before the rally, the old man made a comment wondering what ‘the plan’ was about the photos. Bruce said he’d talk to you about it, and acquiesce to what you wanted. He never got the chance, and was stupidly nervous to text you now. Marshmallow again. The cardboard was starting to sweat, creating a moat around the cup’s base.

He fluffed the chocolate and took another bite, moving more sparingly. Pints were deceptively small, after all; and there it was again, a bright, penetrating throb that almost made the regular malaise feel good. It hurt to be left. Really hurt, the canyon in his chest widening with every passing second. If this injury were physical, he’d shout for Alfred to help until his lungs gave out, down all the pain medicine in the world. But here he sat, alone.

He should’ve known this would be the outcome—hadn’t he felt it the first day he truly looked at you? Bringing out a panic response in alleyways that were usually monotonous, the way he couldn’t tear his thoughts off of you that dinner, how you were completely under his skin. Right now he fucking wished you were. 

Bruce would wait for you to text him. You’d made yourself perfectly clear in the goodbye that you were hurting, too, and the last thing he wanted was to remind you of it. Though, if he let himself believe he knew you, he pictured you sat on your bed with your head in your hands, maybe eating the exact same pint he was nearly finished with. And maybe you’d like to feel less alone. But at three in the morning? 

He set his phone on the table, the screen flashing on. Alfred had razzed him a few years ago about having the default screensaver, so he’d changed it to all black. A perfect backdrop to emphasize the white and green in your reply back, impossible to miss. Miss. He missed you. 

He winced as his elbow sored against the hard wood from propping his head up, his wrist tiring. He’d hardly felt more pathetic than he felt right then. Felled by a simple conversation, one that wasn’t even a true goodbye. He’d see you again, soon as the “conference” began. He couldn’t tell if you knew he’d been playing, that there was no meeting or conference and, in fact, that he’d never set foot on the west coast whatsoever. Never cared to venture out that way. Always too much to do. 

There still was too much to do. Morrison spotted so recently after being presumed dead for a decade was the sort of thing that revved him up, had him pulling two or three all nighters in a row without complaint. He didn’t know if he’d uncovered something this mysterious ever, yet he was glued to the kitchen table eating wet, mushy ice cream, replaying things he’d never said and probably never would. 

Selfish. Stupid. Ridiculous. Juvenile. Pointless. The flagellating didn’t matter. His body wouldn’t move. Not right now. His eyes married his screen, willing you to speak. No wonder you’d stopped tolerating him; he was a fucking baby. How attractive was a recluse, especially after self-admitting to just how much of a loser he was? When he’d told you he’d never brought anyone home, that Alfred was always surprised when you arrived, was it supposed to make you feel something? Supposed to make you recognize how much he cared about you? Right now, it seemed the only picture it painted was of a pathetic, desperate man losing his one person. Talk about pressure to put on you.

His cheek throbbed where you’d kissed it like a bad tooth. He looked down at the last scoop of ice cream and put the lid on, unwilling to say goodbye.

Bruce felt the ghost of a limp in his stride as he pulled out of his garage later that afternoon. Turned out it was difficult going back to a place that held so many memories. Turned out ‘sleeping it off’ didn’t do a damn thing—it didn’t help that he actually couldn’t sleep, and stared at his ceiling for five hours. When the valet took his key he realized he’d been driving on autopilot, and only when he bent down to retie his shoe did he realize he’d done the same with his socks. Mismatched. First grab. 

City Hall was more tolerable without the crowds. The courtroom had its doors closed, and some voices broke through the thick walls. With nothing else to do during the daylight hours, showing up early had been a welcome distraction. He looked forward to meetings resuming, and the general chaos of an election season. Busy day and night, able to prevent a thought occuring. 

The doors opened not a minute later. Good, as his mind began to spiral towards memories of you. Bad, because Penguin burst from the room, locking eyes. Figured. One door closes, another opens. 

“Wayne! Fancy seeing you here.” 

The man’s voice was grating as ever, the only balm being that you’d hopefully be out of his murderous reach forever now. He pulled a tight smile. “Mr. Cobb.” 

“Please, call me Oz.” He went for a hug, the smell of tobacco drenching his suit jacket. Bruce had half a mind he asked the women at the lounge to snuff their cigarettes out on his suit. Maybe they did it when his back was turned. Revenge. “Maybe you could show me around this place tomorrow, eh? Only been to a few of these things.” 

Bruce’s eyes trained on the watch the shithead messed with. Rolex. Classic douchebag. “You’re coming to meetings?”

Penguin’s eyes squinted, and he stopped wrestling with the watchband. “Big budget talk. Wanna make sure they don’t stomp all over the uh, the grant situation.” 

“You’re getting business at the lounge, correct?” He’d never been more thankful you’d left. Rather, would leave. You weren’t coming tomorrow, surely. He’d have to break the silence and text you to make sure. 

“Yeah, but you never know here, you know? Way this city moves, gotta make sure you got a safety net, am I right?” His smile glinted the gold caps of his teeth off the chandeliers. 

He feigned a laugh. “Sure. I’ll show you around.” 

“Really?” Penguin’s blackened, beady eyes crinkled at the sides. “The big Bruce Wayne? On my arm?” Grabbing him by the jacket and slamming his head into the concrete never sounded better. His fingers twitched for it. 

“Why not? Been meaning to catch up.”

“C’mon, I’m not one of your broads.”

Penguin wasn’t an idiot, as much as Bruce longed to discredit him. “You think I’m flattering you?” He chuckled, messing with a gold cufflink. “Been meaning to visit your club for a while. Maybe you can show me around, make it even.”

“Ah, knew it.” 

Sure he did.

“Whatcha doing Friday, huh? Young guy like you?”

“Works perfect.” 

“I’ll let the girls know. They’ll be real excited.” 

Penguin, for all that he was otherwise, didn’t linger. He started to leave, and Bruce barely had time to reframe his scowl as he turned back around. 

“Hopefully your little journalist don’t mind. Guy like you, girls can get all worked up.” He winked, and wore a genuine grin as he walked out the front doors. It took every cell in his body not to tackle him.

“Bruce! You’re early. Come on in, I’m just wrapping up.” March, ever the golden retriever, waved for him to enter the courtroom. He hurried his way to the desk to finish organizing some folders. He’d never been in here during daylight hours, and Bruce’s eyes snagged on the hang of the thick velvet curtains framing the windows. 

“I told you, I’m fine to cancel. We haven’t hung out in ages anyway.” 

“But you told Gianna you’d go to the movie. I don’t want to interrupt.”

“While my best friend’s going through a breakup? Hell no.” Mar waved the notion away, plunking beside you on her couch. “I told you. I’m here. Besides, we’ll see Gianna when we go out tonight. She’ll understand.”

There were a few things that Mar could be relied on for: breakups and ‘oh my god this guy is so creepy come pick me up’ texts. So desperate to not be alone, you’d worded a text vaguely enough that she would think you were heartbroken from Bruce breaking things off with you. ‘Him and I talked last night. It was a lot, and I’m really lonely now.’ Technically it wasn’t a lie, so…

She didn’t press it, which was shocking. She just paid for your Uber, got some takeout delivered, and had a marathon of twisted romance movies queued; she said it would make you feel better about things. ‘Love doesn’t always work out. Being single is where it’s at’. Or something. You were numb. 

Bruce was a brand on your thoughts day and night. You’d hardly slept, every five minutes contemplating whether or not to text him, arguing with yourself whether or not contact would rub salt in the wound, mind wandering to what might’ve been if you hadn’t lied and he miracously accepted help. Would you have been in his bed right then? Collecting memories of how he looked above and beneath you? Would you be watching a movie with him, cracking some corny joke just to see him relax?

Usually you were the victim, not the perpetrator. You could sit with your friends or, usually, Walter and your parents, and lament on how ‘terrible’ they were, how ‘awful’ and ‘inconsiderate’ they’d behaved, and how much luckier you were without them. That was far from the case here. He was better than you were, perhaps in every meaningful way. 

“Hey, no no.” Mar snapped fingers in your face. “We’re not doing that. That man can suck it. This day is free from him.”

“I can’t stop.”

“You can’t dwell on it right now. Your five minutes is half an hour away.” 

She’d created a system where you’d have five minutes every hour to vent to her about your heartbreak. Five minutes to drown in your sorrows, talk about how safe you felt with him, how you wanted nothing more than to hug him, how you wished things could be different. You’d been even more shocked when she didn’t gloat about ‘knowing’ you had a crush and ‘knowing’ you were together. You weren’t sure the five minute thing was helping, but you weren’t sure even if every second was filled with crying over him that you’d feel better. You were sick over it. Absolutely sick. 

Eventually you settled in, and the pain at least became bearable for a few seconds, providingmore relief than you had in days. It knotted your stomach queasy, only one forkful of food successfully making it down along sips of water. Every other minute had you mindlessly tracing the scrapes left in your arm to remember what Bruce felt like. The pressure, the speed, the warmth…

“Y/N.” 

You sighed. Might as well buckle in for the rest of my life.

It was pure coincidence. 

March droned on about some policy change he wanted to make, shifting between prioritizing tackling homelessness or rebuilding Crown Point. “The people of Gotham need to be housed as soon as possible. If we rebuild first, they could be housed into their same communities. If we wait to rebuild, where would they go? I recognize there are plenty vacancies, and you fronted a wonderful initiative to house a homeless community a few weeks back. This is why I wanted to discuss it with you, but what did you want to talk about?”

March had prompted the question as they’d entered a small office toward the back. Bruce’s palms were clammy, tension slamming the back of his eyelids. He felt a strong desire to hide, or to run. The curtains hadn’t been hung that way purposely. There was absolutely no way someone had bent, prodded, and crafted them to create the perfect owl silhouette. Absolutely none at all. Apparently March’s attention had focused on the table, becoming the new focus of his prattling. 

“The coordinator assigned placards to our table, I think it’s to seem ‘official’.” March pointed Bruce toward the opposite end closest to the back wall. His steps were unsteady, and he didn’t have the brainspace to fret over if the candidate could tell. He landed in the chair like a lifeline, anxiety prickling the back of his neck. 

“There should be a paper of agenda items listed. I know your time is short, so if you could look through it, Bruce, and let me know your priority.” 

Bruce grabbed the pen and opened the folder. The black letters on the milky white made him dizzy, unable to make out a single word; the pen fell out of his grip, and he swallowed rising bile. Palms laid flat to the wood tabletop, he said something he hoped sounded like a real sentence, but he could barely hear himself. Everything suddenly intensified, and he nearly blacked out. 

He pulled his chair out, shoving his hands into his pockets. Every modicum of energy in his body focused into his next sentence. “My apologies, I feel a migraine coming on.” 

“Oh! Want me to turn out the lights?”

He gripped the edge of the table, knees going weak. “Actually, if I could have a moment alone,”

“Of course. My wife, she gets them with these damn LEDs. I’ll finish my work in the courtroom in the meantime.”

Bruce held his breath until the door clicked shut. 

Your phone lit up with a call. Bruce. Within a nanosecond she’d grabbed it. “No, Mar, I need to take that,” 

“No.” She ended the call, planting the phone under her thigh. “You need to show him he doesn’t matter.”

“He does though.” 

“He shouldn’t. He fucked you over!”

“Give it back.”

“Later.” She threw her legs up on the coffee table, motioning for you to look at the screen. She popped a candy in her mouth. “Don’t want to look desperate.”

She turned the movie louder, but you didn’t watch. She ignored you staring pointedly at her lap. You felt a vibration through the couch—he was calling again. “Give it to me.”

“He thinks he can get to you with—”

“Please.”

“No! Let it cool—”

It wasn’t right. Something wasn’t fucking right, and fuck, you were going to fucking vomit, and you were going to shove her off this couch if she didn’t listen. How many times did a phone ring? “Fucking get up!” 

“Dude, fuck, here.” She tossed the phone at you and you scrambled to pick up. She glared at you as you pressed it to your ear. 

“God, you’re coming off desperate.” She whisper-yelled at you, but you got up and plugged your ear with your other hand. 

“Hello?”

“Please,” he wheezed on the other end. “I n-n,” 

“Where are you?”

“Meetings.” He gasped like it was impossible to talk. 

“City hall?” You jumped into fight or flight, rushing to grab your bag. Mar followed you, tugging on your elbow, hissing for you not to ‘fall for it’. Bruce mumbled something that sounded affirmative. “I’ll be right there, leaving now. I’ll stay on the line.”

“What the fuck?”

You muted yourself, tucking it between your ear and your shoulder as you pushed her hand away and ran to the door. “I’m sorry, I need to go.” 

“You’re going right back to that fuckface?”

“It’s an emergency, I’m sorry. I’ll text you soon, okay? Thank you for today.” 

“What, did he say he would kill himself if you left? Hurt himself? That’s not true, and even if it was, it’s fucking toxic for him—”

“No, it’s… I’ll talk to you soon.” You gave a genuinely apologetic glance and raced out the door, slamming through squeaky, narrow apartment hallways. Maybe he did hurt himself. Because you left. Too much of a selfish coward to even give a proper, safe goodbye. Dr. Crane would have your ass on a platter.

You almost regretted staying on the line after hearing five minutes of his whimpers and whines, your heart twisting in two. It was like he was vomiting tears, unable to catch his breath; your hand shook around the phone, whispering assurances that felt meaningless and far too small; “everything’s okay”, “just breathe”, `“it’ll pass so soon”, “you’re doing great”. 

The driver slammed to a stop two blocks away. A car stalled at the crosswalk, and this lane was tight. Merging left would take a decade. You jumped out, thanked the driver, and took off. “Almost there.” 

Bruce wasn’t able to register much, but something akin to relief settled in him when you arrived. You spoke, but it didn’t cut through the haze. You didn’t force him to hear it by repeating yourself—instead, he felt warm hands on his wrists, and warm skin against his palm. He grabbed onto you, the room spinning. He hated this. He hated feeling this. His body sick and rattled, his mind so swirled that it was absent, uncontrollable. 

You wore sneakers. And soft, dark pants cinched around your ankles. He couldn’t lift his eyes higher. Anxiety speared through his lungs and welded him to the floor. The noises you made sounded repetitive. 

He squeezed his eyes shut, straining to isolate your voice. You said his name. You touched his hands. He fixed his eyes on them, and they were red. 

You touched his cheek. He looked at you. Your eyes were big. Everything smeared and shook in his vision. He felt tears fall off his face. Everything came to him in rigid, tense flashes. You got up to leave. He didn’t know why. But you were trying to tell him something. He let his body slump and relax. You’d come back. 

You took a shuddering breath as you stepped into the foyer and dialed Dr. Crane. The rash on his hands, the shaking, the gasping, you couldn’t call him fast enough. “Hey—”

“Afternoon, Y/N. If you’re calling about Mr. Wayne, his assistant picked up his prescription this morning. Well done.”

A rustling of papers across the hall pushed you to the back, and lowered your voice to a whisper. “No, no, he’s, something happened.”

He sounded alarmed; maybe it was the shrill in your voice, or the fact you couldn’t catch a breath with everything moving so quickly. “What?”

“He said he saw owls again, and he called me and he’s shaking everywhere so, so bad, and there’s this horrible rash on his hands,”

“Where is he now?”

“City Hall.” His concern sent you reeling, biting your lip until you swore it cut skin. 

“What does the rash look like? Raised? Dry? Itching?” 

“Itchy, I think. He was scratching at them. And raised, and red.” You ran your fingers over the braille lettering for a nearby storage closet, doing anything to self-soothe. But fuck, fuck fuck fuck, you felt about to break down, so disoriented you had half a mind it was a dream.

“He’s panicked? You sound affected.”

“I just want to know if it’s serious, I know rashes can be bad with some of these medications,” 

“Likely hives from the panic attack. Give him—”

“Benadryl and an ice pack, I know.” Fuck, fuck, fuck. You shoved the heel of your palm into your forehead. “Sorry. I didn’t even think about that.” 

“Been studying?”

“I have allergies, peaches. Sorry to bother.” You could’ve recognized it. You could’ve, you had some Benadryl in your bag, you could go give him some right now. Could he breathe? Was that why he gasped? 

“Thank you,” you started to leave. 

“Did you by chance say City Hall?” Fluffs of paper filled the background.

“Yes.”

“Ah!” The fluffing turned to sharp sifting sounds. You tapped your foot so fast your sneaker heel rubbed a blister into your ankle. “Said here on our last call that he was meeting a Lincoln March, correct?”

It entered you like a thrown brick. He keeps record of our dialogue? Bruce will read every word I’ve said? Everything I’m saying? “I think so.” Physical transcripts? Stacks of papers with every fucking word… everything was too fast, too overwhelming.

“I really need to check on him, Dr. Crane, I’m sorry,”

“Just one moment, this is important. Mr. March is running for mayor.”

“Yes.” And making sure Bruce isn’t dying in the room next door isn’t? What made him have the reaction? Stress? From me?

“Hmm.”

“I really need—”

“Poor boy. Given what happened to his parents… the campaign season must be getting to him.” A melancholy you hadn’t heard before filtered his words. “I can’t believe I didn’t put the pieces together before… Thomas Wayne being the lead for Gotham’s mayor only to be assasinated in front of him.”

“Dr. Crane,”

“Your priorities have shifted. For the remainder of the election season,”

The phone slipped, clattering on the ground. Oh, fuck. I’m staying. I’m staying? You scrambled to grab it, heart thundering as you wondered what the hell he’d ask you to do next. 

“See that he stays… busy. He seems to like you.”

“What do you mean? 

“It’s no coincidence this happened today. See to it that he resumes his political involvements after this election cycle.” 

“And what about getting too close? Severing?” Your strength wavered, suddenly meek again. “He found out I was leaving last night, and…” your voice broke, bracing yourself for a stern talking-to, or a swat. 

He paused. The seconds planted fire ants under your skin. “You’re worried he did this because of the stress of your leaving.”

“Yeah.” Tears sprung to your lashes. 

“Miss, we likely had it all wrong from the beginning.” 

His tone was… gentle. He wasn’t mad?

“This gives crucial context as to why his symptoms didn’t worsen until after Reál’s resignation. The stress of this election, the trigger to early childhood wounds… it says in his chart,” more papers rustled. Bruce seemed to have a large file. “He has a previous history of panic attacks in adolescence.”

Hearing these things made you squeamish, shining a flashlight in his life that Bruce didn’t consent to. And if your ears didn’t perk to the term ‘resignation’… “What if he doesn’t want to stop going to events?” 

“We can make a plan. For now, try to talk with him about it sometime in the next few days, after he calms.”

“Tomorrow’s another meeting.”

“Well… if you must, you can resume your place there to monitor for the time being. But if you can, try to make him stop. Just through the election.”

“Even if it means he gets closer to me, and then I have to leave?”

“We were misled. Priority is getting him through this election, and that sounds like an effective method.”‘Effective method’ sounded so sterile and manipulative; like he was some unwilling test subject. 

You weren’t sold. As far as you were concerned, you’d only made his life worse, only good for an emergency contact he probably didn’t want to use. “Okay…” 

Dr. Crane took on a nurturing cadence, reminiscent of praise. “You’re doing a wonderful thing. Take pride in helping one of Gotham’s finest.”

He hung up, and you didn’t have time for anything to sink more than a millimeter deep. You sprinted to Bruce, relief slamming a bucket of ice down your shirt when he reacted to your entrance. 

“It’s Benadryl. Your doctor said you have hives.” The last fifteen minutes had been a blur, but everything slowed as you pulled a pink tablet from your purse. Bruce reached to grab it, but knocked the pill across the ground in his tremor. You watched his face scrunch like he hated himself. “It’s fine, I have plenty.” 

This time you brought the second pill to his mouth, pushing it gently past his lips. The back of your palm grazed his cheek and chin, sweaty and hot. “Just a few minutes and it’ll kick in.” You noted how his lashes fluttered shut and he leaned into your hand, evoking visceral memory of him back at Arkham. You pulled him into a firm, encompassing hug. You didn’t smell cologne, only the scent of wet skin and detergent—only Bruce. 

You only knew how much time had passed when he started to snore, pressing more of his weight into you. He roused when you inspected his hands, blinks slow, trembling mostly abated. “I’ll call Alfred, okay? Get you home to sleep it off.” 

“No Porsche.” It cut to speak, throat horribly sore, limbs leaden. He reached his hand halfway to you, palm up; you took it and squeezed. Not the Porsche fell from your lips, and he relaxed. The Porsche was a two-seater, and it was easier to say two words than the seven of ‘I want you to come with me’ or ‘I don’t want to be alone’, then having to explain why being with Alfred and Dory was still being alone, because it wasn’t you. 

When you helped him up he realized how destroyed he was; he winced as apology when leaning ninety percent of his weight into your shoulder, manhandling your arm like he sought to crush it. Even the simplest of words failed him while upright, in a state of pure emotion; he could’ve cried when you grabbed his hand, intertwining your arms and elbows, or when you took off your cardigan to wrap around his neck like a scarf. He tried, tried, tried to communicate through his eyes what you were doing for him, because whenever he opened his mouth you shook your head softly, gently, and told him with such a loving whisper it could’ve killed him that it could wait until he was tucked into bed. 

And that was just what you did. You gave him your bag when he got nauseous on the short ride despite Alfred’s insistence that the rubber mats were easy to clean, but Bruce ended up managing, and you helped him up the staircase at a snail’s pace without a shred of impatience. His palms scorched, body oscillating between hot and cold sweats as you pulled a top sheet over him. 

“Getting you some water, and a snack. Be right back.” 

He struggled not to count the seconds, swimming in repose and panic, a flower blooming through concrete. You arrived some time later with a steamy mug, a water bottle, and an apple—cut. “Have some water before the tea. I thought an apple would be easy on you.” 

He obliged; his arms went weak a few sips into the tea, and you grabbed the mug before he spilled hot water into his lap. 

The last thing he remembered was a heavy weight on his right wrist. 

He glanced at the bedside table and saw one of Alfred’s mugs, a glass of water, and apple slices. His brow furrowed.

His palms throbbed, and he inspected them as if they didn’t belong on his body. Prickly, tight, dry. Bruce swung his legs off the bed and gasped at the vertigo, plopping flat on the mattress. What the fuck? 

“Bruce?” You walked in—through a door that was apparently already open, worry painting your face. He noticed then that he was still in a suit. “How are you feeling?”

A merry-go-round of fragmented scenes spun into a bare-bones memory; March, panic, you. He felt dizzy, swirled, hazy, heavy, and relieved. You were… here. “I um,” his throat was bone-dry. He reached for the glass, watching you staring at his hand to his mouth like a parent. He wanted to pause, tell you to stop worrying, but he didn’t. He drank the glass to completion and let you care. It felt horrible, and gross, and wonderful, and great. 

He blinked and you sat on the edge of his mattress. His eyelids felt heavy with you around, exhausted, unable to string together a sentence. 

“It’s midnight.”

He grunted in response, not even shocked. Felt like he’d been hit by a train. He tried to think of a response, turning the gears in his head, but they were locked up and rusted. 

“You had a panic attack at your meeting. I gave you Benadryl and brought you here. Doesn’t seem like anyone noticed. You did a good job managing.”

“Okay doc.” Loopy, he felt loopy. He grinned. 

His attention snagged on his bathroom. He slowly pushed himself up, barely registering he’d pushed off the back of your hand to stand. “I’m uh, gonna shower.” He scratched at his sweaty scalp and walked a stilted gait toward the en-suite bath.

“Keep the door open.”

“So you can watch?” He laughed under his breath and slapped his hand against the doorframe as he passed. 

“In case you fall. In fact,” 

He stared at you with blurry eyes when you entered. He yanked his shirt off his head and plopped it in front of the shower like a makeshift rug. He laughed again. Silly. He could’ve undone the buttons. 

“You should sit. I don’t want you to slip.” 

“On the floor?”

“Yes, on the floor.” He heard a laugh behind him. Probably you. Definitely you, actually. Who else laughed like that? Alfred? Who else was in the bathroom right now? Ha.

He turned the water on, his balance slipping a bit atop the dress shirt. The water froze his hot skin, but he plopped right in, his pants becoming sopping wet. 

“I don’t think you should have Benadryl anymore.” 

All Bruce could do was laugh; it was either stare blankly, or laugh, and he’d laugh. Laughing was fun. Water, soap, water, soap.

He stumbled out some time later to an empty, clean bathroom. A towel had been laid out in place of the shirt, and the laundry bin filled with his clothes. He pulled off wet pants and boxers, dragging trails of water across the floor. He only thought to wring them after they’d been disposed of. 

“How was it?”

He threw a towel around his waist, but you didn’t come in. He ventured out slowly, a bit paranoid you wanted to scare him. You were criss-cross in the middle of his bed scrolling on your phone. His sheets were different. “Did you,”

“Yeah, I changed the sheets. Thought it might make you more comfortable.” He suddenly felt very naked when you glanced up, like the towel was magically transparent. 

“Bathroom?”

“Didn’t want you to slip.”

He turned and busied himself with rummaging through his dresser drawers. 

“I can leave—”

“I will.” He grabbed the first things he found and tucked into the bathroom. Jeans on wet skin. Slippery, tired fingers. Ugh. 

“How’s your hands?” 

He took your place on the mattress’s edge. You leaned forward and grabbed them, so light he might not have felt it if he weren’t staring at you. 

“Thank you.” His cheeks hurt from smiling. 

“I’m happy to.”

“You’re nice. Really nice.”

You laughed, placing his hands back into his lap. “It’s got you nice and loopy, huh?”

“Mmm.” He let himself fall into his clean bed.

“Past three, Bruce.” 

Bruce sat up, half-on the mattress, his left leg numb from hanging. He oriented to the curtains Alfred opened, noticing the covers had been pulled over him at some point in the evening. 

“I suggest you meet your guest downstairs for lunch. Rather, early dinner.” The old man flipped on the overhead light. “She attended to you all night.”

“Who?”

Alfred’s gray brows scrunched. “Miss Y/N, of course.”

Each step of his routine brought more of the night into memory, though he couldn’t recall a lick of conversation. Walking to his closet? March. Shirt? Calling you. Deodorant? Benadryl. Brushing teeth? You making him tea. Combing out his hair? Following him to the shower. He cringed. He didn’t recall how, but he knew he’d acted like a doofus; he felt it in his bones. 

He grabbed the orange bottle on his nightstand and poured the white, oblong pill into his palm. Bruce stalled, eyeing the now empty prescription.

Shit. Fucking shit. In the stress of the day before, he’d forgotten his meds. He slammed it down with the last of the cold, bittered tea, and antsily sprayed on cologne that aggravated his headache. He hurried down the stairs to outrun the anxiety, ineffectively skirting realizations of this means they work, and fuck, he really was sick, and would manage this the rest of his life. 

He hesitated before gritting his teeth and stepping in. 

“Hey. I helped Alfred make lunch. Figured the meds would have to be worn off by now.” 

His heartbeat flipped, twirled, and stopped altogether seeing you. Saying goodbye a second time? 

“How are you feeling?”

Wordlessly, Bruce maneuvered to his seat. You already had a plate ready for him at the table, but you brought over a glass of juice. French toast. Cinnamon, powdered sugar. Cut strawberries. The fork clinked against the edge of the ceramic. Christ… why—why was he going to cry? All of the edge had been squeezed out of him at your leaving. “Better. Finally feel like my brain works.”

“Yeah, you shouldn’t have Benadryl again. I think you got delirious.”

Bruce felt himself turn red; thankfully, you were focused on your meal. “Hope I didn’t embarrass myself.”

You chuckled. He felt his ears heat, too. He took a bite, chewing thoughtfully. It tasted immaculate. “You joked about me watching you in the shower.”

He coughed, the toast lodging in his throat. Watch him do fucking what? “Watching me?” 

“No idea what you meant, but I didn’t.” You took a bite and swigged some juice, two perfectly normal things, but it was capturing; it reminded him how much he hated to drain you. 

“Sorry you had to see me like that.” 

You set your fork down, eyes scanning the table between you. “I’m grateful you called.” 

The rest of lunch was quiet, but not for lack of trying. Bruce opened his mouth plenty to try to strike conversation, delusionally expecting words to spill out, but covered with pancake bites and sips of juice. Pathetic. Weak. The regret seeped into his skin, already living in hindsight. Clean break. Clean break. Nothing filled this void; here you were, right in front of him, but it was so fucking fleeting it was as if you’d already gone. 

He panicked when you stood. “Thank you for helping me.”

“No problem.” You walked to the counter to refill your glass. A thread was sewn into his hip at a meter’s length; even being across the kitchen pulled uncomfortably at his skin—too much distance. 

“Did you sleep here?”

“Yeah. Alfred and I played chess for a bit before you woke up. Then I just went to my—the room upstairs.”

“As far as I’m concerned it’s yours.” Silence followed, and Bruce grappled with the possibility that he wasn’t as coy as he thought. You started messing with your nail beds again; he stuttered on the recovery. “If you come to visit.”

“Actually, I thought about it. I want to stay.”

He deflated. “No, I’m fine,”

“I know! I just, I want to research. I thought about what you said about the students, and me not being bought, and I don’t want to ditch. I can’t.” You bit your lip with such force you winced. 

“I can take care of the students. You hate it here.” No longer hungry, he took his things to the sink. A painting hung above it, chunky oil pastels in orange and green within a gold frame. He’d stared at it hundreds of times, always with some level of disdain. Tasked with the dishes when Alfred caught him coming home late, or when his mom wanted to ‘teach responsibility’. Bruce swore he’d engraved the edges of the orange’s leaves with spite over the years. It seeped into him. “You were set on leaving, I didn’t sway you.” 

More silence. He dug the heel of his palm into the marble countertop, grazing the plush edge of Alfred’s dish towel as he shifted his weight. You wouldn’t admit you wanted to babysit him anymore than he would admit that he wanted you to. 

“I want to follow that lead. Phone calls from halfway across the country won’t suffice.”

“Leads can take months. Some never end.” He spun to face you, crossing his legs as his shoulders sunk. Dark circles hollowed your undereye, the whites of your eyes strained, eyelids heavy. You always looked tired here. 

“I’m only staying through the election. Same as before.”

He groaned, and your voice went quieter. 

“Unless you want me to go.”

He avoided your gaze, nearly scowling with unearned resentment, blaming you for failing to see the words he couldn’t say. “It’s like you want me to beg.”

“I don’t expect anything from you. I just changed my mind, that’s all.”

“Right after I had an episode.”

“I want to research.” 

His hands burned, then felt weightless. You’d grabbed them. His thoughts turned static as you grinned, probably trying to offset the tension. “I’ll be your temporary intern.”

Fuck, it was insanity how quickly you could turn his mood; you were a walking weakness at this point. He supposed he’d never quite be in his right mind around you, and needed to make peace with that. 

“Are you sure we can’t stay here? Meetings are boring anyway. That eats up crucial research time.” You dropped his hands to lean against the counter. 

You made a persuasive point; staying home, staying close, getting to show you the ropes. You dropped his hands to lean against the counter, and he caught himself before giving in. “I have a duty.” It wasn’t for lack of wanting—it was due to it. But good god, if you got any closer and asked him again, he might cave. He gnawed on his cheek. “You should stay back, get some sleep.”

“What if you have another panic attack? What if you can’t call me? When I called your doctor about the hands, he said the environment is probably triggering,”

“It’s not the environment.”

“Why not?” 

Thank god for your meddling, bringing more tolerable emotions than longing to the surface. “Forgot meds yesterday, that’s all.”

“What if you forget again?”

“I’ll catch you ghosting me again?”

It came out harsher than he intended, and halfway through your quiet I’m sorry, he pivoted. 

“It would be safer if you left. I can send videos, whatever to help you feel involved.”

“Even if I don’t go tonight, I’m staying. Just through the election.”

The room was still, and it wasn’t an easy silence, making his heart pound again and muscles tense. He tested the waters. “Then we should ride together.”

“I thought you were convinced you’d ruin my life.”

“It will, but at least you’ll have one. Oz is too much of a suckup to swing at someone close to me.”

“He’s that dangerous?”

“You should really leave. You can stay here until Saturday, I can drive you to the airport,”

“Bruce,”

“I don’t want this. But it’s no use arguing with you.”

Bruce and you argued for the next hour. Arguing put a specific spin on it, however, because it was more sad than angry. You felt sorry for switching up on him so quickly (though it wasn’t really your fault, but you couldn’t very well say that), he felt bad at nearly being abandoned, you couldn’t blame him for that, and he couldn’t change your mind. He continued to emphasize that you needed to leave, while deflecting your every attempt to point out that he’d just as desperately tried to get you to stay a day prior. Evidently, he was convinced Oz Cobb thought the two of you were together; apparently to Bruce, the concept of playing into that was akin to tying a noose around your throat. He thought your monotonous life was something worth preserving, and made his frustration known when you refused to yield to it.

“You’re not getting it.”

“I get it, I just don’t want to fight.”

“If you understood, you wouldn’t agree.” 

“Unlike you, I know fate is unpredictable and cruel and don’t spend my life trying to control it.”

His jaw set. “I’m familiar. I don’t want to help the odds.”

“I’m sorry.”

It was at this point where both of you hit a standstill, each party an immovable object. Bruce forced himself through mountains of irritation and fear to break the silence, struggling to tap in to detective mode. You both agreed you couldn’t be too obvious, or it would feel contrived; you argued that neither of you knew if anyone was onto you or not, so this could be pointless in the first place. He reminded that Oz was unpredictable, his mere presence needing to be taken as seriously as appendicitis. “Even if it’s coincidence, not worth taking that chance.”

What Bruce couldn’t express was the feeling of doom that blanketed him whenever he thought of your safety. Whether it was paranoia or intuition, it was powerful enough it couldn’t be ignored. It nagged, and yanked, and pulled at him with the same urgency as a gun to your head. The ex-journalist from Crown Point hadn’t left his thoughts. Something didn’t feel right.

Eventually, as you both shouted to each other from your respective rooms, catching the echoes between floors as you got ready, you agreed to arrive together, not hold hands (or further; neither of you wanted to name actions outright), but remain close and friendly throughout the evening. Arriving together would paint enough of a picture, but keep things unconfirmed. You joked that people might think it a cheeky play off the leaked photos. He wasn’t amused. Bruce warned you that if Oz lingered, plans might shift. “Might have to be more forward—holding a waist, or hugging. Or more.” He’d paused, waiting to hear a loud objection, but nothing came. He didn’t want to find himself in front of Oz without discussing this as explicitly as he could manage. “Is that okay?” 

“Yeah. Whatever we need to do.”

You’d stuffed your dress and heels into the bottom of your bag in your haste to get to Mar’s, and it would have to suffice. “This good enough for a Wayne?” By joking, you tried to smooth over the awkward like a wrinkle in a shirt, but it refused to lie flat. This good enough for your fake girlfriend? 

Bruce was last down the stairs, a squeezing ache tightening in the core of his chest. He couldn’t respond, disjointed and overwhelmed, like he’d staggered out of a crashed car. One minute he thought he might not see you again, the next you were in some fucked up roleplay for Penguin. 

“I can take you home, or you can stay.” He waited before calling the elevator to the garage. You shook your head and pressed the button instead.

On the drive, you hoped that Oz guy would push his luck; give Bruce a side-eye or some signal that activated his protectiveness so that he’d take advantage of that more he insinuated. Embarrassing to admit it, and you never, ever would, but you vibrated under the anticipation of the closest thing you’d ever get to a date with him. Some touches or kisses that didn’t require guilt. You were doing a good thing, like Dr. Crane said; especially with the added context of a missed pill. It proved that they were effective, that they were helping him more than anyone thought. If he found out about the lie, which was necessary to even get him meds, he’d probably stop and be entirely fucked. Guilt was drastically easier to carry when it was truly helping someone. 

Rain speckled the windshield, the car wipers coming on whisper-silent. You tapped your hands in your lap. “Nice wipers.”

“They need fixing.”

Subtle signs of his wealth were everywhere, as he explained the slight sticking point in the drag towards the end of the windowshield. You’d never heard them so quiet, or efficient.

Blended with that anticipation was a sense of driving to the morgue. Bruce kept rigid and stoic, a permanent crease etched between his brows. It filled so much of the cabin you could hardly do more than stare straight ahead, every eye movement feeling like it cut through stone.

The shouting started sooner than you anticipated. Bruce ended up having to take your wrist and lead you up the stairs, which only intensified the jarring lights and shouting that confused you in the first place. It wasn’t this bad when he came alone, right? 

Your surprise left a sour taste. He’d tried to tell you about this, and you refused to listen, and… breathe. 

“You good?” You nudged his shoulder, and he could’ve laughed if the goddamn antichrist weren’t on his way to harass you. 

He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Only going to get worse.” 

“Don’t worry about me.”

Bruce grimaced. ‘Say the sun won’t shine’.

The food actually looked appetizing tonight, and he was practically vibrating with whatever the hell he was feeling to the point you needed to take the edge off. “I’m gonna get a drink.” 

Your dress skimmed your hips and thighs as you walked, the heels bringing more bounce to your step. He didn’t know that he should be looking, but the subtle flounce of fabric off the side of your thighs was pleasant, and strangely regulating. 

You jumped when you got to the catering table and noticed your friend; you lunged forward in an attempted hug, almost knocking into some dessert he’d set out. The recovery was awkward, and you ran around the table to make up for it with a quick, close hug. Only half your face was visible, but Bruce felt your happiness halfway across the room. He tore his attention away before his blush deepened, keeping guard for Oz. His cheek would surely be raw by the end of the evening, and these things barely lasted two hours. 

Bruce grinned when you arrived empty-handed, beaming and a little breathless. He couldn’t help but lean closer, magnetized. “Did you do that?”

He nodded, and he could’ve sworn more color pulled into your cheeks, though it was hard to tell. 

“Is he gonna be here every week?”

He nodded again. You smiled so wide it showed your teeth, and the weight of the world fell off his shoulders. 

“Sweetheart, I missed you too.” 

Until Oz.

You recognized the rolling cadence, the thick, gritty tenor of his voice, but if you hadn’t, you would’ve known by Bruce slipping a firm hand around your waist. Your body had an instant reaction to this new touch by him, air leaving you with the pull of your hips into his. 

“Bruce Wayne. How’s it going?” You looked up when Bruce’s fingers tightened around you. “And your lady friend, what’s your name? Y/N? How you doing, Y/N?”

“Can’t complain.” You flashed a pearly smile and leaned your head onto his shoulder, wrapping your arm around Bruce’s waist. Oz followed your hand around his side, eyes squinting with a grin as he licked his lips. 

“Yeah yeah yeah, ‘course not, beautiful. Hit the jackpot, huh?”

“Kind of you.” Bruce spoke first, eyes sparkling as he took you in, attention dipping from your eyes to your lips in a way that was not subtle, in a way that changed your breathing pattern ragged on the spot. Your body went hot. Oh, fuck, he’d never looked at you like this. “Though, I think I did.” 

It’s fake, it’s not real. Hopefully he couldn’t see your skin riddled with goosebumps, nor the rapid dilation of your pupils making the lights fuzzy. 

“Don’t want to interrupt.” Oz laughed; you followed Bruce’s soft rumble, playing nice. The power this man held to make Bruce willingly act like this in public. Terrifying. You thought he shouldn’t have to do all the heavy lifting.

“Gotta have a break sometime.” You waved your hand as if to dismiss his concern with a sweet laugh. “Right, baby?” 

Whew. Bruce side-eyed you, his brow quirking almost imperceptibly. What the fuck did he say to that? With your hand pressing into his side, with that fucking grin and those, wow, those eyes, and that baby… god!

Mmm, fuck. His hand settled into the small of your waist. His voice was low and easy, as if this pillowtalk were regular conversation. He had to meet you where you led, right? He said the first and only thing to pop into his head, his pause already too long. “Lot of rooms at Wayne Tower.” 

“Think we’re finished with the third floor…” 

“Hah! Beautiful.” Oz shook his head, falling for it hook, line, and sinker. You held in a laugh.

“Which room should be next?” Bruce blushed as he said it, feeling like he wasn’t playing a role anymore; asking a question he ached for the answer to, body burning just talking around it. Brutal the sway you had over him, absolutely unparalleled; the single most aggravating, miserable man just a foot away, yet all but dropped from his thoughts. 

“Oh!” You slapped his arm, grinning so wide it hurt. If it weren’t for knowing Bruce was biting back a groan and an eye roll, you couldn’t be so brazen. Conceptualizing it as teasing him made it kind of fun. “The upstairs balcony!”

“Ooh.” Bruce let out a low whistle and it went straight through you. Was this teasing? Was it? Was it?

“Look at you two. The world needs more of that, you know? In goddamn Gotham of all places? Gives people hope, brings up morale, all of that shit.” 

In dire need of escape or you might actually start climbing him, you tilted your head toward the refreshments. “Want anything, babe?” Babe rolled off the tongue with slippery ease, but you were gone under the heat of him, reduced to a mess of smoldering coal waiting for kindling. For a yes, a please, for being yanked into a storage closet.

“No thanks, love.”

“How about you?” You tossed a honeyed smile at the man, barely remembering the purpose of all this beneath that love.

“Hey, don’t get me in trouble with Mr. Wallets over here.” He held his hands up, then chuckled. “But I’ll take whatever you recommend.”

Reeling from knowing what the word sounded like on your lips, he hardly pieced together Penguin’s rescheduling. “Storm’s looking to cut in early. Might have to, you know, move things around a little bit.”

He tracked you in his periphery. Still safe. Talking with your friend. 

“You and Bruce Wayne?” Rai poured some glasses for you while you bit at a croissant. “Is that sunglasses guy?”

“Can’t talk about it here.” 

“Careful, girl.” Rai winked and handed over the wines. “Way he looks at you…”

“He looks at everyone like that.”

Rai tsk-d before he was hailed by an impatient man to your right, leaving you with your thoughts. Bruce was great at being charming here, at least recently. But holy hell did it feel supernaturally consuming, like you were the only person in the world. 

You returned with a glass for yourself, and extended one to Oz. “Figured you could use one.” He took it with a nod, and you tucked into Bruce’s shoulder again. 

“None for you?”

You jumped in to laugh and cover for him, knowing the perfect playboy narrative. “The wine’s pretty cheap here.”

Bruce’s breath hitched. Fuck. Fuck!

You felt him stiffen, and your teeth went cold. Oz’s eyes lowered, and he sighed, keeping the glass at chest height. His voice changed, his posture shifted. “Nice checkin’ in.”

“We need to find a time to reschedule.” Bruce was tense, coiled. “Excited to dip back into it.”

“Business at the club, you know, the club’s are busy here. I’ll get back to you.”

Eerie. Fucking eerie, and seeing Bruce scramble to get out of it, Bruce unable to pick up the pieces… 

Excruciatingly self-aware, every eye you hadn’t noticed before peppered bullets into your back. Bruce’s warmth cooled. Oz walked off, and Bruce wrapped his arm around your shoulder, breath hot against your ear. “Let’s get settled.”

Oz walked past the garbage by the entrance, casually dropping the wine—glass and all—in the trash, untouched. You couldn’t see where he went with Bruce guiding you toward the meeting room; he walked you closest to the wall and the furthest from the crowds you could get without disappearing, just like he’d mapped it. He probably had. He was actually competent, and careful…

“Bruce,” your voice pitched up an octave. The restraint in his tone and the tension in his grip made it known you’d fucked up, seemingly really, really badly, and it sent you into fight or flight. “I’m sorry, I didn’t—I tried to play into the rich thing,”

“It’s fine.”

And that was the nail in the coffin. “What’s he gonna do? Can you still meet with him? I don’t, Bruce,”

“Hey, hey.” He took the wine from you when it nearly tipped over. He was starting to learn how you moved, your patterns; how you played things so seamlessly, retained such composure, until the straw broke the camel’s back. Usually something with feeling would break you down, especially prone to anxiety; when the anger left, and you knew he was stable, you bared your skin and retracted your teeth. It was endearing.

He pulled you into the conference room, surprised to find it unlocked. Convoy always made such a show out of opening it. 

“I felt it.” You gasped a breath. “The switch, and you were right, I don’t know what I’m doing with him,”

“Now you know.” 

“I’ve never felt something like that.” You eyed the door like he might burst in, like he could hear you, and he was plotting. Bruce stepped between you and the door, blocking your ruminating.

“All he cares about is power, alright? I have it. You’ll be fine. You sold it. You did your part.”

“Are you, are you good?” You rubbed his shoulders, scanning his torso like the injury was physical. 

“Don’t worry about me.” How could he alleviate this burden for you? 

He was too accommodating, too gentle, and—it made you nervous. It scared you how self-sacrificing he was, because he was the most important thing.

“I want to.” 

He softened into your candor, not registering that the doors had rustled, or that your eyes had flashed, thinking that you launched into a hug, until your lips were on his fucking neck and he couldn’t breathe and his vision went out, and he pulled you flush by the small of your back and slid a hand into your hair and, fuck, “fuck,” fuck, adrenaline concentrated in his chest, fireworks burst on his skin, yes, please, he pressed his mouth to your collarbone, drunk at first contact. 

‘Fuck’? ‘Fuck’?! You short-circuited, wow, oh, “Mmm,”

“Whoops.” Mr. Convoy entered, and you jumped back. 

He cleared his throat, pushing past you to his seat at the front. “The meeting is imminent, Mr. Wayne.” He grabbed a manila folder in front of it, speaking as he strolled back to the lobby. “I suggest you take your seat.”

It sunk in second by second, a slow render forming of how you saved face. He slumped into a chair.

“Was that too far?”

“No.” He’d been a second away from the word ‘finally’ dripping off his pathetic tongue, two from asking you how you liked it, and three from pulling the fire alarm. Yet here you were, looking unmoved. “Different than I imagined.” 

“What?”

“No, I mean,”

The usual crew filed in, effectively ending the conversation as members snaked between you. You hung in the corner, watching Bruce’s tablemates vie for his attention. A lady put her hand on his shoulder, and your neck pulsed where he’d kissed. Security shut the door; Oz didn’t show. 

[percabething]

Fateful Beginnings

XLV. “cellophane”

read on AO3 🦇

parts: previous / next

plot: you go on your first mission with Bruce, and everything isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

pairing: battinson!bruce wayne x fem!reader

cw: 18+, YEARNING!, angst

words: 9.8k

a/n: Bruce is in loveeee, they are in loveeee, and the plot thickens (also: the chapter title has nothing to do with the song lol). have a lot more to say, but I’ll let y’all read <3

“When you said you had a mission for me, I thought it’d be in some seedy club.” 

Wind had picked up in the city over the weekend, rendering the cement more slippery than usual with wet leaves acting like banana peels beneath your soles. The contacts felt dry and thick behind your eyelids, and the earpieces had evidently been precisely fit for Bruce’s ears and no one else’s. 

“Too dangerous.”

You winced and clutched your ear as you hurried under the awning of the Gotham Public Library. A horde of children gathered just inside, headed by what looked like a newly minted teacher. “Any way to turn these things down?” 

“Better?”

“Yeah.” 

In two years, you’d never been to Gotham’s library; it was just far enough from campus it would’ve been a hassle, and the university’s library had more than sufficed. Everything was fairly neutral; if someone had beamed you directly from out of town to here, one might be convinced Gotham was entirely normal. Tan walls, the occasional large stuffed bear in the kid’s section, same weathered wood bookshelves and metal pushcarts as anywhere else in the nation. 

You got in line behind a pair of tweens and listened to Bruce relay the plans again. Even if it wouldn’t be weird to interrupt him and talk to yourself in public, there was something wonderfully scandalous about having his voice in your ear. He could talk gobbledegook and you would’ve swooned at the surround-sound rumble of his voice rattling your thoughts.

“Request the physical Gazette archives. Should be publicly available.”

He’d been more specific on the phone the night before; somewhere in his research over the weekend he’d found an old newspaper subheading titled: ‘Head of Journalism at Local University Found Dead, more on page 13.’ Bruce had repeated it approximately thirteen billion times over the phone as he mulled over various digital archives. He’d traveled to page thirteen, and there was no ‘more’. The entire article was clipped. 

So here you were on his behalf; it looked less suspicious to have someone from the Gazette digging into the archives, not getting into how many paparazzi would swarm the place if Bruce Wayne were to show up. Sometimes you forgot how famous he was; whenever you remembered, you became a tad sheepish—a far cry from how brazen you’d been the night you’d officially ‘met’. So much had changed since then. 

Anxious about finding some answers and keen to spend time with him before leaving, you’d sidestepped the guilt and found yourself in an Uber earlier that morning. After a few block’s walk, you’d ducked into an alley to meet Bruce for the gear. As desperate as you’d been for him to help with the prehistorically clunky contacts, when he’d leaned over you to do so, you thought your heart would give out from the closeness and abruptly left, muttering about ‘learning to do it yourself’.

The tweens ahead of you giggled as they’d successfully checked out their young adult romance, laughing their way out the double doors. You stepped up and gave a thoughtful smile to the librarian, acutely aware that everywhere you looked, Bruce did too. “Can you help me find the Gotham Gazette archives?” 

Mushroom-brown eyes framed by thin, silver-rimmed glasses blinked back at you. She paused her stamping of DUE BY onto new books, her stare scrutinizing. Had she noticed the gold rimming of the tech? “They’re not here.” 

You laid your palm flat to the counter and leaned forward, sweetening your tone. “I work at the Gazette. I was told the physical archives are stored here.”

The lady shot you an incredulous look, almost wary, like you were trying to pull off a heist. Were you really that terrible at playing nice? “Who told you that?”

“A colleague.” It didn’t feel right to name-drop Dr. Vry without clearance; it was already suspicious enough to dig around the archives with less than a week left of employment. 

“Sure you didn’t mishear which library, ma’am?” You watched as she slowly shut the book, expression unreadable. “The university stores them.” 

“Not what I heard.”

You barely contained your startle at hearing Bruce speak again, realizing the difficulty of tracking both conversations. “Not what I heard.” 

She gave you a strange sort of look. Bruce laughed under his breath and you fought the heat rising to your cheeks. If you’d known this would be such entertainment for him… 

“Check Gotham University’s library. Have a good day.”

You held your breath as you walked out, waiting until you were alone on the sidewalk to speak through gritted teeth. “What am I supposed to do when you say things? Repeat them? Ignore them?”

“How about waiting for the word ‘ask’?” 

If his tone had been any less teasing, you might’ve torn into him. It felt strangely like he was taking over your body with this tech, able to see and hear exactly what you did. Extremely intrusive, extremely intimate. “Are you driving to GU or should I get an Uber?” 

“It’s the beginning of the workweek. Students will be everywhere.”

“Better pay for it then, billionaire.” 

The ride was fine—nothing like sitting with him in his car, but you tried to understand. Every second away from him felt like an hour with the clock’s incessant ticking in your mind. Your phone vibrated twice, indicating an email, and you caught yourself before checking. Bruce couldn’t know you were leaving yet, and here you were walking right into Dr. Vry’s landscape… what if she talked about leaving or confirmed when to return your things? Dear god.

You put your phone to your ear, pretending to call someone. You needed to set the stage for if Dr. Vry intercepted. It hurt to be so evasive with him, and was a bit scary. Trying to get under his nose was a tedious balancing act; the man was born with a built-in magnifying glass. “These things are hurting my eyes…” you feigned a rub. “Can I take them out and put them back in if I need to?”

“Yeah. Won’t interrupt anything.”

“Good.” Normally you’d try to gather your breath before going into a situation like this, before saying another white lie, but he could hear everything. You pretended to hang up, tossed your phone in your purse, and wrung your hands together, failing to offset the nerves without giving them away. It wore on you to keep up this facade; it was torturous to feel like he was in your psyche while you kept a white-knuckled grip on such a world-shattering lie. 

The driver wished you a good day, and you stepped onto campus. You headed straight for the library, wishing Bruce would talk you through the walk. Instead, he was probably messing with the lens focus, doing something with a bajillion different buttons, and otherwise embodying a rich vigilante. Despite literally acting as a tool, you’d never felt less important. 

Moving into the library was eerily familiar; it didn’t bring comfort like it should. An alma mater that hadn’t been kind, a time best forgotten. Your hips skimmed a chair you’d sat in your first week here. The first study session you’d had with Mar, paired up on the first day of Sociology 302. It was like walking through a morgue, or a cemetery. Awful. 

You didn’t have to bother with the front desk; if you had a student or employee ID, you could buzz yourself into the exclusive section of library on the third floor. It housed rare books, newspaper archives, and various other historical artifacts. A short elevator ride later, you saw no one was in there. 

You’d never been in this room, too intimidated by its exclusivity to ever venture in it. Bruce hadn’t either, or he would’ve directed you, you were sure of it. It took a few minutes of sifting and checking to find a giant locked box labeled: Gazette. 

A note stretched atop it: Please See Front Desk.

“Trying to cover something up. Keep it close to their chest.”

You grabbed the box, groaning under its weight. Multiple decades of papers had been stacked into this, and you quickly realized you wouldn’t be able to support it all the way to the first floor. You ditched it, much to Bruce’s questioning. 

“I can get someone from the front desk to scan it in.” You requested the elevator that began a crawl from the top floor. Figured. He didn’t respond. Also figured. 

The front desk was all but abandoned; a single student manned it, their ID swinging around their neck as they fiddled with it. The lanyard was unmarred, matching their fresh-faced glow. A freshman. “Hi. I was just in the archive room and wanted to look through the Gazette papers, but it’s locked.”

“I can help you.” They ducked her head toward the back, calling for a station replacement. A collection of keys jingled in their hand, their skipping, jubilant pace making you hyperaware of how jaded you were. The elevator came swiftly, mocking your previous request, and the ride was silent. You wished Bruce would talk your ear off. You didn’t have long to memorize his voice; just two more days, two final events.

They led the way to the archival room, threading through the maze of shelves with ease. “Which volumes would you like?”

Bruce answered, swarming your stomach with butterflies. He stated a two-month section, and you repeated it. The worker shuffled through an enormous chunk of files, then handed you a stack of papers after scanning your ID. You moved toward a table in the corner, thanking them.

“Check them. Make sure every week is included.”

“Something wrong?” The student eyed you while you sorted. First week of March, second, third, not the fourth, the first week of April, second, third, fourth…

“It looks like you missed the last week of March.” You grinned and showed them the missing article, but they didn’t lean in. They stared at you, pulling their keys closer to the chest. Could’ve sworn their face dropped. 

“We can’t give that to you.”

You paused, in case Bruce wanted to choose-his-own-adventure here. “I work for the Gazette.”

The grin you received was tight, an effort to placate. “We don’t give it out.”

You swallowed thickly. Though he didn’t speak, Bruce’s presence was loud. “Can you call Dr. Vry?”

They pulled out a pager, pressing some yellowed buttons. 

“Sure she’ll let you have it?”

It had to be that he enjoyed teasing you; between the echoing silence and skittish student standing between you and the door, you couldn’t respond. They gave you a watery grin and pressed some more buttons, then a noise sounded. “She’s on her way.”

Did you remove the contacts now? Would it be more suspicious to remove them the second she was mentioned, or remove them the second she started talking about how you had to leave? Your pulse raced when you realized he’d still hear you no matter what through the earbuds. You were wrapped in cellophane, trapped in a fishbowl. 

You stood there in awkward silence until a shadow appeared in the doorway. Dr. Vry waltzed in, quintessential bun tightly controlled atop her head. Her glasses looked different, or maybe you’d paid little attention before. Everything felt more important now; noticing every blade of grass, every shred of the world around you before it all ended. Weren’t you glad to be headed home? Wouldn’t it feel good not to put up with Bruce anymore? When had tolerating him become yearning for him?

“Miss Y/N!” 

You gazed at Dr. Vry with tears brimming. If she said anything, so be it. Let the colors run. Bruce deserved the truth, and how karmic would it be to get it on video straight from the eyes of the goddamn liar themselves? “Hey.”

“Looking for final inspiration?” 

“I just wanted to check on something, but I can’t get that volume.” You handed her the short stack, watching her emerald eyes scan it. Biting your lip. Waiting for the last shoe to drop. Waiting for Bruce to find you out.

Rain had begun to spatter against the windows of his Chevy, dampening the sound filtering through the speakers. The sky was an angry gray, and he hoped the signal wouldn’t cut out. He turned up the volume to better hear Vry. “Melissa, fetch the article, please.”

There was a persistent feeling in his gut, almost like an ache; it began when he first started up the contacts and buds, seeing and hearing through you. It persisted now, ebbing through every interaction, twisting and flipping whenever you spoke. So this was what it was like to be you. Your height, your voice sounding straight from your head. Sometimes the ache got buzzy, like when you spoke directly to him, or when he heard the small breath that escaped before you spoke. He was rarely this close to you. It felt sacred.

And the article was in your hands. He blinked a few times and captured the screen, eyes already skimming the text to look for a name. He caught it, wrote it down, gnawing at his lip the second he looked away from you. He couldn’t stop watching. If someone laid a hand on you, if anything happened…

He flinched when a metal lid flew off a trashcan to his left, overstuffed and abandoned. It was the only place free of students in the quarter mile around campus; he needed to be close enough to sprint to you if needed, rumors and scandal be damned. 

He hoped his nerves weren’t bleeding into his tone. Sending you to do anything felt like a sin; any bruise or bump would be his fault, like he’d placed them on you himself. Until you were safely beside him he couldn’t breathe.

An adjacent ache only intensified over the weekend. His patrols had become a search for you in every building he entered, a silent prayer that you were safe in bed. He resisted the impulse to text you when he went back to his car, because his nights would become absolutely unbearable if he gave in every time. Every person with your hair color or skin tone caught his eye, a wave of panic surging through him without fail. 

It was so much easier just being around you. He could know you were safe with his own two eyes. He could make sure you felt okay, that you weren’t left wanting. He wished there were more days in a week so he’d be able to do both without compromise. If only he’d known the consequences of going to City Hall that day.

Except… he probably would’ve gone, even knowing. How could he deny himself the privilege of knowing you? Maybe he would’ve stayed on the ground a while longer, held your arm a little tighter. He was too selfish. 

But what he wouldn’t give for another first impression.

“—tragedy for his family.” Jesus, he’d missed the first half of what she’d said. Vry had pursed lips, staring forlornly at the paper in your hands. 

He couldn’t slip like this anymore. 

“Is that why you didn’t want it out?” Your voice was as silky as ever. His heart pattered. 

“You know how journalism students can be. Looking for leads, unfinished stories.” She was unconvincing, eyes shifting from you to the paper like she was gauging your reaction, shifting her words to keep you off her track. 

“Keep her talking.”

“Mr. Morris’s story is unfinished?”

He wished he could see you. How was your face set? Were you giving anything away? All he had was your tone, which you kept a tight rein on with everyone but him. 

“A life taken too soon is always unfinished.”

Too terse. She didn’t want to be pushed, but you had to keep on her. “Taken by who?”

“Taken?” 

He turned the dial louder as the rain picked up. Her voice filled the cabin. 

“The river.” Vry choked on fake tears and caressed the paper with her thumb by his name. “Went out with his kids too early in the Spring. The faculty warned him the water was too high; boat flipped, and all he could do was…” a tear slipped down her cheek, and Bruce scoffed. You weren’t buying this scheme, were you? “Flip the boat over for his kids.”

“Don’t buy it. Keep her talking. Look over the whole page.”

Immediately, your eyes looked over the page. Your voice was softer, and he hoped it was just to keep her unsuspecting. “Did you know him?”

Vry sighed. Putting on quite the show. “I was his trainee. He planned to retire in a few years.” How long had she rehearsed this? How many students had she relayed this to? Did she think this farce genuinely effective at stopping investigation? 

“I’m so sorry.”

Bruce’s eyes narrowed. She was playing you. Retire in a few years? With young children? Refusing to wear a lifejacket, though he was an educated family man? She hadn’t run her script past an editor.

“I locked it up after growing tired of the conspiracy. Every few months a student would dig through these and come to me, and I couldn’t stomach it.”

“Makes sense.” You handed her the papers and she tucked it into a special compartment of the case. Were there other things in there? 

“I want him to rest.”

Like hell she did. Maybe she torched him herself. You didn’t actually believe that, did you? He’d feel a bit offended if you read into everything he did, but let this woman go scot-free. It didn’t seem in your nature to let things slide… but then again, were your interactions with him applicable to the greater population? When he was such a freak?

“I’m sorry I pried.” You spoke as Vry locked the case up. Bruce scanned her hands, zooming in to see if there was anything on any rings—no. He zoomed out, drumming his fingers on his thigh. He couldn’t give in to those thoughts. 

More importantly, right now, why the hell were you saying sorry?

“Why are you apologizing?” 

Another sigh from Vry. Did she think you were dumb? Was a sigh the only thing she could come up with to detail such immense grief? “Dearest, it’s alright. You’ve come so far. We’ll miss you. Did you receive my email?”

The election was more than a month out, and they were already anticipating your leaving. It wasn’t a wonder why you’d wanted to investigate this; it seemed to be a piece of your home. Probably why you were being soft on her. Had some sort of misplaced familiarity for the professor. 

All the same, it wasn’t good. 

You excused yourself and slipped out the door, opting for the stairs rather than the elevator. Blowing off steam? “I’m parked behind the east entrance. We can research at my place.”

A student walked past you as they ascended the stairs. Your foot skipped the bottom step and you stumbled; his arm instinctively reached out to catch you, knocking hard into the dash instead. His cheeks tinged pink. You didn’t fall, instead slamming out the exit with a crunch of the push bar.

“It’s cruel, Bruce.” Your voice was low, though he couldn’t see anyone around. 

“What is?”

“She was crying, and you’re laughing at her.”

“Crocodile tears.” He mumbled, hoping you’d get the point. So it hadn’t been strategic; you’d genuinely felt bad for the woman who was keeping locked up the mysterious circumstances of her superior’s death? 

“Did I not just say it was cruel?” 

He heard the stomp of your footsteps, the grate in your voice. The ache heavied, but he wouldn’t give in so easily. You had to learn not to trust every tear if you were going to stay safe here. If you were going to stay safe at all. “Everything about that was convenient.” 

“She was the head of the journalism department for a decade, and it’s weird she’s around the archives? Suspicious that she doesn’t repeatedly want to hear stories about her dead mentor?”

“Pulling you aside to lead the sob story. Something she’s not telling you.” 

“I think your detective work has made you cynical.”

“Can’t let anything go uninterrogated.” He shifted in the leather seat, the car feeling more cramped than usual. 

“But that doesn’t mean…” you scoffed, sounding irked. “You can still be nice. We got the information, didn’t we?”

“We’ll look into it.” It took everything in him not to blurt out a lesson about not conflating kindness and naivety, but he figured it would be lost on you. He gathered himself with some breaths.

The ache; it was like he was morphing into a different person. Like Alfred had handmade you to make right his more unforgiving tendencies. Your voice rang so clearly over the speakers, and it was still making him melt, and he didn’t know if he’d ever get used to this feeling. 

It was only a few minutes before you made it to him. By that point, most of the adrenaline of wanting to keep you safe and micro-analyzing every small piece of your surroundings had worn to a dull throb, and his body was overcome by having you safe beside him. It loosened his resolve. 

“I’m sorry. Didn’t want anything to pass by.”

You clicked your seatbelt, tossing your wet hair over your shoulder. Your outfit was speckled with the rain, drenched atop the shoulders. Did you own an umbrella? Maybe he should get you one. “Let’s go research.”

He shifted again, feeling your tension like a puncture. “You did nothing wrong.”

You shrugged. 

Speak. It was excruciating not knowing what happened in your head. How mad at him were you? Did you personalize it, generalize his sentiments to assume he wouldn’t care if you were crying? That he was heartless? The thought of you seeing him that way was a bright, pulsing bruise. He tried to form clarifying words, but nothing came out. 

You’d already removed the supplies, placing the contacts and buds one by one into your palm. He stared at you like a scared cat, nervous about any unanticipated moves. Though he’d been watching you with wide, consuming eyes, he jumped when your hand touched his to plunk the items back. 

“All this tech just to look at one article in a library?”

He’d follow your lead, let the conversation move along. “Now we can rewatch it. Print any info we need.” He revved the engine, checking once more that you were successfully buckled before peeking out. You glared at the steering wheel and he clicked the car into ‘park’. When did he become so docile? 

“So that was it?”

“We got what we came for.”

“Don’t you do fancier stuff? Clubs, mobs, secret rooms, or…?” 

Here he’d thought you were mad at him and not wanting to go to Wayne Tower; that there was something else you’d rather be doing, with someone else, no less. Sometimes he forgot that he’d met you in a gunfire-laden club, that you’d chased him down an alley at a crime scene to get a little interview. You seemed to think you were the exception to danger, and that attaining information required it; but not every night of his was spent at gunpoint, and he certainly wasn’t bringing you anywhere near that. That was a hill he’d die on. 

“I do. Like I said. Too dangerous.”

Your expression soured to a pout. “Only you? No one else has ever helped you with more ‘dangerous’ missions?”

You always asked the questions he didn’t want to answer; it was probably why you asked them—could sense his pinch points. Bruce kept his eyes to the dash and mulled over how to respond, feeling your gaze like a physical force.

“You said Oz owns some clubs. Why don’t I go down there?” 

“No.” His response was swift and immediate, requiring no conscious thought. Not an option.

Spoken through grit teeth, heat penetrating your stare. “You don’t control me, remember?” 

“Doesn’t mean I have to help.” Testing his patience again. Hadn’t he made himself clear you weren’t to go within a mile of Oz, let alone waltz into his hunting ground? Why the hell would you think he’d help you on a suicide mission? 

“Other people can help, but not me?”

“Y/N,”

Tapping your foot and rustling in the seat, your voice wavered. “You don’t think I’m capable?”

No, no. “It’s not that.”

“What is it then?” The edge slipped out of your voice, amber coils cooling to silver. Like butter on a July sidewalk, he softened. If only he could touch your cheek, hold your hand, even hug you to let you know how he felt. Communicating had never been his strong suit; unless it was to an empty page, spoken through a metal nib. 

How could he explain that his sole other accomplice had been a criminal? Or begin to express the complexity of his relationship to Selina Kyle?

Was it… even that complex anymore? It seemed scarily simple in comparison to you.

“Met under different pretenses.”

“They didn't know your identity?”

“She was already a part of that world.” Your radar was off today. Hopefully you’d leave it at that. 

“Your girlfriend’s a mobster?” 

His head snapped to you, his heart racing. “What?”

“She’s not a part of the mob?” You peered at him inquisitively, a hard crease appearing between your brows. 

He tried not to stutter. “I don’t have a girlfriend.”

“What about graduation?”

He searched your face for any idea of what you meant. Graduation?

 “‘Already spoken for’?”

He could’ve passed out, grateful he hadn’t forgotten something atrocious. For a second, he wondered if he’d forgotten something else in the caverns of his mangled brain; that he’d hooked up with someone (or even established a full-blown relationship), told you about it, and promptly erased it from all memory. 

It was dangerous, the hold you had on him. He believed you too easily. 

“That was a joke.” His relief brought an easy grin. The steering wheel drew his focus, eyes squinting a little at the memory of Selina leaving. For months he’d thought about her daily; for an even longer time, she pressed the back of his mind after rough patrols. It was those nights where he nursed a particularly gnarly injury that he almost regretted not taking her offer. Upstate could've been nice. Being around her would’ve been nicer. 

He caught himself, realizing quite plainly that he didn’t feel that way anymore. He figured he’d always wonder what might’ve been if he’d left with Selina. It would’ve been just fine, even pleasant, but that no longer felt like enough. If he’d never been here to meet you, he never would’ve felt such a consuming desire to know someone and be known, in equal measure. Everything else fell away in your presence. Every need, every obligation, every desire channeled into you. How terrifying was it such romantic thoughts felt increasingly normal.

“Sorry. I don’t like feeling like you don’t trust me.” His peripheral vision caught your wince, and the way your knuckles stretched taut as you viciously gripped your hands. Your pain melted him into a puddle. 

He unbuckled and fully turned toward the passenger side. You didn’t look up, which made the words form more concretely. “If it was only about trust, I’d fit you for a cowl tomorrow.”

Something flickered across your face and found a home in your eyes. Pain. The car was silent, his words hanging. He wished you would say something, so he didn’t have to keep replaying his sensitivities over and over. 

You finally released him, a flood of relief in the crack of your smile. “Sure yours wouldn’t fit me?”

“Could try.” 

You’d thought he was taken. Was that why you’d teased him with the boyfriend ploy last week? Why you’d hesitated to spend the night, thinking he had someone who might object? Was that why you hesitated to hug him, though he felt how much you lingered once you finally did? Was this the wall he felt between you? Talking was actually… liberating. It clicked everything into place. 

“You thought I had a girlfriend this whole time?” The more he was around you, the more his thoughts verbalized. He worried that soon there might not be a filter at all.

“You said you were spoken for. What else is that supposed to mean?”

He nodded. It made sense; it made perfect sense. You weren’t someone who pulled things out of nothing, he just hadn’t been clear. An overwhelming urge to clarify, no, ultra-clarify he was single burned at the back of his throat. Maybe hoping you’d catch his drift and fill that opening, though the thought made him feel like he might scream, or sprint around in circles, or pass out. “I’m not. And I don’t have one.”

“Do you want one?” 

You thought of what his life could be once you left; once he got over the lie, once he could learn to trust people again. You could see how he might make a doting partner; the little blanket he’d put over you, his endless check-ins that were mostly nonverbal searches of your face he thought you couldn’t read.

His stare was intense, attention vacillating between your lips, eyes, and off of you altogether, like he couldn’t make up his mind about something. Did he not want a companion? Had the question been triggering? It was crucial you stopped assuming that just because he had sex appeal meant that he wanted it. He appeared to have been alone his entire adult life, and maybe that was by choice. 

Still. It felt like a waste for such a warm, lovely embrace as his to go unused. He was so sweet when he wanted to be, so enchanting; whether that was inciting anger or affection, he was unmistakably engrossing. You almost began to imagine coming home to him every day, but it was too cutting. How beautiful of a partner he could be if he really wanted it. If he stopped being Batman and risking his life every night, he could make someone terrifically happy. 

Bruce rubbed his thumb along the edge of his opposite pointer finger, eyes flitting smoothly between the dash and you. Every catch of his gaze on yours was a bolt of lightning that was progressively difficult to ignore, and you wondered if he hadn’t heard you. 

“Why not?”

You could think of a few reasons. “Have to explain where you went every night.” 

"Not if she already knew."

Was he being too obvious? 

Your face scrunched, gears turning in your head. His heart pounded against his ribs until it bruised. He couldn’t toe this line with you, it was horribly irresponsible. When he thought to backtrack, that you’d excavated the meaning from subtext, you opened your mouth; he burned to know if you’d accept it, if you’d like it, if you’d want him even a fraction of how much he needed you. The only thing that kept deflections from vomiting out was the devastating ache to know if you felt the same. 

“Are you gonna be Batman forever?”

He swallowed hard and looked away. His limbs tingled, floaty. “As long as I can.” 

You internalized you wouldn’t be around if he did; you wouldn’t be privy to any of his future that existed beyond the next seventy-two hours. For how greatly you yearned to know him, you wouldn’t know much at all. Would his life always be spent alone? What would happen the day he called up the stairs for Alfred to stitch him up, and no voice answered? Would that be the day he broke? 

You were unaware of how weak you sounded before you spoke, unable to look him in the face. “Because you deserve to live a life that isn’t in a basement.”

Yet another familiar, acrid phrase sweetened on your tongue. He responded on impulse, the same refrain he gave when he was too drained to fully fight with Alfred; but for the first time, it held no defensiveness whatsoever. Instead, he inched closer, letting your shoulders touch, needing to communicate that he was here, he was open, and he was listening. “What if this is the life I want to live?”

“Is it?” Surely that wasn’t true. Who wanted to live a life in total isolation? 

To an outsider, Bruce was sitting in the front seat of a Corvette; as far as he knew, he was suspended in freezing water, kicked off the edge of a cliff. As he took you in, grateful for the lack of reciprocal eye contact, an avalanche of the week’s patrols fell over him at warp speed. 

Whenever a call was in a location you could’ve been—whether that be a bar, a restaurant, or park—he’d scanned the environment at every entry. It didn’t mean anything that it added seconds to his emergency response; it didn’t matter how imminent the danger to civilians, or if another shot, blow, or cut would occur during that time. He’d begun to shy away from gunfire, even second-guessed his footing in combat. A simple weapon had evolved into something dangerous. What would happen if he got hurt, or worse? What would that mean for helping you? Slowly but surely, and it didn’t feel all that slowly, you were taking over his life.

Your eyes glittered on his, tugging him out of his reverie. This was a sensation he’d never felt, a kind of hypnotism that grew stronger every time you looked at him, every time you touched him, with every syllable you spoke. He wrapped around your finger with a knot he couldn’t, wouldn’t, didn’t want to undo. He wanted to let you in. He wanted it to be you. “I don’t know anymore.” 

Without effort you inched closer, pulled toward him by a magnet. How fun it was to poke around his brain, make up stories about who he wanted, filling in the blanks with your name. He’d make such a perfect lover…bliss hid in every line you dared not cross, and the thought of touching everywhere you’d never been allowed made you woozy. 

Your lips had never looked more inviting, persuading him to move nearer, to see them just a little better… his hand slid lower on his thigh, waiting for you to grab it, begging you to touch him. Couldn’t you see how you unraveled him? Couldn’t you see him falling all over himself? The windows began to steam, frosting at the edges. 

His lower lip trembled, body surging with adrenaline. He wouldn’t.

Such a pretty, pretty boy… your eyes glazed over, picturing you both intertwined.

The center console creaked under the weight as you both crept closer, unaware of the space being bridged and inhibitions loosening.

What did he eat for breakfast? Had he showered this morning? Was it about to happen? He said he wouldn’t do this. His hands went numb. Oh, fuck, this was happening, wasn’t it? 

He bit his lip for a brief moment, and your mouth flooded with saliva. You let yourself wonder what might happen if you leaned in, your body prepping for what your mind wouldn’t allow. You couldn’t…

Sense careened into him at the last second. Would anyone see? He broke the trance for just a breath, his eyes darkening on something beyond the windshield. His eager heart throbbed as it died. “Students.”

The engine roaring to life was the soundtrack to a cluster of people with their phones out. You glanced at how close you’d been, realizing the compromising position this was. How embarrassing were the photos, ogling alone at the city billionaire? 

“Well, you have a girlfriend now.” The tires skid as they gripped the unkempt back road, Bruce struggling to resist the urge to peel out of there, praying he was safe enough to drive. 

He considered stopping a few blocks down and running back to pay them off, crafting a persuasive speech if they didn’t comply. Anything to protect you. You searched for something on your phone, a heavy sigh filling the cabin. He feared the worst, all but strangling the steering wheel. “What?”

“At least they won’t make any money on these.” You analyzed the hastily posted photos of you through a rainy, foggy windshield, intimidated by how close you two had been without knowing. You and he leaned in, shoulder to shoulder—actually, a bit closer—faces absorbed on the other. The student had made a typo in his attempt to leak the breaking news: girlfriend had one L, not two. “If only they thought to sell this to fucking paps.”

“I’m sorry. I should’ve been watching.” His head thrummed on contingency plans. “I’ll talk to Alfred, he’ll get them taken down.”

The likes doubled and tripled with each passing second. You refreshed the SEARCH to see others had already screenshot it, quoted it, reposted it on their own accounts like they’d been the nosy leech. “That won’t do anything. They’re already spreading.” Why had he let you get that close? 

“I’m sorry.”

“What can you do?” You uncrossed your legs, not realizing you’d been squeezing them. 

He knew you meant it rhetorically, but it didn’t stop his thoughts from tunneling through a dozen different options. He cut the lights and ducked through a narrow one-way. “They know my car. I can’t take you to your apartment yet.”

How long until Mar hyperanalyzed the photos and texted a spread of excited emojis? How long until they reached your dad, and he began questioning you about why you’d kept a relationship from the both of them? You let your body sink into the chair. Would Dr. Crane call and berate you for being so reckless? For being so weak and easily won by a pair of blue eyes?

“I shouldn’t have roped you into this.”

“It’s okay.” 

“No, it’s not.” His stare was spacey, slowly shaking his head. “It’s disproportionate.”

“So it would be okay if the rumors hurt both of us.”

“You don’t have to joke.”

“Do you think I’m placating you?” If anything, you were the one who needed to apologize. When he finally saw these, how your lips parted so close to his, would he think you just wanted what everyone else did? Would he be the one to sever things? 

“You’re downplaying it.”

Until he sees the photos. “You think another grad student’s gonna kidnap me for tuition?”

“Don’t joke about that.”

You sat straighter, interrupting the silence before it festered. “The fun part about trauma is I get to decide those things, not you.”

“I need to come up with a statement.”

“You get to comment on our relationship, but not me?”

He bristled, flustered. “I really don’t like how you’re acting.”

“Maybe I’ll repost them myself, double down.”

He almost stopped the car and lectured you, but he paused before tapping the brakes and grit his teeth. “Great strategy.”

“We can talk about it at your place.”

“I’ll work with Alfred to make a plan.”

You loathed being sidelined; the only emotion more consuming than guilt was indignance. “You’re seriously shutting me out of this?”

“It’s my responsibility.”

“You’ll deny it?”

“Of course I’ll deny it.” He side-eyed you. Did you… not want him to? His hands went clammy.

Pain spread across your stomach, somewhere between nausea and butterflies, though it felt like he’d just shot one of them. “You think anyone’s gonna believe that?”

“If it stops one creep from stalking you.”

“So this is about me?”

“Who else?”

You laughed, dryly, as the first headline swept in, emphasizing your status as his former journalist. A freshly graduated one at that. “Pretty scandalous to sleep with your interviewer. Thought you might be concerned with your rep.”

“I don’t care about that.”

“Sure you don’t.” 

“Can you stop mischaracterizing me?” His handle on annoyance was sneaking away, his mind too clouded and zigzagged to properly think. 

“You’re the one who fought me about going playboy.”

“That’s different.”

“You’re right, this is worse.”

“Let’s stop arguing.”

“Because it’s inconvenient for you?”

“Will you stop it? Please?”

“It helps your playboy angle.”

“Stop.” He hit the brakes then, and you glared at him. He shook his head, the world spinning. “I’ll keep driving in a minute, I need to think.”

The rain pattered against the window with dense, loud droplets. Deja vu disoriented you, serving up memories of driving pothole-riddled, bumpy back roads while you counted the rain streams against the window. You couldn’t understand why your parents were arguing then, and were just as overwhelmed now. “Why does this bother you so much?”

“This shouldn’t have happened.” His outstretched arms rested by the wrist atop the steering wheel, stretching his black jacket at the shoulders. Raindrops and crinkled fabric emphasized the widening canyon between you. It was so easy to argue with him, and even easier to hate it.

“It’s another dumb rumor,”

“I can’t do this to you. You can’t live like this.”

Your anger washed away at the break in his voice. “Bruce,”

“They will rip every shred of normalcy from your life. They will follow you to every coffee shop, they will wait outside of your apartment, stalk your family, plaster your fucking face everywhere, they won’t take you seriously in your career,”

It was kind of cute how concerned he was about your little journalism job, and your life—something so plain you didn’t think it worth preserving, but he did. “Have you done this before?”

“I’ve been avoiding them my whole life.” Once again you forgot that his reclusiveness also served a purpose. He wasn’t just Bruce, he was Mr. Wayne.

“You could comment on it tomorrow. At the rally.”

“And say what?”

You couldn’t resist a gentle tease, desperate to undress the tension wearing his frame. “That we’ve been married for months now.”

“Stop.”

“I’m trying to cheer you up.”

“I know.” His head thudded against the headrest. He mumbled. “Thanks.”

“I don’t care about my career, by the way.”

He glanced at you.

“I was a sociology major. Didn’t even minor in journalism.” 

His eyes on you were a hazard. You didn’t notice his chest was heaving until he spoke and the edge gave it away. “Do you not know how much risk—”

“I know. I just don’t care.”

“You should.”

“I don’t think you’re one to preach about risk.” You rolled your shoulders back, physically bracing yourself for another biting speech, but it didn’t come. He rolled his eyes, shoving his head in his hands. 

“I know I piss you off.”

Bruce struggled to respond without an immediate yes, yes you do. The world was about to bring you chaos and hell, and the only thing he wanted was to make the rumors real. “You exasperate me.”

“Shoot straight: I don’t listen to you and it pisses you off.”

“Because I’ve been in these situations before.”

“And I’m allowed to make my own decisions. I’m allowed to make mistakes.” 

The rise and fall of his chest threatened to split the zipper on his coat. “Not ones this big.” 

“Having a long leash is still being kept.”

He shut his eyes, counting to ten; he tried to listen to the rain, but it was pouring, running his mind faster. What were they saying about you? How would everyone treat you tomorrow? Thursday? He could make another announcement, but what? What could possibly make everyone stop judging you? 

“Just stop deciding for me. Stop pretending you’re doing it for my sake.” 

God, you lit a fire in him. His eyes snapped to yours that tentatively eyed him. “You think I’m lying to you?”

“I think you dress up your opinions and try to project it on everything else.”

“And why would I do that?”

“Because it’s less vulnerable. You get to stay in control.”

He bit his cheek. “I don’t want you to accept that risk.” 

“You think not liking something means you have the authority to change it.” 

Steam was surely swirling cartoonishly above his head. “I do when it’s dangerous.” 

“You don’t, because it’s my life, my decisions, and what I want to do with it.”

“So I should let you get killed in Penguin’s club? I should be perfectly happy about that?”

You examined his withdrawn, stiff body, namely the clench of his shoulders toward each other; physically tensing to unleash a bomb. “You don’t have to be happy about it, but you have to accept I can do whatever the hell I want.” 

“That’s fucked up.”

There he is. That clench of his jaw, the steely way his eyes drilled into you. “It pisses you off, huh?”

“Yeah, it does.”

“Too bad.” 

He glowered at you, but you kept pursuit. “What do you want to do about the photos? For you?”

“It’s not just about me.” 

“I don’t care about getting them taken down. I don’t care about a fucking statement. I don’t give a shit about my ‘career’.”

Were you trying to get him to break his promise? Testing to see if he’d break? Should he have promised something like that to someone so… so… vexing? 

“Do you care about a statement? Do you care about getting the photos removed?”

“It doesn’t work like that.” One, two, three, four… 

“Why doesn’t it? Because my life could change? I could be at risk?”

Bruce stared with a strained, flighty expression. “I wouldn’t forgive myself.”

There was something else in the car with you now, but it wasn’t quite placeable. “You’re allowed to put yourself first sometimes, Bruce.” 

“Not with you.” 

“Why not?”

“I care about you.”

Earnestness? Whatever it was, it was stifling, choking out the oxygen in the car. The blue in his eyes had never looked softer. “You care about everyone in Gotham.” 

“I want to keep you safe.”

It never looked softer now. The tightness in your shoulders released. Suddenly you felt very, very frail, but he didn’t need to treat you with gloves. “If this is about Batman…” You bit your lip to feel pain, a life raft to dissuade the pull of his ocean. “I won’t tell.”

“I trust you.” 

“Not enough to make my own decisions.” It was a pitiful attempt to bring back the argument; it was unbearable holding this culpability when he acted like an angel. 

“I worry about you.”

Don’t cry. Don’t cry. “Don’t.”

“I can’t help it.” And he didn’t really want to stop, either. The worry kept you with him. 

A shred of skin yanked from your cuticle feathered blood along the side of your nail, diverting your attention and snapping the tourniquet. Four words, only four, and he would listen, because he had to, because you always made his life hell when he didn’t comply, and he knew it; he knew you were a scorpion, even if only by the sting of your bite. “Can we go research?”

As he put the car back in gear, he felt his chest sore with a strange rejection, though he hadn’t posited anything. He soothed it by focusing on your wanting to research, not go home.  

The brick morphed to sparse trees as he turned into the underground tunnel, not wanting to ask you to move back, not wanting you to do anything you didn’t absolutely have to. He prayed he hadn’t broken anything beyond repair. Prayed you didn’t hate him.

Embarrassment threatened to snap your neck as you watched the likes turn from hundreds to thousands, at being the only one to have their fawning over Bruce publicized for all to see. Yeah, Alfred can’t do shit about this now.

He didn’t waste any time, striding right to his monitor after parking. He plopped the contacts on a makeshift scanner, transmitting the footage onscreen. You followed in tow, watching him move like a well-oiled machine. A hard copy was in front of him within seconds, with pen in hand to look through the text. You hardly had time to situate before he announced his findings. 

“Gary Morrison. Declared dead at the south end of the river. Body found, but no autopsy.” He pulled up another window and software out of the masses, while you sat with your head reeling, too overwhelmed to contribute. You weren’t used to him dropping arguments so quickly, so fully, and your phone was a brick in your pocket, a physical reminder of the clock’s spiteful forward drum. 

“Gotham Times interviewed his wife. Said she wanted his body to rest.” He wrote something on another sticky note.

Everything was too foggy, too painful. You wanted the softness back, and you were the last person who deserved it. Your contribution barely choked out.  “Check the journalist who did it.” 

He worked his magic. “Left the Times a month later.” 

“Left, or got booted?” You had no concept of how the words formed against the buzzing in your skull; you didn’t feel real. You’d actually felt like he cared about you back there; actually, truly felt it. 

“Says he retired. Age thirty-five.”

“On a reporter’s salary? Where was he found next?” Maybe there was something to osmosis, your mind engaging with the environment by some miracle though you swore you were entirely offline. 

Mere moments of silence punctuated by keyboard clicks. “No other sightings. I can reference the cameras off his Times photo, but it’ll be a few minutes.” 

You nodded and tucked your hands under your thighs, the chill in the room pricking goosebumps. While he plugged in the details, you noticed a bag with a tiny piece of metal inside. “What’s in the bag?”

He followed your stare, his shoulders slumping slightly. He hit ENTER on the keyboard and stood, pushing in his stool. “Metal alloy. ‘Electrum’. Can’t find anything on it.”

“Electrum?” Impossible that you heard him right.

“Found in victim’s mouth.”

“What victim?”

“A John Doe.” He walked toward the elevator, unbothered. “Want something to eat?”

“I’m good.” 

“Drink?”

“No, thanks.”

“Be right back.” 

Bruce left upstairs. You waited for the elevator to climb before checking your phone, pausing before unlocking to ensure the contacts were out. They glowed on the scanner, and the elevator was long gone. You stared at your home screen, waiting.

Seconds rolled to minutes, avoiding opening the long-awaited email. Wanting to avoid the tick of the bomb, hoping that would dismantle it. 

The crunch of the elevator’s descent hurried you. 

Good morning Y/N,

I am sorry to hear about your impending absence. The department will miss a great journalist. Please turn in your supplies by Thursday at 5pm; there is an art gallery requiring extra space in this week’s paper, so we will not be needing your attendance at this week’s city hall meeting. Per usual, your article needs to be submitted via email prior to end of day Friday. Please connect with Bridgit before next week to catch her up on city hall proceedings, as she will take your position in the interim. The meeting can be virtual.

Best,

Dr. Vry

You went still. 

The basement was gray, the seat was freezing. A draft floated through from the old train station opening. On the desk, sloping letters you’d never see again haunted you. Was it your heartbeat or blood pulsing through your ears? You barely felt alive, and a pressure point erupted at your temple in the shape of a muzzle. The nightmares hadn’t stopped. You couldn’t tell him that. 

Bruce poured the last of Alfred’s morning coffee from the pot directly into his mouth. Bitter, stale, and cold, he let it dry out his tongue and looked through the fridge for a snack. Your tentativeness wasn’t lost on him, and he was steadily collecting ways to improve your mood. He didn’t want to try a hug under current circumstances, so food would have to do. 

He paused at the elevator doors. Chewing on a honeycrisp, he pulled up the browser on his phone and searched his name. TMZ was the loudest as of yet, and at least they were touting it as a relationship rumor. He hesitated before zooming in, bringing the screen close to examine the photos. They were blurry at best; unmistakably him, but not unmistakably you. The reports citing your name were unconfirmed, though he knew it wouldn’t take long. Some student would corroborate that you’d been there, some dash camera in the parking lot would pick up your face more clearly than they had, and you’d be slaughtered to the media’s full extent.

He zoomed into the photo again. He knew he’d been close, but not that close; only an inch sat between your lips and his, but he hadn’t even felt your breath. He stepped into the elevator, tearing his focus off the article. The right thing to do was take accountability. Own up to what he’d wanted to do, what desires of his created that climate and pushed your bodies that close. It was his fault, and the least he could do. 

He shook out his cold hands as he worked up the nerve to press DOWN. 

He’d open with saying he needed to apologize. He slammed the heel of his palm on the arrow, starting the descent. “I overstepped,” he spoke to himself. “I wasn’t being safe. I wasn’t thinking about anything at all, outside of…” kissing you, but he couldn’t get the words out. 

The doors opened, and all it took was one step to know he wasn’t strong enough. The fall of your hair from the back, god, your presence alone disproved every shred of his ego. You deserved better. 

“Solve the case yet?” He crunched on an apple, almost to the core. At least he’s eating. You worried you’d never be hungry again. 

Bruce was comfortable with you—much too comfortable, and it wasn’t right. Dr. Crane had been correct to consider his background, and you should’ve been more thoughtful about the severing. Only one more day? 

Twenty-four hours before you no longer had an excuse to be around him. Countless selfish decisions made at his disadvantage reached a peak; every minute you dawdled was another he’d have to grieve. Look what happened last time. Look what he did. Look at what I’m willing to risk for just a little more time. 

“I’m glad I could get the information for you.” But please take me home. Take me back right now and never talk to me again. Block my number on your phone. Look up Jonathan Crane. Dig into Arkham. Check the call logs, find my name, find every time I betrayed you. 

“What are friends for?” He drew a deep breath and queued the next software; you breathed in the frigid air of imminent character assassination. He was trying, again. 

His knee brushed yours, and it all seemed so selfish now. Every rationalization left you for why you’d dragged him along so closely, every kindness twisting sinister; you were nothing but a rotten mole. 

The computer dinged. He bent toward the screen. “What the hell?”

You struggled to focus on what he said next, swimming in unshed tears. He scribbled something. Clicked something. A curious thoughtfulness took him over. “He was last seen entering the Rimmel building.”

Was it some prized Gotham landmark? He said it with an air of significance. “I don’t know where that is.” 

“Where I went the night you left the note on the window.” He turned on a second monitor, suddenly singularly focused. 

You scooted forward on the stool, squinting at the security footage. “Wouldn’t he be near the docks?”

“You’d think.”

Dr. Vry had made a big deal in her classes about reaching a decade in the department. The number in the corner confused you. “Wouldn’t it also have been like ten years ago?” 

Bruce clicked away from the tab and followed your finger to Wednesday, August 7th, 2024. He shot to the second monitor with a speed you’d never seen; fingers flying across keys, face tightening, creases deepening. “Look away.” 

Your eyes widened as fisheye footage of a murder scene draped you both in echoes of red. He zoomed in on a man more knife than flesh. Wait… “Holy shit.”

The screen was off in an instant. “I told you not to look.” 

“Is that the guy?” Is this what he sees every night? 

“I need to tell Gordon.” He grabbed the Electrum and ran to his suit. Did the DNA sampling only pull from open cases? Had they disposed of the body yet?

Light flooding from behind interrupted his suiting; you scanned through the footage, sharpening the view of the knife handles. He tossed his cowl on a nearby bench and made a beeline to interrupt. “I told you, don’t look at that—” You didn’t need more nightmares, you didn’t need your life more difficult than he’d already made it. 

You held out a hand behind you, signifying him to stop. You thought you’d seen… owls. 

He squinted, and a chill shot down his spine. “What are you looking at?”

Just two more days and he’d be in the clear. You dragged the mouse to zoom out, turned the computer off, and avoided the violent clench in your stomach that told you lying was very, very wrong, because he needed to be more important than a rotting conscience.

“I just can’t believe how gruesome it is.” You tried to hide the deep breaths you took, hoping you’d misinterpreted his question. 

“Do you see them?” 

Fuck. There was a shake of hope in his voice that made this excruciating. He read you so well that it forced you to face him, a cruel innocence cocking your head and quirking a brow. Bile filled your mouth, and you swallowed it happily. You needed to make this conversation a complete dead end—one more question and you’d fold. “I have no idea what you mean.” 

Your breath went stale in your chest as he visibly deflated. An image of you driving one of the knives into his chest made your body inhospitable. Two more days.

“Sorry.” He broke eye contact, lashes fluttering, and you screamed without sound. “Do you, uh, feel okay going home?”

Staying with him and hoarding the last hours like precious gold was all you wanted in the world. A night spent crying alone would be welcome karma. “Sure.”  

Pulling out of the basement for the last time, you focused on a scuff in the rubber mat of his work car. You didn’t have the heart to look back. You’d need to order some Phish Food for delivery when you got home, hoping it showed up before Grange’s rally.

[percabething]

Fateful Beginnings

XLIV. “trailhead”

parts: previous / next

plot: Bruce is on your trail, making things that much more complicated.

pairing: battinson!bruce wayne x fem!reader

cw: 18+, spoilers for The Penguin (2024), mention of murder, missing person, yearning/pining

words: 7.7k

a/n: i love the little subtle moments i included in this chapter, they’re down Atrocious but they gotta get some work done, why must falling in love bring such insistent feelings?? how cruel ;)

You’d hardly seen eyes so wary, almost pleading. You tucked your hands between your thighs to warm them, his icy blues chilling the tension. After this you needed to steel yourself to their charms; you feared it was beginning to be a slippery slope. “Sure.”

“Do you know anything about the mob families here?” 

You shook your head and leaned in slightly when he took a deep breath. “There were two major ones: the Falcones and Maronis. They ran some drug operations, have money in different parts of the city.” 

How could he possibly distill a city’s entire criminal underworld into a few sentences? 

“Oz Cobb, he’s sometimes called ‘Penguin’. Was the driver for the Falcones, mostly their daughter. Seemed to be on good terms until Falcone’s arrest. When Falcone died, Oz took over his operations, took out the Maronis.” He took great care to keep his voice leveled and calm, though even mentioning the Penguin in your presence felt like a violation to the point he could hardly think.

He gathered the bowls and they clinked in the sink. “After that I couldn’t keep track of him. Second I’d catch him, send him in for another murder, bombing, didn’t matter: released same day.” He grimaced when he tried to gauge your unreadable response. He continued, desperate to get the information downloaded into you so the conversation could be over with. “Doesn’t matter about proof. Oz could walk into a courtroom, shoot the judge, and get away with it.”

Your brow furrowed. “If he really turns on anyone, how does he have that much power? Wouldn’t no one trust him?” 

He paused, very glad he’d brought this up if you were already confused. “That’s it: do what he says or get killed.” He hesitated, a sudden meekness affecting his posture. “That’s why I was worried you met with him. He’d shoot you before you realized what was happening.”

You didn’t doubt he was right, but you hadn’t met anyone who seemed like a kingpin, let alone anyone who set off alarm bells… outside of Dr. Crane and the dude walking out of there.

“If he’s on your trail we can’t be seen together. Could use you as leverage.”

“Is he trying to get at you?” 

Bruce shot you a knowing look, then spoke like the words hurt him. “I’m a Wayne. If he finds a weak point, he’s exploiting it.”

“And I’m the weak point?” 

“Before the interview, the only public association I had was my parents. I don’t even think anyone knows about Alfred.”

Your palms sweated. Ah, fuck. “You can’t tell anyone this. It could literally kill people.” 

His teeth dug into his tongue, nervous. “Promise.”

You launched into a brief explanation of what the journalist told you. What you knew of them, what they knew of you, and that they said you needed to leave Gotham while you still could. Watching Bruce's reaction showed his poker face was practiced. You didn’t know what he might say until he gave a slow nod.

“I agree.” 

Of course he wants me to leave. “I thought you could help me look into it.”

“You’ve already been a target just from interviewing me. If you’ve run into Oz since city hall, chances are it’s not by accident.” 

“If there are journalists disappearing or getting murdered, I want to see where it leads.”

He stared at you blankly, voice flat. “You’re a journalist.”

Silence rotted the air as you stood at a standstill. Your next sentence was muttered against stifled morale. “I guarantee you no one else had Bruce Wayne and Batman at their disposal.”

He resisted the overwhelming urge to curse and shove his head in his hands, instead channeling his frustration to the inside of his cheek. You had him backed into a corner; it had been disastrous every time he prized an argument over putting you in danger. “I don’t know.” But he did—he did know, and playing along wasn’t right. 

He chanced a look from across the kitchen island. The edge that longed to bleed into his voice softened at your guardedness. “I think you need to leave.”

The worst part of this was that he wasn’t wrong. What’s leaving a few days early? The safest thing would be to go home and keep your head down a little while, and you could. Bruce having paid your family’s debt would lower the stress of getting into a career straightaway… 

He fell in thought with you, each passing second settling more anxiety into your sentiment: you thought you were safe because you had him. His fallibility hadn’t ever bothered him—if he died fighting some criminals, at least he went down swinging. But for you to say it brought his insecurities to the forefront like an impenetrable slab of concrete. If you were correct, and he existed as a forcefield when he was around you, he still couldn’t be 24/7. “What’s to stop them hitting your apartment next?”

“… I don’t know.”

He drank you in with a longing glance. “You need to go.” 

“Tons of new journalism students are here because of me. I can’t let them into a trap and go home.” You were strained, weary, with a hint of desperation to your voice. 

“It wasn’t you. Vry pressured both of us.” 

“And I could’ve said no. I was already home.”

“If you leave, I can look into things. Report back.” Your face didn’t shift from its stressed clench. If only you’d told him about the meeting; he could’ve outfit you with the earpiece at the very least, be able to know precisely what they said rather than paraphrased muck. He sensed something you weren’t telling him. 

“What if they track me home? They said I needed to hope it was far enough.” 

That wasn’t it. 

“And that it might be protective I’m associated with you. Said they target people coming here for scholarships. People without any associations, let alone a billionaire. Probably make me less easy to kill.”

That wasn’t it either, though his mind began to wander fretfully at the prospect of your murder. You’d made half a point, because most people tended to go for the easier victim—but they also went for the enticing one. What was more enticing than managing to snipe (god, he could vomit) an associate of the Waynes? 

But Oz targeting you was a different crowd, pushing the edges in your favor. The man had contacted him a half-dozen times since the flooding to get drinks, visit a club, ‘talk business’. For all of Oz’s criminal behavior, and how much he demanded of everyone else in the city, he was never anything but polite towards Mr. Wayne. 

Your gaze was insistent, and he relented. Oh, he hated having to acquiesce. “Who knows you live in this apartment?”

You lit up. “Just Mar. And her friend Gianna who picks her up sometimes.”

“Are your paychecks mailed?”

Your eyes dropped to skim the table. “I guess GU has me in their system.” 

He ran his hands through his wet hair, thinly veiling his frustration. “You can’t stay here.”

“If I change apartments I’m in the same situation.”

“I’ll get another one for you through the election if we find anything.” 

More than anything else, his going along convinced you that the Penguin was an absolute terror. You worried your bottom lip as you rethought the entire affair.

“Same complex, different floor. If anyone is tracking you, you’ll be entering the same building.” 

Had he done this before? “They’ll see me coming in and leaving, they’ll know exactly how to track me.”

“They’ll find out wherever you are if it’s that crowd. This way draws less suspicion. Makes it seem like you aren’t onto them.”

“What about the journalists?”

“I can look into that.” He grabbed his keys from the counter. 

“I need to help.”

He knew you wouldn’t drop this. Knew it would be another argument. Knew you had a point about the new students. Fuck. “We have to be careful. Neither of us can be in the field.” He grimly referred to his alter ego. “Only him.”

“Thank you.”

He walked to his bag and tucked in what had tumbled out. He felt your eyes on him like a brand. Thanking him for putting you in harm’s way… 

“I thought you’d be more angry.”

He paused his walk to the door; your timid, grateful voice penetrated him like a velvet knife. “I meant what I said. I won’t talk to you like that again.”

And you stood like that for a beat, grinning at his back. “Where do we start? Google some things?”

“We can go to my place and see where it leads.” He hiked the bag’s handles over his wrist. “That journalist could’ve been wrong.”

“How late?”

“However long you want to stay.”

Alfred greeted you with a soft hello while you climbed the stairs to discard your things. Your sweats felt tight, baggy, and sweaty in all the wrong places, so you shimmied out of them into some old spandex. You rummaged around your bag to look for a hair tie and changed into a baggier top that didn’t feel constricting.

Having left at nine, you packed an overnight bag. Your toothbrush was gingerly packed in a side pocket without a travel case, a deodorant rattled against your wallet at the bottom, and you grabbed the perfume you’d tossed on top of everything at the last second. Your fingers brushed some decommissioned lingerie before you left your apartment, evoking memories of wearing it under a flirty dress for an ungrateful boyfriend a few Valentines’ ago. You’d nearly relegated yourself to a potato sack as penance for the split second you considered packing it for Bruce. You made a mental note to burn the offending items on your return. 

Short shorts and an oversized tee so long he had to sneak a double glance to see if you had pants on as you moved through the kitchen. He stepped to the side for you to sidle in, mind in a modest frenzy over how the moonlight draped across your face on approach. 

As he leaned forward to press DOWN, you couldn’t help but juxtapose to the last time you’d been in here. Picking lint off his shoulder, concerned that he might beat you up or otherwise throw you to the wolves. Now you fantasized about the force of his hands if he pushed you against its walls and regularly meandered up to the room you considered your own. 

Bruce followed the doors as they slid shut, considering which program would be best to—oh. His eyes fell shut as his mouth flooded with saliva. Long, slow breaths through his nose fluttered his lashes and nearly convinced him to press STOP. Whatever perfume you had on was more delicious than every one previous, combined. Why didn’t…

It felt like a million years ago at this point. Why didn’t he just kiss you yesterday? It would’ve been so easy to whisper it into your ear, he was already right there. What would he do now? Have to turn and face you, stand with his heavy hands limp at his sides, muster the courage to look right into your eyes while he asked? No, no way. 

“What’s going on?”

He was breathing too fast now, and you could tell. You could always tell. His hands flexed at his waist. A desperate part of him wanted you to see through him and do something about it so he could say whatever happened wasn’t his fault. Pretend these feelings weren’t real. 

“The elevator isn’t moving.” Your brow cocked, and he swallowed thickly. 

“Must be locked.” He fished keys out of his pocket, struggling to grasp the smallest one with tingly, clammy fingers. He slipped it into the lock, twisted, and the signature creak sounded the descent. 

Luckily the trip was short, because the elevator wasn’t air-tight. The subtle bursts of air from some chips in the siding wafted more of your scent right over him. Through him, more like. What was he, a fucking animal? This was ridiculous. Stupid. It was no different than lighting a candle. 

Maybe if he acknowledged it. Took its power away and normalized it. The doors opened and you stepped out. His head pounded as he said it like admitting a dirty secret. “I like your perfume.” 

You spun around, unable to hear him over the doors clicking into place. “Hmm?” 

Shit. He cleared his throat and made a beeline for his desk, holding his breath as he walked past you. “Didn’t say anything.”

You pulled up the only other stool in the place close enough your shoulders touched. He gripped his thigh as that warm, sweet scent enveloped him, snaring his throat shut. While he booted up the monitor, you glanced around the room. Times like these it was easy to see why he didn’t behave like the stereotypical billionaire; rusted old work lamps scuffed marks into his aged metal desk, endless crates situated below it with various notebooks and files somehow scrupulously organized and in disarray. Something nested in the rafters, cobwebs hanging high above them; if you took out some of the tech, it could pass for any old man’s work area in the countryside. 

You asked him for a notebook and pen, and he slipped one to you without thinking. The page you opened to had your name. Friday, May 31st. My identity has officially been compromised by... seeing your full name in his handwriting made you dizzy and you couldn’t read further, utterly transfixed. 

Bruce’s eyes bulged out of his head when he realized his mistake. “I uh, I was trying to make sense of things.” He peeked over your shoulder to remind himself of what he had written, praying it wasn’t horrendously mean—that week was a bleary streak in his memory—but you flipped to a clean sheet without fanfare.

“At least I’ll have some notoriety in your memoir.” You gestured toward the monitor and he clicked around, head thrumming. You followed the clip of his fingers on the keyboard, mind dancing with possibilities. 

His building arousal mistroked keys and stuttered on backspaces. It was inappropriate, filthy even, given the circumstance. Normally he could easily get desire out of his system by himself, but not with you; each time seemed to only amplify it. He’d never felt so compelled to be intimate with someone. Like his body pleaded to be given a voice, needing to say things that couldn’t be expressed any other way.

You clenched the pen until your knuckles bloomed light from the tension. The cognitive dissonance was brutal; being horny around him was ego-dystonic enough, but while delving into research about missing journalists? Cruel and unusual punishment. 

“Found something.” Bruce pulled up a photo from a GU article in 2022. You were jolted back to reality looking at a blue-eyed blonde with shoulder-length curls. She couldn’t be older than twenty. “Kendall Brandy. Reported missing in the flood. Body never recovered.”

“Were all bodies recovered though?” You jotted down her name and a few details. 

Bruce shook his head. “But look.”

The screen filled with a court record. A cease and desist filed against her from Arkham. “Two weeks before the flood.” The title of the article to be removed from her devices and all publishing plans was: Undercover: Arkham State Hospital Negligence. 

He clicked another tab over while you bullet-pointed beneath her name. How had he managed to gather this in two minutes? “She volunteered there over the summer.”

“Jesus…” you mulled it over for a moment. Bruce wrote something down on a notepad. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“Why not?” He kept writing.

“What could’ve made Arkham look worse than it already does? Enough to kill someone over?” You’d heard endless jokes on Scypher about how shitty the hospital was, and how much of a ‘lost cause’ their patients were. You’d been surprised they hadn’t cared when Bella was seizing, but that was hardly reason to kill. “Have they had shitty audits?”

Bruce resumed typing, pulling up Arkham’s entire registry in seconds. “Already been through them for other cases. Nothing out of the ordinary. Especially for the city.”

“What if the auditor was paid off?”

“Could be.”

His computer started to resemble an oracle. “Can you find out?”

He got to clicking, and typing, and you followed his pupils darting across the screen. You were mesmerized by his efficiency. How many days, weeks, months of his life had been spent honing his craft? Not five minutes later he pushed his notebook to you. 

He’d listed incredibly intricate details ranging from the year the auditor graduated, his major, his family relations (including his favored breed of dog), their lengthy history with the Falcones and Maronis, eventually landing him a job performing audits on various institutions around the city. Apparently his entire family had died in the flood. “There’s autopsy documents. None for Brandy.”

“But wasn’t the flood connected to one guy? Who already said why he did it?”

“Edward Nashton.” Bruce grit his teeth as he said the guy’s name. “Nothing more to get out of him. Already tried.”

“And if the mob families are dead,”

“Most of them.” He put down the pen. “Sofia Falcone’s still alive.”

You dragged his keyboard toward you and looked her up. Seemingly endless articles cropped up detailing the murders committed a decade ago, nestled next to ones directly proceeding the flooding. Gassing her loved ones, murdering a journalist from the Gazette when they tried to bring justice to her previous victims… your tone was slightly sarcastic as the depth of the situation rang a quiet alarm. “If she murdered her family, probably means she doesn’t like them.”

“Or she wanted it for herself.” You were funny, and he might’ve played along if the stakes were any lower. 

“Have you met with her?”

“They don’t let her take visitors.” 

“Has that stopped you before?”

Bruce shut his notebook with a snap and killed the monitor. “That’s enough for tonight.” 

“It’s been like half an hour,”

“And you’re already talking about breaking into Arkham. Speaking to a Falcone.” 

You reached around the back of the screen where he had, unable to find the ON switch. “If people have been funneling money to Arkham,”

“How do you know that?” Your slip of the tongue caught his attention. You blurted what the journalist had told you about Bella Reál, and his brow furrowed. “I looked into her disappearance, couldn’t find anything.” 

He turned the screen on and worked through more tabs. He didn’t write anything down this time. When he eventually sat with his head in his hands, studiously thinking, you searched for Oz Cobb. The man from Arkham stared back at you. “Him?”

He measured his tone, curious about your strong response. “From City Hall, yeah.”

And Arkham. “What’s his deal?”

“Runs a few clubs downtown. Pushes Drops. Seems to be it… at least that’s all I can find on him.” He moved something from the desk to his Batmobile. His voice echoed. “Took over the mob’s business. Moved his operation into their neighborhoods.”

If there was any time to tell him, it was now. When at the very least you could throw his apology in his face if he got mad. “I visited Bella earlier.” Not saying how much earlier, or how I was summoned. “Ran into Oz there. He was headed out.”

“Did you hear anything?” He walked toward you with his signature scrunched, concentrated expression. It made it a little easier to tell him these things when he looked so cute. And when he wasn't screeching at you in an alleyway. You shook your head. 

“He asked me how I was, then he left.”

Bruce went still. “Didn’t try to rope you into anything?”

“No. Just left.” 

“What did Reál say?”

“I guess I tried to visit.” It was crucial you stopped talking as soon as possible.

“Arkham…” Gears were turning behind his eyes, and regret slammed the back of your throat. He’d managed to unearth the full medical history of strangers in minutes, he could certainly rifle through a call log from the head of psychiatry. He sat back on the stool and changed tabs. Please don’t, please don’t… 

He loaded up the staff page of Arkham, sorted alphabetically, and you twitched when he clicked the first result: Crane. “I don’t know,”

He jotted some things down. What things is he writing? 

“Maybe we could check if there are any other missing journalists? Maybe it was just a one-off.” One-off? Someone was murdered and they’re covering it up. You were too anxious by this point though, concerned with a strange sense of self-preservation that took up all remaining brain power. “Arkham seems like a really difficult place to start,”

“I think you’re onto something.” He scribbled something more. What am I onto? What is he onto? “I didn’t know that about Reál.” Every strike of his pen made you vibrate.

“I don’t know if we can even trust that person; I mean, meeting me in the middle of the night, being weird and cryptic.”

“Crane was there when I met with Vry about graduation…” he bulleted more notes in his slanted handwriting you couldn’t decipher from this angle. He was connecting dots. Dots that couldn’t be connected yet. 

“Bruce,”

He focused intently between the screen and his notepad. More scribbles. 

“What are you writing?”

“I’ll show you in a minute.”

You couldn’t survive a minute. You bit your tongue and looked around, pretending to be bored, yawning to pretend you weren’t wired, anything to stop every etch of his pen striking the paper from peeling your skin. “Want to watch a movie?”

He didn’t hear you, too busy writing. 

You noticed tools on the ground by his vehicle. “What’s wrong with the car?”

“Brake pads.” He kept writing. Opened a new tab to research Jonathan Crane. 

It was a matter of days, maybe weeks, before he found you out. How would he take it? Would he do something drastic? Undo all his progress? Hurt himself again? You felt like crying. Even if he didn’t find you out—which you were certain he would at this point—you’d created an environment where he was suspicious of his care team. Dangerous territory. 

���I need to set up a meeting with him.”

You choked on the spit that had accumulated on your tongue. “But he’s your doctor,”

“Exactly. Inconspicuous.” He flipped his notepad closed. You stared at it like a grenade. “A follow-up appointment will give me access—”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

Picking your nails, biting your cheek. He discovered a new tell: bouncing your leg. You were a ball of anxiety. “Then we can get in. Search around.” He thought it would calm you that he’d found a starting place. Maybe rev you up, get you excitedly asking a million more questions. Was nothing he said coming out right?

You sounded frail, beaten. “Mixing the two when you’re so early into treatment, I don’t…”

In these moments two polarizing emotions struck each half of his body in equal measure: defensiveness and accommodation. He tried not to show that he was deflating like a punctured balloon. It didn’t feel like being early; it felt like a month of getting used to taking a medication that made him nauseous every morning and nights spent staring at the ceiling in agony, wondering when or if his mind would slip again. Living in a constant state of uncertainty he kept trying to bury. Your brows knit together. “Please.”

He nodded after noticing your shaking hands, setting aside a snarky, insecure comment about being infantilized. “Okay.”

You averted your eyes, the argument you thought you’d have choking out your throat. Your eyes wet knowing in a week’s time you’d be gone and he’d find out, spending the rest of his life hating you. Such a sure future made the present feel flimsy and fake, each kindness afforded by him landing like a gut-punch.

“We could search for more journalists.” Bruce was quiet, his tone almost restrained.

“I don’t know how you even found Kendall.” You’d misjudged his talents, leaving you feeling like dead weight even without the guilt scarring your stomach lining. You searched the code scrawled across the screen, the mysterious buttons scattered around the desk, and sat back on the stool in defeat. Your limbs felt lead-lined.

Bruce moved slowly to his seat as the room’s tension rose. “It’s easier than it looks.” A sideways glance at your dejected face, then a pause. “Here.”

He spent the next half hour depreciating his expertise, pulling up various softwares and programs that he assured did the brunt of his bidding. The one in the top left corner of his desktop cross-referenced this database, the one in the bottom right did another, and one in the middle synthesized the two. One button limited to the Gotham area and related publications, the other was nationwide. Often, he explained, a missing person’s report would be filed in the home state of the potential victim. He demonstrated by walking through what he’d done for Kendall.

You wrote notes for it all, but he was flying through it. Going through various directories, filtering by major, pasting groups of names, plugging cross-referenced photos into facial recognition from surveillance cameras throughout the city, and following the rabbit hole that took him down. Your head spun.

“Do the police have this tech too?”

His eyes shimmered with something like mischief. “It’s not exactly legal.”

“Right.” Your eyes skimmed the room full of armor and gadgets, and back to the man notating beside you in your hoodie. A watery grin painted your lips. “Unlike being a vigilante.” 

It got a low chuckle out of him. He pasted a mile-long list of student’s names into one of the programs. 

“What do you like about doing this?”

He hesitated, a bit remorseful. What he did was intrusive and illegal, and he was keenly aware it appeared to be a moral inconsistency. “It's the way I know how to help. Utilizing what I’ve been given.” He grinned, barely. “Like you said. Not everyone has the time.”

He typed something you couldn’t be bothered to divert your attention to, soaking him up. He was so good. “Thought you just liked puzzles or something.”

He teased you back as he wrote names on a sticky note. “Not as shallow as you think.”

“Now you’re posturing.” 

“Here’s the time-consuming part.” Bruce stood and rolled his shoulders back, cricking his neck. The screen loaded something at a snail’s pace. “It hits all the cameras in the city. Could take a couple hours with this many photos.” 

“You found posters?” In his speedy tutorial, he’d shown you how he matched names to missing person’s reports, then their posters, scraping their photos to plug into recognition tech. 

“A few dozen.”

“That many missing journalists?”

“Never know how many match, could be zero.” He motioned upstairs. “Hungry?”

Your mind immediately shot to Rai’s; particularly how you’d never get to see him again in just a few days, and how much you’d neglected him spending so much time with Bruce. You opened your phone to check the time. A late-night trip hadn’t happened in ages now, only when you were with Mar. It suddenly felt like a bucket-list item.

Your attention caught on a motorbike parked to the right of the desk. “Can we get takeout?”

You shouldn’t have gotten takeout. Rai’s food was good, but it wasn’t worth this.

Turned out his bike was single-occupant; after forcing you to wear the only helmet he owned, interrupting your plans for the wind to zip through your hair and sting your cheeks, you found yourself sitting on his lap with his hands over yours to steer. You tried not to think about the ride. 

Immediately he knew the bike was a mistake. A horrible, horrible mistake. Feeling the weight of you spread across his thighs was a constant threat. He wouldn’t let himself think about what would happen if he weren’t using ninety percent of his energy to dissociate from his physical form. 

The electricity of being flush with him, his frame encompassing yours in a way that felt devastatingly consuming, feeling every twitch of his hands as he worked Gotham’s back streets. The ride was only five minutes, but your mind had slipped to how accessible you both were twice as many times. How the only thing separating you wasn’t distance or position, but thin—and in your case, embarrassingly thin—layers of clothing. 

A pothole virtually succeeded in the final unraveling; if you hadn’t drowned the other out by reacting at the same time, and the wind been any less loud, he would’ve heard your yelp and you his gasp as your ass bounced hard against him. 

As it stood, the rest of the trip was spent still as statues, both of you holding your breath. It was hell on the dismount, having to scoot across his crotch to gain footing. You bit your cheek as penance for sneaking a glance at the dark sweatpants that left things a disappointing mystery. He readjusted his sunglasses and cinched the hood.

The city pulsed silently around both of you, present but unobtrusive; he hardly registered the veils of black between streetlights as you led him toward the mystery shop. His focus was tethered tightly to you, caught up in your lively intonation breaking the traffic noise. 

You skipped across a stray plastic bag and the momentum caught the wind in your hair, its shine slipping the lights. Palpitations fluttered beneath your sweatshirt he hadn’t yet replaced and didn’t want to; you looked over your shoulder and mimed for him to keep up. With no one around he could feel the wind on his skin, on parts of his body that never felt it this late in the day. Feelings like this made everything complicated. 

Walking at night was always terrifying, but not with him. There was a freedom to his presence that raced the cool air straight to the bottom of your lungs. Without thinking, you reached for his arm to pull him faster. By the time you’d gripped his wrist and a rod of unbearable tenderness leapt through you, you couldn’t very well drop him. “Slowpoke.”

Soft bells chimed as you pushed through the deli door, threading him through in the same motion. A teenager holding a massive fountain drink nearly toppled into you, and a giggle bubbled up as you swerved. You blinked to orient your eyes to the bright overheads just as Rai entered your vision. He was the only Gothamite who could make you break contact with Bruce, and you launched into a hug. 

A tight embrace, toothy smiles, and immediate prattling. His eyes narrowed, shared happiness and a jealous knot fighting for dominance. He clasped his hands. 

“This is Rai.” You laughed and gestured toward him. Bruce bristled, but stepped forward with a rehearsed grin.

“Pleasure.”

Rai nodded at him, refusing further acknowledgement. He winked at you and Bruce felt faint. “Baby, you gotta keep your location on being out this late.”

Baby?

You slugged the man’s arm and laughed. Bruce’s gut cinched tighter than he thought possible; tight enough it scared him. You wandered down the nearest aisle. He grit his teeth and followed, body vibrating.

You never mentioned a boyfriend, but he’d never asked. Though—you called him, not the boyfriend, when you needed help. Odd. You rifled through some chips while he debated whether to mention it. 

“How long have you been together?” Casual. No big deal.

You chuckled again, and moved to the next aisle. His brow furrowed. Starting to feel like a big deal.

You acted as though he hadn’t said anything, directing attention to which bag of candy he preferred. He would’ve eaten a pound of raw meat if you only answered; this limbo was physical pain. 

Was it weeks? Months? He picked out a seasonal redbull for his contribution and tossed it into the small basket you handed him between the snack and drink aisles. A few years?

Somehow he had braved the store and handed the cash to your boyfriend without passing out. He’d seen the man before, but couldn’t place him. Dark hair, darker eyes. He thought of how pale and washed-out his were in comparison. At the least, he’d never run into the guy on patrol. Someone who kept his head down. 

You said something to the object of your affection and reached over the counter for another hug. He kissed the side of your cheek closest to your ear. Bruce’s flushed pink. Wasn’t this good? Normal, yeah? Even his internal monologue was going pitchy. 

The boyfriend pulled out a bag and Bruce flinched. “We don’t need one.” 

He watched your eyes flit to the pile of snacks that definitely needed a bag, but he was already scooping it into his arms. You said goodbye and held the door open. Officially out in the open air, he had no idea what possessed him to want to balance ten items while steering a motorbike.

You razzed him once the door closed. His cheeks burned. 

“We have a running joke.” You skipped ahead, then folded back when you remembered he was juggling a basket’s worth of goods. “Whenever I come in with a strange man, Rai pretends to be my boyfriend. Safety thing.”

Your hands swung at your side from the residual momentum, not seeming to need all the caffeine you’d loaded into the cart. He stared at you. “I’m not mad.” 

“Why would you be?”

Backtrack! Redirect!! “I’m a strange man?”

“Absolutely.” You gave his anonymous frame a once-over. 

Thankfully you steered the conversation from there, his pulse hammering in his temples as he processed his relief. Bruce wasn’t keen to know what situation had prompted such protocol, but it was nice of your friend. He’d been convincing enough.

“He’s great. Used to hang there all the time. His cooking is absolutely incredible, shocked his store isn’t always packed.”

The memory crept to him. “Think he catered a meeting once.”

You laughed again. You laughed a lot when talking about that guy. Your hair fell into your face with a particularly harsh gust of wind and he felt an instinct to push it back, but his hands were tied. These feelings were foreign and bizarre.

“That’s actually what made me want to interview you. His sister was working the place, said Bruce Wayne gave them a bonus.” You whispered his name like there was anyone else on the block. 

“You’d never heard my name before then?” ‘Bruce’ sounded like honey on your lips; Christ, he loved hearing you say it and could never let you know. 

You shrugged, making your case as you reached the crosswalk. “I was desperate for a topic and that meant you’d probably be there.”

“So you tackled me.”

“Those steps are steep, man.” 

You both giggled waiting for the traffic to change. How many nights would end like this, and how many more could he squeeze in before you left and took the light with you?

“Speaking of,” the signal changed to WALK. He mirrored your pace, shortening his strides. The drinks jostled together with each step. “What are your plans through the election?” 

You wrapped your arms around your chest in a makeshift hug as you scurried to the sidewalk. Nerves dampened your volume. “What do you mean?”

“If you want to keep working on things, we could do every Thursday. Tuesday and Thursday, maybe. I’m meeting with March this Wednesday, could pick you up after?” Could it come out any clunkier?

“Maybe.”

“Or whatever works with your schedule. No pressure.” 

You could’ve laughed at the irony of him quite literally being your schedule if you weren’t so pathetically guilty. You meditated on the jagged cracks in the sidewalk slipping below your feet.

“Something going on?” 

“No.”

Half a block passed before he broke the silence. “What do you want to do when we get back, while we wait?” He counted almost a minute more before throwing a bone. “Watch something, eat some snacks,”

“I’m actually, I’m tired. I think I’ll tuck home.” You cleared your throat and anxiously raked your fingers through your still-damp hair. 

“Sure, I’ll drop you off.” He was off-kilter today and kept missing your cues. Did you not want to hang out with him? He glanced at the two teas you’d grabbed for the evening and decided making it personal was stupid. You wouldn’t have brought a bag and got snacks if you planned to ditch.

“I’m sorry.” You bit the inside of your lip until it bled. 

“Don’t be.” Quick glances revealed a tense, stressed face, and the glaze in your eyes said you were half present. He mulled over questions to get to the bottom of things, but they all felt ill-timed. 

The silence continued until Bruce couldn’t take it anymore. Seconds passed like hours as he struggled to comprehend how to help. He couldn’t very well put his arm around you, hug you, and—god forbid—kiss your head, like he’d seen his dad do. What else did he do for her that actually helped? The memories grew blurrier by the day.

Maybe you required reassurance, ah! He looked to you with a charitable grin. “There’s always next week, week after. Whenever.” 

You made the brutal mistake of peeking at him and you practically broke in two. You held it together for three more cracks in the cement before your lip warbled and a sob slipped out. He couldn’t smile like that, not at you. You crouched and bent your body as compact as possible, a single spider’s web straining to contain your guilt. You had to tell him, rip this lie from your bone marrow.

Dr. Crane’s heavy presence slammed on your back when Bruce’s gentle hand touched your shoulder. “Don’t feel bad. We have time.”

His hand was strong and reassuring, warming a wide swath of your back. You wanted to scream, and angrily wiped tears with the arm of your shirt. Your sniffles echoed off the brick to your right.

“Are you okay?” 

“I just don’t feel good.” Fuck. Fuck! Your legs shook when you stood tall, shoving toward the bike. 

“Do you need anything? I could run back in.”

You wouldn’t let it out on him again. You faced him to make it harder—stood wearing your outfit, albeit the longest, baggiest ones, all the goods in his arms slanted to his left to free up his right hand. Reflected in his glasses was the state of you; disheveled, puffy-faced, and bare-legged, barely containing a sentence that would shatter everything. 

In through the nose, out through the mouth. 

He wondered if you were still having nightmares because of him. The headaches, turning in early, emotional cycling. Iris once told him—or rather, Alfred—that any unexpected burst of emotion was to be expected in times like ‘these’. He’d hated Alfred for years for his inability to leave him alone, but he was beginning to understand. He didn’t want you to isolate either. 

You stared at the bike like it was a torture device, though the alternative wasn’t a drastic imporovement; he managed to stuff the snacks into bulging pockets, and you shut your eyes as you climbed on top of him. You kept them shut and hummed a song to yourself to distract, trying to convince your body it was perhaps floating and this was a strange dream. The helmet smelled like him; now less focused on his muscular thighs, it was an all-consuming scent. 

He hadn’t yet come to a complete stop when you started to slide off, yanking the helmet off and plunking it onto his lap. Distracted and desperate to escape before you cried again, the lobby door’s closing reminded that you hadn’t said goodbye, running off in a blink. 

This distraction kept you unable to think facing your locked door. A neighbor stumbled a few doors down and unlocked via the hotel-style card gifted at signing. You popped off the back of your phone case and heaved a sigh as you beeped yourself in. 

Against what felt like a hesitant conscience but could’ve been better judgement, you dialed Dr. Crane the minute the door locked behind you. It rang twice; not enough time to remedy the tears streaming in protest and shame down the round edges of your cheeks. 

“Good evening, Ms. Y/L/N.” There was something soothing about hearing a man’s voice that wasn’t Bruce’s. You choked out that he’d been fine tonight, to which he responded he was ‘glad’ to hear it. You tightened your grip on the phone. 

“So next weekend I’m free to go?”

The psychiatrist readily picked up on your nerves. “Do you have concerns?”

“No. Not really.”

“Does he have a packed schedule next week?” 

He was frustratingly nonchalant. “Just the rally and weekly meeting.”

“Right then.”

Rubbing between your eyes and pinching the nose bridge was only making things worse. Bodies weren’t meant to hold this much tension. “Oh, and meeting with one of the candidates on Wednesday. Lincoln March.”

You pulled back your phone to make sure the line was connected following an extended pause. “Philanthropist like his father.”

“Wants to make the city better I think.” 

“Ah.” Another pause. “Does he talk to you about his plans? Politics?”

“A bit, yeah.”

“A bit?”

“More than anyone else.”

Shuffling broke the line slightly, muffling his end. “Very well. Nice to know he has someone he can trust.”

“Actually I do have something.”

“Yes?”

Holding your breath kept your tears inaudible. “When can I tell him?”

“He has his pickup scheduled Thursday afternoon. Friday should work. Gives time for your absence to settle in without rumination.” Now you knew what the shuffling was—he was snapping something into a clipboard, writing something down with a clicky pen. 

“I mean, when can I tell him that I wasn’t the witness?” 

The silence that followed was cold, like you’d broken some sacred code. “Never. The spiral it would send him down would be catastrophic.”

Your heart fluttered, petrified by the chance you truly would never be able to get it off your chest. Would you have to carry this weight forever? “Even now that he’s doing better?”

“Especially so.”

Every time you saw his name, anytime anyone talked about him, anytime you saw his photos in magazines, news articles, or posts online. No heavenly release, no damnation to hell. An endless purgatory. 

He rubbed salt in the wound with his clarity. “Let me be clear: to tell a patient who suffers with paranoia and delusions that the circumstances surrounding their crisis was in any part fabricated is perilous. 

As I said before: this is a secret you must keep.”

You mustered a goodbye and crumbled to your knees. 

Bruce had just stepped into the kitchen when Alfred arrived. “Where’s the young lady?”

“Went home.” He dumped the snacks on the counter and roughly categorized them, feeling the nagging pull of the old man’s silence. God, he was plotting. 

“Are the two of you… going out?”

He slammed the drinks in the fridge and considered putting a bell on the man’s shoes. “No.” He huffed past, noting Alfred peering at him over his glasses. “Don’t know why you’re confused.” 

“Even me being in hospital couldn’t keep you from your duties.”

Bruce had half a mind to never bring you back here, and an even pettier urge to start responding to such inquiries as if you’d never existed. What ‘young lady’? Alfred, you must’ve seen a ghost. “The signal hasn’t been lit.”

“I was unaware your patrols were so exclusive.”

He grit his teeth. “What is this?”

“Only checking in, Bruce.” His unhurried gait brought him to his tea kettle; Bruce was so used to its scream he’d nearly forgotten the thing’s purpose. He used to take his bedtime tea at eleven, but it crept closer to twilight with each passing year. “You used to tell me things before I asked, you know.”

“Fine.” His arms slapped to his sides, stalled in the foyer. “I like her. That good enough for you?” 

Alfred’s eyes sparkled, the corners of his mouth turning up. He hadn’t anticipated an easy reveal, but he couldn’t say he was surprised. “Quite.” 

Bruce scoffed, taking the steps three at a time. He waited on his floor before climbing the additional levels to the theater room. Your blanket—his blanket—was folded neatly on the arm of the couch. Dory’s meticulous presence was additionally noted by the lack of fingerprints on the smooth black remote; he turned it over in his palm, not totally believing he’d spoken it out loud. Alfred wouldn’t dare tell, would he? He glanced again at the blanket. Only Dory, probably. 

His phone buzzed.

Forgot to thank you for the ride. 

No problem. When do you want your bag?

You texted plenty over the weekend; you rationalized it by saying it would help him acclimate to your physical absence and serve as a transition piece. Topics never strayed from small talk, which you were grateful for. Messages about the weather, chancing the occasional meme off Scypher (his reactions had evolved from ‘ha’ to ‘lol!’, which you were ridiculously proud of), and inconsequential updates on the research. You contemplated staying in touch with him this way and not having a hard break, but couldn’t parse whether it was more for you or him. 

By the weekend’s end, plane tickets were booked and Mar had claimed most of your apartment’s furniture via FaceTime. You’d sent an email to Dr. Vry about your impending absence, letting her know you’d turn in supplies and the final column by end of day Friday. More and more minutes passed staring out the window with a discordant longing. 

Bruce lit up your phone as you dug into Phish Food for dinner. “What’s up?”

“Hey.” Keys clacked in the background. “Might’ve found something worth looking into.”

“Like what?” Swirls of fluffy marshmallow caught your spoon. Perhaps you could sneak him a pint as a parting gift at City Hall. 

“Have you ever worn contacts?”

[percabething]

@/hisethelcain. “hello? sorry, i think you called the wrong number 🔪” twitter, 30 oct 2020.

[percabething]

iiiii have a one shot prompt!! (if that’s okay)

Bruce and reader in a long term relationship and one day they hit him with “I want a baby” and scare the living Christ out of him?? (the idea came to me in a dream)

u don’t gotta write it if you don’t wanna I jsut thought I’d try to suggest :)

“with you”

bruce wayne x reader

words: 1.3k

“I want to have a baby.”

The statement fell out after feeling Bruce’s gentle hands on you as he maneuvered to the cutlery, his soft laugh lilting in your ear. You couldn’t hold it in anymore. You’d already almost cracked the night before when he opened a new box of condoms. Your words echoed across the suddenly silent kitchen, and his hands dropped from your waist.

The only indication he’d heard you—or that he hadn’t disappeared—was the breathy, nearly inaudible “What?” a foot behind. You turned to look and he took a step back. His face was ghostly pale, eyes wide. In four years together he’d never looked so petrified, let alone of you.

He prayed he hadn’t heard you correctly. He never prayed. Maybe you wanted to start babysitting, simply have babies around. Surely you didn’t mean…

You cleared your throat, wondering if he truly hadn’t comprehended it. “I want to have a baby with you.”

You’d anticipated some apprehension, sure, it was why you’d wanted to wait until after dinner when you were both relaxed. But Bruce loved kids, and kids loved him. Every holiday with your family all the little cousins, nieces, and nephews flocked to him like a shiny new toy, pouting when he’d have to leave. On your second date (after realizing he was more than just a pretty face—and damn was it pretty), you’d asked the usual questions to filter out mismatches.

“Do you want kids?” You crossed your fingers under the table, conjuring the power of the universe to make this perfect, perfect man be in total alignment.

“Someday, yes. Absolutely.” He smiled, directed the question to you (‘Yes’, and by this point you were absolutely swooning), and the date continued without a hitch.

Now he stared at you like you’d asked him to bury a body.

The pit in your stomach morphed into a boulder as he stumbled out of the kitchen toward the hall. “I need a minute.”

He didn’t hear you say anything else, so he took off down the hallway. Then turned back around, his body buzzing. You stared limply at the bags of groceries adorning the countertops, your eyes flickering up to his in surprise.

“A baby?” The words felt foreign on his tongue. Already the responsibility tore at him, making the edges of his vision white out.

“You said you wanted kids.” Your eyes narrowed when you noticed the shallow heave of his chest. Was he scared?

He wheezed a nervous laugh and leaned against the hallway entrance. He had no clue how to articulate that it was still true with the wind knocked out of him. Not in any way that would be convincing. But so soon? Four years was… not nothing, but he suddenly felt like a helpless child.

He had panic attacks sometimes, and this looked like the beginning of one. As you left the kitchen to close the distance between you, you ached to think that you wanting to start a family would induce such a state. Your voice was softer, tentative. “Do you not want to have one with me?”

Your somber gaze met his like a caress. “Of course I do.” Your face, your eyes, your heart… he couldn’t imagine starting a family with anyone else. The thought was outright blasphemy. He’d thought he wanted kids—no, he knew he wanted kids, but the way you said it made it not only feel real, but within reach. It brought all his fears to the surface.

‘Of course I do’, but he looked devastated, frozen. His hand was quivering when you took it, and when your fingers interlaced, he squeezed. Staring at you with unblinking, timid eyes that broke your heart. His mouth opened but nothing came out. You released his hand, upset you’d even brought it up. “Let’s make dinner, okay?”

Ten minutes prior, the kitchen was full of whistles, jokes, and the crunch of snacking on groceries. At present, the hollow sound of knives slapping wood cutting boards filled the space. You lamented on the terrible timing of your ask, kicking yourself for not taking greater care. Talking about getting pregnant, about having and raising a child, starting a family, it wasn’t something you could be so flippant about. No wonder he’d reacted like that.

Dinner was tense. You ate in silence, punctuated only by an occasional scrape of metal on ceramic. Bruce was so kind, probably preparing how to let you down easily. Ask to push it back a few years. Promise to be ready by then, apologizing for making you wait.

He got up abruptly, leaving to where you could only imagine was the Batcave. You put your head in your hands. Or he’d changed his mind, and was about to break things off with you. You shoved your plate away, tears springing to your eyes. You knew it was too good to last. It would always end up here eventually.

Bruce didn’t come back for hours. You tried to distract by vegging out on the couch to a show, but your stomach swam with tight, jumbled knots. On a constant loop were memories you’d never experience again. Last holidays together, last nights sleeping in the same bed, soon to be last hugs. Hopefully he’d at least give you a kiss goodbye. You pulled a blanket over you as a chill swept your bones. It didn’t warm you.

By the time you heard movement in the house, you’d migrated to your shared bedroom and tucked under the covers. How would you explain it to your parents? That the man you loved more than anything in the world would now be relegated to pictures stowed in their attic? His footsteps drew closer. You held your breath. This is it.

He stood in the doorframe, illuminated in the night by a single bedside lamp. You’d miss this. You’d miss him. So much.

You spoke at the same time. “I’ll get my stuff.”

“Let’s do it.”

Your ‘what’s stacked atop each other. His brow furrowed as he stepped into the room, crouching beside the bed. The air had been removed from your lungs. “I thought…” You searched his face, dizzy. “With the way you were acting,”

He shook his head, horrified he’d left you like this so long. “I’m so sorry,” he took your hand and drew reassuring circles along your palm. He’d come up as quickly as he could get a reign on himself, get his body to stop shaking and his mind to stop racing. He’d wanted to ensure this moment would be a good one, not ruined by his anxieties.

“It made it feel tangible when you said it, and…” he trailed off, thoughts swirling again. He swallowed hard. “I was nervous. I am nervous. I don’t have experience with it, of even being parented.” The rumination he’d tried to leave in the cave came back to him. “What if something happened to us, or something happened to them?” He struggled to blink away the sting in his eyes. “I wouldn’t be able to handle it.”

And everything clicked into place. You cupped his cheek with your cold, clammy hand, soothed by the heat off his skin and the roughness of his stubble. He leaned into your touch. For a minute you both sat in the tenderness, soft waves of wondering how you could convince him he had nothing to worry about. That even if he did mess up, or something did happen, he was persevering, loving, and everything good in the world.

“But I want to try." As his panic had subsided, he'd been left with a thought so hopeful and persuasive it threatened a sob: he didn't want the possibility of tragedy to stop him from living.

"I’d do anything with you. I want this.” He wore his earnestness on his sleeve, his words mushy and saccharine, if a little shaky. Looking into your glowing, radiant face, imagining it mirrored. A small smile tugged up his lips. “As long as they have your eyes.”

a/n: this was such a cute idea!! i can imagine him becoming overwhelmed almost thinking he's a living curse, down there freaking out about potentially traumatizing someone like he'd been traumatized, or the fear of having his heart walking around outside of his body. thanks so much for the prompt!!! <3

[percabething]

heyyyy Elle it’s Cami 💞💞 I just wanna say i love your fic (you already know from all my dms lol) but tbh probably the best fic ever written thank you for your service 🙏🏾

I LOVE U SMMMM

you always know exactly how to hype me up 🥹 you've helped make this writing process even more fun and exhilarating, so thank you thank you!!!! i'm already so emo about it ending and it isn't even ending yet. i still have so much more to write, but i know i will be a mess when the time comes!! best fic ever written is such a compliment i'm crying 😭💞💌

[percabething]

Fateful Beginnings

XLII. “2am”

parts: previous / next

plot: Bruce struggles to contain himself after your impromptu meeting.

pairing: battinson!bruce wayne x fem!reader

cw: 18+, arguing/belittling

words: 5k

a/n: i love them together so much AHHH even when they’re being them…

You’d found an old deli, Mallozzi’s, on the east side of the Tricorner bridge. The word sever echoed between your eardrums like a march; it was why you hadn’t called Bruce for backup, even though you were headed to Crown Point past sundown. 

Even the taxis were superstitious; Uber and Lyft hadn’t let you hitch a ride here at this hour, and the taxi driver who did made sure to drop you off on the closest main street—a quarter mile walk to your destination. You’d charged your taser this time, and set your phone to send all emergency contacts your precise location with only two clicks. You’d worn all black to try and blend into the shadows, going so far as to don black eyeshadow, lipstick, and a thick beanie beneath a baggy hoodie. A small insignia of GU was embroidered into the breast, the only thing you’d had the money to buy at orientation two years ago. 

The hustle and bustle was overwhelming downtown, but the lack of it here was eerie. Every splash of your foot in a puddle was loud enough to startle. Fall’s chill crept in with every passing day, a reminder that you’d helped get people off these streets. It helped steel your nerves. If they had endured frigid winters and the constant threat of violence, you could handle one meetup. Especially with Batman on speed dial. 

You winced. Severing.

The afternoon floated around your thoughts as you made your way through the damp streets, interpolated with particularly destroyed buildings that made you run away with stories of how heinous the flood had been. Wiped out this entire neighborhood. Some of it looked flattened. You stepped around a massive hole in the concrete; it started in the middle of the street, its arms reaching the sidewalk on either side. Maybe a pipe had burst in the flooding. Had they truly not had the budget to fix this place up? Never before had you seen such blatant classism; one of the poorest neighborhoods blown to shreds, untouched two full years later. People here didn’t give a single shit.

It had been too easy to convince yourself to come here—the situation at Arkham had perked your ears to something awry, and the timing of this was too convenient. You’d tried responding with some questions: what is this concerning, is this to the right person? but it hadn’t gone through. Whoever wanted to meet didn’t want to risk it being traced. Which only made you curious. You also wanted to challenge the idea that this was the most dangerous area of Gotham; you couldn’t trust a damn thing this city said when they made their priorities so transparent.

Taking this anonymous meeting was also a welcome distraction from having to deliberate on Dr. Crane’s orders, which distracted you from wondering what you’d do when you got home, which distracted you from your mom, which distracted you from staring into the abyss of likely having to start your life from scratch in a small town with no friends nearby, only potholed roads and weathered church buildings to talk to. And Walter.

Which distracted you from another glaring situation: whatever the hell had happened in his shower the night before, and the potential depth of that yearning. Your mind lingered there, haunting you. Taunting you. Last night had made everything real. Clicked so much into place. Why you kept coming back, why you felt so frustratingly drawn to him. Bruce Wayne. Bruce Wayne… 

Right. Severing.

Mallozzi’s looked like it might have been a great shop in its heyday; now, the shingles were half gone, windows busted, every corner encrusted with mold. Mildew and sawdust singed your nostrils as you entered, the glass door barely opening wide enough for you to squeeze through. A quick sweep of the room revealed you were alone. Stepping over broken glass and copious amounts of rat poop, you managed to find a single stool that hadn’t been ripped to shreds and situated there. Your heart hurt looking around, reminding you of how it felt watching mom and pop shops close up in rural Washington. The countertops had what appeared to be hand-sculpted designs on each square, color-coordinated with the faded faux awning above the destroyed registers. 

Two minutes, then five. The more time passed, the greater your inkling that following this had been a mistake. Would it have been so bad to ask Bruce to cover for you? Climb on a roof somewhere and keep lookout, just in case?

A hinge creaked ten past two. A hooded figure had wedged the door wider than you’d managed, and you thumbed your taser in your left hand. They had both hands tucked into their pockets, head down, and it was impossible to tell if they were a danger yet. Impossible to tell if this was even who you were meant to meet with. They’d given no descriptors, no street name. You opened your mouth, but they spoke first. Stating your first and last name like a bored secretary, with the voice of someone in their late twenties, maybe thirties. You nodded, apprehensive. “That’s me.”

They pulled up a stool you’d avoided, too encrusted in dirt that looked very much like poop, but the stranger dusted it off with the back of their hand and sat. Their hood was cinched tight. You could make out tanned skin in the light from the smoggy moon that danced off the puddles, but that was it. 

“You need to leave Gotham.” It wasn’t said like a threat, but it registered like one. You almost heard it in Bruce’s voice, and for a millisecond you considered if he’d set this up. Sent someone to unsettle you, convince you to leave. Maybe he’d figured you’d be more eager to listen to a stranger than the billionaire vigilante who definitely didn’t have ulterior motives for getting you out of his hair. 

“Why?” Wanting them to think you weren’t easily intimidated, you kept measured. Bruce may have been able to x-ray vision through your chest to see your pounding heart, but…

“If you don’t leave now, you’ll get yourself killed.” A shrill noise of air pulling into cold lungs, a small puff of air exploding between you. “Housing people in Point put a target on your back.” Another breath, increasingly shallow. Like being in here was a trigger. 

“Associating with Bruce Wayne was enough to save you for now, but do not count on it. If you can even trust him.”

As great your desire to follow the Bruce of it all, you narrowed your focus. Claiming to foresee your imminent death was quite the opener. “How do you know I’m a target?”

The stranger shuffled in their seat, teeth beginning to chatter. “Everyone who tries to clean up the city is. Especially young women.” 

“W—”

Their voice was firmer, stronger now. “Listen to me. Crawling around Arkham, City Hall, Bruce Wayne, Oz Cobb. You take one wrong step and you’re cooked.” You noted a subtle gleam in their eyes as they lingered on your sweatshirt.

“Why would they care about hurting me?”

“You’re sticking your nose in their shit.” Their voice was caustic now, frustrated that you weren’t rolling over and following orders. “Look what happened to the mayor. The task force she set up discovered the DA was funneling money to Arkham, yet the facilities remained unchanged. Next thing you know.” The stranger took their hands out of their pockets and slapped them against their thighs. “They all end up there.”

“What do you mean ‘they all’?”

“That’s precisely what’ll get you killed. Stop asking questions.”

Your voice rose without conscious awareness. “If something like this is going on in the city,”

“It is, and you aren’t able to stop it.” The stranger stood up to leave, and you mirrored them. 

“I could use my connections at G—”

“You don’t think we’ve tried that?” They whipped their head around so fast they gripped the crumbling countertop for balance. “You see any other young buck journalists out here? You stick your nose in shit, you’re gonna get shit. I left after my apartment got hit. Never looked back.”

“You were a journalist here in Gotham?” No wonder they’re giving me a warning. 

“And now I hide in bushes all day so they don’t remember I’m alive.”

You knew it was pushing it, but adrenaline was coursing through your veins. “Who is ‘they’?”

“Bye.”

“So other journalists have been killed here?”

“I might be the only one who hasn’t.”

Dr. Vry probably wanted to know about something like this; something to help protect the journalism students, maybe some leads into who had gone missing and when. She seemed so desperate for people to join the program, and this could explain the low numbers for the major. Their refrain echoed: ‘you don’t think we’ve tried that?’ “Why hasn’t this been picked up?”

“It’s Gotham. People die here.” They said it like a recycled political headline. “Especially if they’re tuities.” They gestured to your sweatshirt and the taser in your hand, clues you were only here for the scholarship. “Go back to wherever the hell you came from. And hope that’s far enough.”

“This is why you didn’t want me to bring anyone.”

“If you speak of this, I’m fucking dead. We both are, so I guess that’s some good stakes.” The stranger was halfway to the exit, your thoughts swimming.

You grasped for any drop you could squeeze out of them, certain you’d never cross paths again. “Do you know the names of the other journalists?”

“No.”

They couldn’t leave you with nothing. Make vague, disparaging comments about leaving, then drop you into the pit. Your frustration bled out. “Sounds like you do, but you don’t want to tell me.” 

They turned around, slowly this time. “Yeah.” Their chuckle was dry and humorless. “You’re as good as dead.” You swallowed hard, and they heaved a hissing sigh. “I know you think you’re doing good, but you are nothing but a pebble at the bottom of that goddamn river.” 

Your heart sank.

“You want to do something good? Stay alive, and go make the world a better place somewhere else. They’ll knock you out like a straw house.” The stranger turned around, yanked the doorhandle, and slipped into the night.

You didn’t stay long. The wind cut through your hoodie, and it was a brutal endeavor being alone in such an environment after what you’d just heard. Thankfully you’d written the number of the taxi service who’d driven you, but they wouldn’t answer. After enough phone calls, perusing Scypher to see if tragedy had stricken the city, you decided you’d have to walk until an Uber could meet you on a main street. On this side of town that would take a half hour, minimum. 

You slunk through the alleyways with dim lighting, avoiding ones as dark as the pits of hell. Something about them felt familiar; if they’d been part of the group offered housing, why hadn’t they taken it? Were they completely alone, unable to live with someone under a different name? If their life now was relegated to hiding in shrubs, they probably wouldn’t mind hiding in a warm apartment. Funneling money to Arkham? Lashing out at journalists for looking into it? City Hall, Bruce Wayne, Oz Cobb? Who the hell is Oz Cobb?

A noise down the alleyway scared you into turning around. A few streets over you saw a flickering streetlight, and set off toward it. You struggled to keep your thoughts clear, the decision of whether or not to leave Gotham sitting like a rock. Was it futile to chase this? Had they tried talking to Dr. Vry? Now the president of GU, she had more sway. Who else was locked up in Arkham? Bella Reál had been scrambling to get out. No one cared. The abruptness of Dr. Crane’s covering of the window, his thinly-veiled threats. Severing. 

At his next prescription pickup. A week and a half away. Maybe you could poke around for a week, and if you didn’t find anything you would leave. Maybe you’d still leave, and send any tips over to Bruce for Batman to work through. Point him in some direction, a parting gift, a lead he didn’t have to work himself to the bone to find. Something to make his life a little bit easier.

But what if they did kill you? Would they leave you alone after leaving the city, thinking you were no longer a threat? Would that open things up, now farther away from Bruce Wayne’s reach? Was that article the only reason you were alive right now? Would they hit you after the hype died down? Once you began to fret over if they’d tapped your internet service, you reminded yourself you were wandering alone around dark, ghoulish streets in Gotham City. This wasn’t the place to mull anything over. 

Chasing the streetlights left you unsure of where led to a main road. All the brick looked the same, the monotonous crumby concrete under your feet giving no sense of direction. Intermittent shouts and clanging metal frightened you more than it should have. You were weak. Too soft. Used to leaving cars unlocked on the road for a quick trip. Never carrying a bike lock. Finding yourself in a city where any publicly parked car would be smashed by morning. 

Severing. Your thumb hovered over Bruce’s contact, and your stomach somersaulted. Creeping butterflies, heat rising to your cheeks. For a second the air didn’t hurt your lungs and the darkness wasn’t scary. Childlike crush. Somehow bright and innocent despite the tangle of lies it was covered in. 

You put your phone to your ear. You knew better than to keep wandering; at least no one had seen you yet, noticed you as a target. Mar and Rai didn’t have cars; he was your only ticket out.

“Hey. Everything alright?” He didn’t open by saying your name—like he’d come to expect talking to you. Too enamored by the sound of his voice, the words didn’t fall out of you. Only a few hours apart felt too long. How the hell were you going to leave next week?

He said your name now, a worried edge to his voice. “You okay?”

“Are you busy?”

He paused.

What did you mean by that? He leaned back in the seat of the Batmobile, deliberating. The armor of his suit crunched against it, a noise he was so used to it didn’t register. Half past two in the morning. You didn’t sound distressed. Maybe you’d had a nightmare? Calmed yourself down a bit before calling? 

“What do you need?” He bit back a million questions when you asked for a ride out of Crown Point. He’d wanted you to stay on the line, but you assured him of your safety, though he wasn’t at all convinced. His phone pinged with your location share, and he rushed like every word of yours had been spoken in code. 

He found you at the end of a dark alleyway, one that barely fit the Batmobile with enough space to open the passenger door. It crunched open, not used to being utilized, and you thunked into the seat. He scanned you for injury as you buckled in—nothing. Now persuaded of your safety, chills peppered his skin remembering how you’d caressed him the last time you were in here.

The cabin glowed with a pink and purple haze when you entered. Felt his shoulder pads dig in. The restriction of the belt and his taut leather gloves. The sound of the world shutting off around him. Alongside this crush (he withheld a visible cringe), worry bloomed. He drove under a streetlight and noticed black makeup adorning your face. Black hoodie, black pants. You’d wanted to blend in. 

His hands tightened around the wheel, bracing himself for something terrible. Had you been threatened? Coerced into something? Fell into some shady deal? “What are you doing in Point this late?”

He felt your hesitation like a brick of cement. If you hadn’t been up to something, you would’ve shot back with a defense before he’d finished his sentence. Was this related to how you’d acted over lunch? Withdrawn, sullen? 

“Following a lead.” Out of the corner of his eye he watched your lips purse into a thin line. You had more to say. He didn’t like the feeling inching between you, widening the gap. 

If you wanted to tell him what lead, you would have. What was of greater concern was if you were safe. Though he didn’t think you’d be particularly honest. “At two in the morning?” That didn’t come out right. Neither had his tone; it was verging on scolding. He reigned it in when you turned to look out the window. “I need to know if you’re in danger.”

“Need to know.”

His eyes narrowed, your scoff hitting him like a punch. Where was this coming from? “I can help.” His patience was wearing thin as anxiety bit at him. 

“You are. By giving me a ride home.” You turned your head even further away. Your tone was clipped. He slowed to a stop, his intuition screaming at him. At least he hoped it was logic and sense, not some twisting of this newfound infatuation. 

You looked at him like you were ready to jump from the car, angry, when he faced you. Your shoulders slumped when he met your gaze. He wondered if you could sense how nervous he was. How worried he was. How gutting it was to feel like you weren’t being honest with him. 

“If you’re in any sort of danger, I want to know.” He swallowed, and you looked away. Again. Shit, you were, weren’t you? Why else would you be in this part of town right now? He moved closer, as if it would help you hear him. As if the only problem was you couldn’t make out his words. “Please.” 

“Stop.” You squeezed your eyes shut and wrung your hands in your lap. He thought his heart might give out. “It’s nothing.”

Your cuticles were shredded, your skin flushing light with the force of your grip. Did you want to speak, but felt like you couldn’t? “Did they say not to tell anyone?”

Your lashes fluttered. He leaned closer, wishing he could take off the cowl, but he hadn’t spent enough time in Point lately to know if any security cameras still recorded out here. Your face would be shrouded enough from the shadow he kept you in as he drove close to the alley walls. He softened his voice to make up for the harsh lines and bullet marks in his armor. He didn’t want to intimidate right now. “You can tell me anything. No matter what they told you.”

You were continuously looking back with rose colored glasses at the snarky, mean-spirited man he used to be. How roughly he used to handle you, like he didn’t care if you broke into a million pieces. Nice Bruce, kind Bruce, caring Bruce was impossible to dismiss. How little could you give him where he’d be satisfied? What would make the wheels of this car start turning? He looked stressed and frayed. You couldn’t put any more on him. “A journalism thing. One of the people I think we offered housing, just talked about it.” 

As usual, nothing slipped by him, undeterred by your contrived nonchalance. Why did you have to get in cahoots with the single most focused, discerning person in existence? “This was the only time you both had available?”

“They didn’t want to meet during the day.”

“Who were they?”

“They didn’t want to reveal their identity.”

His brow furrowed, voice raising a few decibels. “You didn’t know who they were before coming to Crown Point alone in the middle of the night?”

“This is starting to sound like a lecture.” Your taser fell from your side onto the ground, and he flexed his jaw. You tensed, bracing for an argument. “I came prepared, okay?”

His tone kept restrained. For now. “What if they’d had a gun? What if they’d brought others?”

“They didn’t.”

“What exactly did you talk about?” 

It was hard not to lie again. It was hard not to tell the truth. Hard being in the car with him. “It’s private.” 

“Are you meeting with them again?”

“No.”

“If you do something like this in the future, let me know beforehand.”

Won’t have to worry about that for very long. Little did Bruce know, you’d be out of his hair before the end of the month. Maybe he’d throw a party. Christen the halls of Wayne Tower with the aimless whimsy of the public getting a peek into his world. 

He bristled at your laugh. You weren’t taking this seriously, and it was imperative that you did. Painfully so. “Will you?”

“Please, I want to get home. I’m tired.”

Begrudgingly, with a plan to bring it up later, he released the brake and started downtown. You drove in silence through back alleys and the occasional tunnel until your guilt got too big. Watching his hands tighten and loosen around the wheel, his blinking speed up. He deserved something.

“Do you know anything about someone named Oz Cobb?”

The car slammed to a halt; the seatbelt clicked hard into place, shoving you back into the seat. “Is that who you met with?”

“Why’d you do that?”

“Is that who you met with?”

His tone scared you. Jagged and deep, like shards of glass. “Jesus fuck, no!” 

“How do you know him?” His eyes were cast in shadow, his face a blob of black leather. Gone was the tentative, concerned Bruce—maybe you liked when he handled you gently. The rosy glasses were falling off your face. Who the hell was Oz to have him act like this?

“I don’t.”

“Have you ever spoken with him outside of City Hall?”

City Hall? You never spoke to anyone there.

“Have you?”

Interrogative. No longer was this a conversation between allies. The car cramped under the weight of his gravelly tone, his armor coming off far more aggressive. You wouldn’t let him know that. “Just drive.”

“Absolutely not.” He wasn’t leaving until you understood. Your frustration was a small price to pay for making you understand that your life would be at risk, that Oz was dangerous, that keeping things like this from him was a death sentence. 

“So you’re stranding me here?”

He made his voice stronger, feeling it begin to shake. “Don’t ever go near him.”

You didn’t say anything.

“I said don’t ever go near him.” He felt nauseous. And faint. Intrusive images of you lying with a bullet through your skull made his vision go in and out. Made him nervous to look at you, though he still did.

“You don’t control me.”

“Promise me you’ll never go near him.” His pulse raced in his ears.

“I can do whatever the hell I want.” If he didn’t drop it this second… His tone was venomous when he next spoke. 

“He’ll kill you.”

You rolled your eyes wide enough for him to see. Now you could see him, his eyes flashing, then narrowing, his mouth tensing into a snarl. “A lot of things could.”

“Promise me.” 

Sounded like a threat. You looked around, pretending to be bored, your blood boiling over as you began to feel like a hostage.

He was on the brink of a panic attack. “Promise me, goddammit!”

You gasped out your response, shocked his voice had risen to such a yell. “Don’t talk to me like that, what the fuck?”

“You’re telling me to let you hold a loaded gun to your head and pull the trigger.”

“Take me home.”

“Tell me you’re not that stupid.”

“Fuck off.”

A wheeze squeezed from his constricted throat. Yeah, he was about to pass out. “If you don’t want me to track you,”

“Who the hell do you think you are?”

“Are you planning to meet with him?”

You stared at your lap. You. Still. Weren’t. Listening. 

“Answer me.”

Your nose turned up at him. “Your intimidation is less effective when you know it’s just you under that fucking suit.”

“You need to know how serious this is.”

“Take. Me. Home.” The steadiness of your voice was fading as helplessness crept in. You turned to look out the window. 

You started hashing at your cuticles. His voice was softer, though marginally. “Look at me.”

“No.”

“You need to listen, please—”

“TAKE ME HOME.”

Bruce reached out to touch your elbow, but you yanked your arm away so fast your wrist slapped against the glass. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not accepting any apology until I’m back.” 

The silence breathed for a few seconds, interrupted eventually by the clicking of gears. After a few streets you recognized the turns, the knot in your stomach loosening. The whiplash of twenty-four hours ago put a lump in your throat. 

A few minutes later he pulled into the signature alleyway. You hustled to unbuckle, the sound of small clinking rattling your ears. Out of the corner of your eye you noticed he was shivering.

“I’m sorry, everything I say is coming out wrong,” his voice was weak and bruised. 

“You don’t own me.” You unclicked the buckle. 

“I know.” A humorless laugh fell from his lips, and you stiffened. He shook his head like he hadn’t meant for it to occur. “That’s the thing, I know I don’t. I couldn’t, even if I wanted to. And I don’t want to.”

“Sure sounds like it.”

He took off his cowl, sighing as he held it in his lap. A football field of distance sat between you, and he felt it like a hot branding iron. “I’m sorry for not taking you home when you asked.”

Tears stung your eyes. “Don’t ever act like that again.”

Bruce’s face contorted with pain as he watched you bite your cheek and blink back tears. He nodded. “I’m sorry. You’re not stupid. I was way out of line.”

You resumed fiddling with your hands. A light patter of rain dusted the windshield and echoed off the metal roofing. You didn’t know what to say to him. Each time you thought you were past something, it circled back.

“I won’t track you. I already said I wouldn’t. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“You’re fucking mean.” It blurted out of you with a pitiful sob, and you angrily wiped at the hot tears spilling down your cheeks. “I don’t even know who the fuck he is.”

It was agony knowing he’d made you cry. It bled into his inflection, this frail, bleeding desperation. “It won’t happen again. I was, I was scared, his pockets are in the courts, I can’t get him—”

“So you scared me?”

He froze. “I scared you?”

“It doesn’t matter.” You wiped your cheeks with your forearm and popped open the door. 

“It matters a lot.”

You didn’t leave, but you didn’t speak. The two and a half block walk was more intimidating than ever, exaggerating the empty staleness of sitting in his car. 

“He’s the one person in this city I can’t save you from.”

“You don’t need to save me.”

You got out, saying a curt goodnight, and walked south down the alley. Hopefully no one would harass you at this hour. Hopefully getting home so late would mean the hot water would be plentiful. Hopefully you had a snack in the freezer you could eat in the shower, while you sat on the floor and deliberated if your life was worth staying, or leaving. 

Crunches of gravel alerted you to Bruce’s presence. Mussed hair and splotchy black eye paint sweat in a fade halfway down his cheeks. He hadn’t put the cowl back on, his identity on full display for anyone with the thought to look behind them on the sidewalk of the main road. It shocked you out of your melancholy. “What are you doing?”

He looked… uncomfortable, but earnest. His jaw twitched on every syllable. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I mean it. I’m really sorry.” His eyes bored into you, then trailed to the small pools in your tear troughs. “I don’t want to make you feel like this.”

You tore your eyes away from his. You might’ve drowned otherwise. “I’ll see you at the meeting.”

When you got home you scrubbed your makeup off in the shower, buzzing from the constant state of whiplash Bruce kept you chained to. Reactive, and, belligerent, and, apologetic, and intense. He couldn’t fucking talk to you like that. Like you were a petulant child. He was the petulant one. He was so, fucking… aggravating!

He sat in the car for the next hour, unmoving. Half of him felt silly. Pushing off patrol over an argument. The other half was in excruciating pain. He didn’t give you enough credit for what you had endured, and what you had done. It wasn’t like you ran into Point shouting at the top of your lungs, pointing a spotlight at yourself with your full name and address on display. Wasn’t like you didn’t know Gotham was dangerous. Probably still had remnants of the bruise on your thigh. 

He cut the night short. He couldn’t concentrate with the thought of you miserable in your apartment. His head spun. Maybe he was going soft. Being self-indulgent and unreasonable. Cutting patrol short in a city of millions over one person? This was why he kept at a distance. Public service was supposed to be egalitarian; creating any sort of hierarchy was unacceptable. Yet there you remained, and here he was at Wayne Tower with the moon still high in the sky.

He’d never, ever speak to you that way again. 

[percabething]

mature content ; mdni ┆warnings: mentions of sex + pregnancy. baby fever.

BRUCE WAYNE stared at his phone, the latest tabloid cover flashing across the screen. is gotham’s most eligible billionaire about to be a father? the headline was emblazoned next to an out-of-context photo of you—his girlfriend—your hand resting over your stomach as you laughed, caught mid-conversation at a gala. the picture had been taken at the wrong moment, the pose completely innocent, but the image itself stirred something inside him.

it wasn’t a new thought, not really. the idea of starting a family with you had crossed bruce’s mind many times—always during the occasions when he’s hitting it raw, buried to the hilt inside you. it was then, two thrusts away from euphoria (aka pumping your womb full with his cum), that the thought would slip in, unbidden: what if this led to more it? the telltale twitch of his cock was always accompanied with the idea of you, swollen with his child. it wasn’t something he normally dwelled on, but now, with the possibility spelled out in bold, blocky letters on the screen, it was tangible, no longer just a fleeting idea or a half-formed daydream. he couldn’t push the thought away.

he imagined you barefoot in their master bedroom, your bare feet pressing into the softness of the rug as you stood by the window; your figure swathed in the first light of dawn, the sky a pale wash of pink and gold, and outside, the sprawling grounds of the wayne estate stretched out, untainted by the darkness that was gotham city. here, it was truly quiet, the kind of quiet bruce only found when he was in your company. you held your arms.

he pictured your expression, tender and serene, your eyes focused entirely on the baby—his baby—in your arms. the soft, chubby cheeks, the tiny hand curling instinctively around your finger. a connection between mother and child that made his chest ache. it all felt like something ethereal, as if it had been plucked from a dream.

shifting slightly in his chair, bruce frowned as his trousers grew a touch uncomfortable, and the realisation sent a flicker of heat across his face. he pressed his lips into a thin line, shaking his head at himself. this wasn’t like him—getting caught up in a fantasy, letting something as trivial as a tabloid headline get under his skin. brushing a hand across his jaw, he exhaled slowly, as if it helped release the tension coiled in his chest (it didn’t).

maybe this wasn’t something he could keep pushing away.

[percabething]

Fateful Beginnings

XL. “priorities”

parts: previous / next

plot: Bruce’s priorities shift, unwittingly meeting you right where you are.

pairing: battinson!bruce wayne x fem!reader

cw: 18+, sexual content/yearning, mention of deaths in the family, mention of illness, mention of unstable sense of reality, subtle mention of past suicide attempt

words: 5.7k

a/n: all i’m saying is you all are gonna like this one 😇 !! the subtle mention is very subtle, basically Bruce mentions NOT wanting to die, and a single line of discomfort about not remembering it.

“Oh, Y/N. I would’ve made more if I knew you were coming.”

Though everything looked the same, it felt different. The constant thrum of your clamoring heart made the shadows brighter and the rooms suffocatingly small. Whatever dish boiled in a gleaming silver pot on Alfred’s stovetop smelled stunning, but you didn’t have time to catch up with him before Bruce motioned for you to follow. As embarrassing as it was to your pride, the image of his head gesturing up a grand staircase, loosely toward his bedroom, was the wind the butterflies in your stomach sailed upon. Gripping the railing far too tightly, your unsteady legs followed. 

Your energy channeled between his shoulderblades, praising each step climbed, celebrating the ripples in his back with each shift of his weight. His feet pulled you enough out of the stupor to be lucid when they surprised you with a right turn. The blood rushed from the tips of your fingers. Between this and the backseat, these insinuations seemed a blatant mockery.  “Gonna change. If you go up two more levels, it’s the first door on the left.” 

You knew it was unseemly to think like this, with the guilt pulsing in the background of every breath, but you were powerless to the whims of your mind. Rather than follow his instruction, you paused to stare at his shut bedroom door. Thoughts of him pulling off his shirt and slipping off his pants made your mouth pool with saliva. Though you’d never, standing here in this sinful haze left you wondering what might transpire if you walked in and laid across his sheets. 

Forgetting he had an alter ego that prized himself on being an unofficial emergency responder, you startled when he stepped out not thirty seconds later. You pretended to retie your shoe, and let him lead again. He never strayed from that same outfit: a tattered black tee and loose black pants. You found yourself fixated on his lack of footwear, drinking up any and all of his visible skin, holding the railing with increasing fervor. The skin on his neck looked especially inviting, as it was arguably the most well-protected space on him. It was so hard to smell him with the fragrance of Alfred’s dinner cutting through the air, and the desire to had you eating your words when he stopped and you bumped into his back. He was so dense, and his detergent, body wash, shampoo, sweat… whatever it was stole your oxygen. Wordlessly, you sped past him through the open door and planted on the far end of the couch like a new pet trying to make itself invisible. 

Bruce walked to the counter, and at such an angle that he could see if you stared at him. You forced your gaze to travel the room and admire the enormous flatscreen across the way—its vast, blank screen reflected the image of you and him totally and completely alone in the empty room. A plush rug gave a good bounce to your impatient, nervous feet. You hoped he had more sense than you tonight; if he gave a single cue of reciprocation, you’d fold. As impossible as the thought was. 

“Want anything?”

A few bags of candies sat on the counter above a softly whirring mini fridge. You grinned at his thoughtfulness, and more at the image of him perusing a candy aisle. He stared at you like he’d hear you speak a single decibel. It was so cute. And you were down a dire amount to be thinking that way. “Do you have any caffeine?” 

His ensuing laugh was buried under his breath, but it jostled around in your gut with a sharp, bright merriness. Of course he had caffeine. “Yeah. I’ll grab some.” 

It was awfully fun to watch him leave. The ability to stare at him without risking him seeing you was thrilling. The realization had hit and left you like a live-wire; attuned to every syllable of his words, every step that he took, even the smell of him and the scent of the new couch you were sitting on. The room looked sterile, like an Ikea showroom. He hadn’t put it together just for you, had he? Why would he do that? 

You already heard footsteps in the hallway. So swift. The sound rushed adrenaline to your already frenzied brain as if it were an emergency. How close would he sit? Could you look at him without blushing? He’s gonna hand me the drink… yes! You considered lingering, but how long would be too long? Could you pull off putting your hand over his and pretending you misjudged hand placement? Would you have the guts to do that? How would he react? 

He appeared in the doorway, leaning his shoulder against the right side of the frame. His already tall body looked even larger against it. He crossed his legs with the pose, which straightened his hips toward you. You could’ve fainted, and your body grew warmer.

“Think of a movie?” He tossed you a Red Bull, and you pulled together a grin to even out the frown that threatened to dominate. Dammit. He grabbed a remote from the top of the TV and wandered over to the couch, where you floundered a response through held breath. 

“I thought you could pick it.” 

He sat closer than before, but not a distance that soothed your mounting desire. Enough to be thrown and calculating how loud your breathing was, but not enough to feel the warmth off his skin, or truly bathe in the smell of him. Why were you so obsessed with memorizing his scent? You wanted to lean in and indulge in the selfish enjoyment of getting to see him so close, but he wasn’t saying anything, which left you scrambling, and your anxiety took the wheel. 

Bruce struggled not to make it obvious that he was fiddling with the remote to buy time. It felt ridiculous telling you he couldn’t think of any movies; that he’d essentially stopped watching them entirely once his parents died, because it was the one activity they did together, regularly, as a family. Without words to fill the space, he tried to make it look like he was deciding which service to log onto. 

He pulled up an on-demand video site, and before you gave the obligatory hey, those cost money for a single view, let’s choose something on streaming, you remembered he was a billionaire. With such low stakes you wanted to joke around, be silly, tell him to close his eyes and randomly stop on something, but your throat was tight.

“Anything stand out?”

Something did: the remote had a circular scroll tool, his thumb moving in tight circles as he flipped through movies. Slowing down, speeding up, switching directions… your thighs pressed together instinctively. 

“What about this one?”

Left in a trance from the subtle movement in his wrist, and the nearly imperceptible movement up the inside of his forearm as he massaged it, meant you didn’t internalize his question enough to give an answer. His hands were so warm fresh out of gloves, but you imagined they might be cooler now, a salve to the burning heat that gathered in your core. Would he talk to you while he touched you? Would he be silent, forcing your moans to be the only sound between you? 

Hearing him say your name made you clamp down on your tongue, wanting to sprint out of the room before you screamed. You muttered something about ‘yeah, sounds good’, desperate for him to stop scrolling so you could reign it in before you did something reckless.

And so it was for the next half hour. Trying not to squirm, trying to control your breathing, and desperately fighting lewd thoughts that wanted to break the fourth wall. It was exactly the childlike feeling of avoiding-but-not-avoiding a crush. The sneaking glances, overanalyzing their body language or if they looked at you, if they didn’t, how close their hands were, if you were coming off ‘weird’. So peculiarly placing you back to feeling like an awkward, shy kid.

Bruce broke the bubble of the latest headline in your thoughts—how woody and delicious he smelled, and if the scent would linger after a particularly intense uh, session—and turned toward you. He paused the movie, your thundering heartbeat surely filling the room with its bass-boosted echoes. “You’re not interested.”

You couldn’t look up at him. You’d melt more than you already were. His voice was too concerned, with that constant edge of being matter-of-fact that made your gut twirl. “It’s fine. I’m just. Distracted.” By the thought of your hands on me. 

Goddammit, you felt his eyes studying you. It didn’t help your fragile, racing heart, and the timing couldn’t have been worse with the activation of the caffeine throttling it anyway. You chose to instead focus on the accomplishment of your words coming out stronger than a squeak. You felt caged by the goosebumps that painted your skin at the mere sight of his hands.

 “Let’s talk.”

Jesus, fuck. A piece of hair fell in your face and you wanted to move it away, but lifting your hands from their forceful clamp atop your legs revealed their tremble. Against all better judgment, you jumped off the cliff. “Sure.” 

You twisted toward him and your mouth went dry. So pathetic, I’m so fucking pathetic… your eyes trailed from his jaw to his mouth, from his cheeks to his eyes. Your shoulders pulled inward when you wondered how disheveled you must look from the flight, and the stuffy city hall foyer lacing sweat to your skin. Your eyes dropped to his lap as soon as they’d landed on his unwavering eye contact. Suddenly the brazen behavior of the women at city hall seemed a lot more admirable. They’re so much braver than I am. 

“How’s your head? Your leg?” 

Were you ovulating? Was he testing some new pheromone to use on the people he fought? You felt impossibly agreeable right now, a cloud drifting closer to the light of the moon. You blushed. “Better.” You were too nervous being under his attention to say any more. Sitting with a broken pencil but too nervous to stand in line behind your crush at the sharpener. 

In the corner of your vision, his eyes narrowed; only slightly, but enough. Enough to imagine what moves you could pull on him to recreate it. You would’ve never, ever thought you’d feel this way. He’d never reciprocate, no, and you didn’t really want him to. Then you’d have to answer the guilt, and interrogate how fleeting this enchantment was before falling into his bed. For all you knew your brain was keeling over itself from sleep deprivation. 

Yeah… you felt your hands steady and moved your eyes down to take another sip. Endless nightmares cruelly stealing your rest had left you unstable and reeling. 

“Still having nightmares?” It wasn’t uncommon for him to ask about injuries before he left a scene; it felt routine and distant, no matter how gruesome their response might be. But with you he was invested—he needed to know you were alright, and how he could help if not. You jumped when he asked, and he didn’t know why.

You scraped at your cuticles. Open up. I’ve wanted him to. “Yeah. Freaked out my parents over the weekend.” Your mouth shook by the last word, cementing that your responses needed to be shorter than ten words until you could get your bearings. The room was starting to spin. You wanted Bruce to catch you.

“What helps?” He was asking too many questions. Unsettling you. You seemed uncomfortable, and he didn’t want this to feel interrogative… did he know how to talk to someone in a way that wasn’t interrogative? He endured another white-hot moment of feeling subhuman before you spoke.

“It was nice having someone there.” You rubbed your arm, pulling it close to your chest. 

“I’m usually up if you need someone.” He watched your blush deepen, your fingers moving from rubbing your arm to clenching. He felt terrible. He didn’t know if he’d ever be able to resist the urge to rescue you, and felt like a broken record. “You’re not forcing me.”

“There’s no way to untie them. Me knowing, all this. I mean, c’mon.”

“C’mon what?” Another question. Stop that.

You sighed, oblivious to Bruce’s harassment toward himself, too busy directing it inward. “Every time I’ve been here you’ve hated it. And I don't blame you. But you keep doing it.”

“I don't hate it.” But what more could he say when you’d overheard him with Alfred? Could his words be a bandage when his actions were so cutting? God, it felt strange to have personal history with someone.

“Don't like it.” You hated when he tried to play nice. Acting like your presence wasn’t menacing and disruptive. You knew he’d rather be out as Batman right now, but he was compelled to humor you in a room he hadn’t done more than pass by in years.

Your face had the slightest pout to it. It… hurt. He forced his shoulders to relax, sensing you might feed off his tension. “I'm coming around.”

You sighed, and his ears perked to its timbre. “What about you? How have you been?” 

“Fine.” His shoulders tensed again. 

“I’m starting to think that means ‘bad’.”

He side-eyed you, a flicker of something sweeping his eyes. “What's my favorite color?” 

“… Black?”

“Orange. Was starting to think you could read minds.”

He leaned back into the couch and put his hands in his lap. When you managed the courage to look back at him, he grinned. It didn’t reach his eyes, and it ached to see him force it. You swallowed a grimace, with no concept of how effectively you’d masked it. “Trying to make me comfortable?”

He paused. “Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Why not?”

“I don't see you making anyone else comfortable. Alfred seemed shocked to see me.”

If only you knew you were the only guest he’d ever had over. You’d probably think he was a freak, if you weren’t already thinking it. “He’d be shocked to see anyone. More shocked if it wasn’t you.”

“Not a lot of people come over?” Your eyes glinted with amusement, the first genuine sass he’d heard from you in days. 

“Constantly.”

“Mmm.”

Silence hung thickly between you. Seconds passing like minutes, minutes passing like hours. “… I don't do this. Like I said.”

“Keep to your own, I get it.”

Bruce’s face twitched like he was about to speak, and his lashes fluttered when he didn’t. It relieved you to know he still got a rise out of you, and you clung to that rope of indignance for dear life. “Say it.”

“What do you think I’m gonna say?” His brows were set to a loose glare, more confused than angry. 

“Something about how I shouldn't feel bad.”

His glare tightened, though his tone was gentle. “Why won’t you believe it?” 

“Guess it’s my own guilt.”

“What if I forgive you?”

You drew a sharp breath that stung the lining of your lungs. Forgiveness for the least of your crimes was the opposite of relieving. “Still there.”

“What if we kept talking anyway?”

“Is that what you want? Not what you feel like you have to do?” As far as tearfulness was concerned, it was easier to speak than let his sentence linger. Where did the grumpy, rude stranger go? 

“Could say the same to you.”

You folded your trembly hands together in your lap, still avoiding looking at him directly. “I asked first.”

His eyes followed your hands that were clenched far too tightly. He ached to reach out and touch them. To feel you soften. “I like knowing you’re safe.”

He watched your shoulders shrug. “I like knowing you’re safe.”

Silence visited again. He knew he’d have to be the one to break it, given your jittery leg and white-knuckled grip. Good exposure. “How do we move past that?” 

This wasn’t fleeting. This wasn’t your mind creating stories off of sleep deprivation. Your ears clung to every millimeter of insinuation, spinning his words in the naughtiest ways possible. Hearing him refer to you like you were a team was thrilling. And it was impossible to ignore the empathy and care that bubbled somewhere underneath it all. This clarity, however, didn’t fix the issue: both of you were caught in a standstill of chasing the other’s tail around Gotham. 

When you tried to think of ways to shift the conversation away from hypervigilance, you came up empty-handed—and you hit a bullseye. “Maybe the problem is we only know each other’s problems.” 

He shifted where he sat, and it was close enough to rustle the cushion beneath you. You ignored the whirl in your chest and the tingling of your fingers, and the tingling elsewhere when he blessed the room with his voice, and a question, that made your thoughts roam wild. “What do you want to know about me?”

Many things, but the most persistent of them: what was that already spoken for about at graduation? But you couldn’t say that. The only other non-explicit thoughts were the most bland and benign questions you’d been asked relentlessly over the summer by recruiters. “God, I keep thinking of interview questions.”

“Didn’t know you wanted me for another column.”

“Job interview.”

“Hit me.”

Where do you see yourself in five years? What are your weaknesses? “‘What are three words you’d use to describe yourself’?”

He started to count on his fingers. “Social,”

“Oh my god.” Without thought, you shoved his knee as you both chuckled. The contact left a singe on your palm.

“What do you think?”

You stilled. “About you?” 

He nodded, and you chanced a look at his face to see if there was anything hidden there. His face was neutral, but engaged. Surprisingly, the first words to crop up weren’t lustful whatsoever. At least, not until you said them aloud and overthought how he might receive them. “Discerning. Analytical. Intimidating.”

“What about me intimidates you?” He said, as he inched closer in a thoroughly non-intimidating fashion that definitely didn’t make your pupils dilate.

You shoved out a quick explanation while your heart skipped beats. If he ever did make a move, you were suspicious that you wouldn’t realize what was happening before you blacked out. “The first two.” 

Your pulse hammered in your throat as you pitched it back at him. “What about me?” You crossed imaginary fingers that he would say something obviously suggestive and break the dam. Maybe he’d say: My. Bedroom. Now. Oh, you needed to STOP!

“Perceptive. Investigative. Daunting.”

You hid your disappointment with a tease. “Those are just synonyms.” Does he not care to actually think about me? To tell me what he really sees? 

“I answered.” 

His tone was light, but the letdown consumed you. It was enough fuel to get you to clarify, always with an overlay of sarcastic, fun teasing, though you wanted to sink into the floor. “What about me is daunting?” You couldn’t be the first one to make a move, not with the lie, not with the meddling; yet another way of imposing yourself. 

“First two.” 

You couldn’t interpret his actions the way you wished; his tone was playful, but he was just parroting you. Giving you nothing outside of what you’d already given. Low-effort, low-interest. No longer shaking, you rested your hands flat to your thighs and met his eyes. Your heart glittered and twirled into the clear blue ice of his irises, but you swallowed the fireworks. His eyes made quick flight across the plane of your face, and you swallowed harder. You weren’t that girl. 

“Your turn, since you wanna be so creative.”

There was sadness in your eyes. You leaned back into the couch and he wanted to follow. He did his best to gulp it back, not wanting to get into the weeds of following an unplaceable shift. He knew the general answer to this, but with how miserable you were, and officially graduated, and interviewed, and finally, hopefully, at least slightly more comfortable with him, he wanted to dive deeper. “Why’d you come to Gotham?”

He nearly gasped when you broke the mutual gaze, like he’d been physically dropped. “I thought we weren’t going to talk about our problems.”

Back to picking your nails. “I’m curious. If it’s not too much.”

“My mom’s cancer. Got sick soon after I graduated. They had to use everything for the medical bills.”

His chest pinched at the slump that took over your body. His shimmered with anxiety; a prickly tension that shallowed his breathing and manipulated gravity to push him closer. “You wanted the scholarship here?”

“Yeah. But my family didn’t want me to come here. It started a huge fight, I… I’ve never seen my family like that.” He followed your absent eyes to where they drifted in the corner. An image of you crying while they screamed at you made his thoughts go white. “Happened at Thanksgiving, actually. Argued all night, all the way home, all weekend. Decided to take another gap year. Hoping maybe things would relax.”

“You didn’t deserve that.”

You came back to your body with the tightening of your shoulders. “I don’t know, this stuff doesn’t even matter.”

“Please.” He leaned halfway through the space between you, withholding the extent of his plea. He cared a lot. An inordinate amount. After some hesitation, you talked about how your grandfather died at the end of that year, and you didn’t want to leave your grandmother. He envisioned you sat in some house in Washington while an old lady knit as you described spending the next two years with her. How gutted you were when she died. How grateful you were to be able to say goodbye, something you hadn’t experienced with your grandfather. How excruciating it was to sit in a grieving, sick household, and how you found refuge in community college classrooms soon after. 

Though most of his energy was spent feeling like a throbbing, aching heart bleeding in your lap, parts of him were refreshed to have someone talk with him about death that wasn’t his own. Since that day, everyone avoided talking about it like he’d split in two if someone reminded him that people die. But he remembered it alone, every single day. 

He ensured he didn’t look at you with pity, an effort that was initially intentional becoming second nature as he settled into your story. A soft rage lurked in the pit of his stomach at how easy it was not to isolate someone who was grieving. How simple it was not to squint your eyes and pout your lips like they were a sick puppy. How instinctive it was to sit and listen, instead of giving a gruff pat on the back or a dismissive shoulder tap before rushing away. It would’ve been so easy not to have that countenance engraved behind his eyes. It was easy for him not to do that to you. 

“I’m sorry about your grandparents. And the fighting.” He was sorry for the fighting he’d done with you, too. It was hard to say the apologies he so hated to hear, praying it was different coming from him. He hoped you knew he understood. That he could take it. You thanked him and after a tender silence, he nodded for you to continue. He didn’t know if you’d oblige for a few seconds, and a lump rose to the back of his throat. 

You carried him through another few minutes of delicate conversation; speaking of the flooding two years prior, and how people were leaving Gotham in droves. Talking about how you couldn’t believe the extra stuff they threw in; in addition to the free tuition, they began to offer free housing to eligible transfer students, desperate for any boost to the local economy. By that time you said your conflict avoidance was less painful than sitting in the tension, so you left. Wanted to see something outside of your town, and he mirrored your grin when you spoke of your grandfather as the only one who supported you going to Gotham. Your smile faltered when you said he’d always known you were ‘itching’ to get out of your small town. 

“You don’t agree?”

Your sigh could’ve moved mountains, instead it moved him. “Makes me sad to think so. I didn’t want them thinking I wanted to be rid of them. Just wanted to see something else too.”

He was certain your grandparents knew that, but didn’t know how to articulate it. “Now you’re here.”

The tension in your body deflated with the force of your scoff. “And how welcoming everyone’s been.”

“I’m sorry for my part in that.” He yearned to be someone you felt seen by. Someone you knew understood.

“No, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t even, yeah.” You shifted away and sniffled. 

He didn’t know how to tell you he wanted to hear everything. That it was courageous how candidly you spoke of your pain, and there was nothing wrong with it. So he kept it cloaked and subtle, instead asking another question to let you know it was okay. “How’s your mom now?”

Your sniffles became tears that fell in straight lines down your flushed cheeks; yet another reminder of how uncomplicated it was to let someone cry. He couldn’t imagine telling you to ‘buck up’. Telling you to ‘get over it’, or ask ‘hasn’t it been years?’ It was so fucking easy. If anything, he was considering asking to hold you again, guiding your hands around his back to take it out on his shirt. He moved to say as much when your watery eyes met his. 

“You’re the only person who’s asked me about these things.” 

He’d never felt so tender. No one else? He didn’t know what else to do but apologize on the world’s behalf, and it fell out of him like getting kicked in the stomach. “I’m sorry.” It was hard to think as he felt his body shift into new territory, feeling the door lock behind him. 

You shook away his apology and continued, blinking incessantly from what he imagined to be stinging, tired eyes. They were red and bleary. “Still sick. Don’t know how bad. In a wheelchair now, but it helps her. Good to have. I don’t know.”

“You can keep talking.”

You choked out a scoff that was cradled in tears.

“I want to listen.”

He felt like he had levitated from his body when you quite literally spilled out before him. He heard the drop of your defenses with the cracked edges of your voice. “You know what helps?” You were breathing fast, and he’d unconsciously matched it. He wondered if you would say he did. He edged closer. 

“Your interview. The writing.” Him. He set his hand flat on the couch, right in the empty space between your hips and his. “Talking about how anxious you get in crowds. Feeling like you died with your parents. You’re actually naming the things everyone wants to hide.” His hands began to quiver. “Those thoughts swirl and circle inside me,” you were lost in your words. He was getting a portal to closely kept thoughts. Wow. “And I’ve felt insane my whole life… it makes me feel like you can hold it.” His breath caught. Yes, yes, you were seeing him. He could. He could hold it. He could hold you. “My dad can’t even say the word ‘cancer’. No one wants to talk about how sad they are. When I cry in front of others, they just…”

“Leave.”

You blinked at him. “Exactly. It feels horrible.”

“It does.” All those days with his face down in the pillow where he could hide his tears. All the nights where he wanted the world to swallow him up so he didn’t have to wake up with the pain, with no one to listen but Alfred, who always turned it into a lesson or a look to the bright side. Sometimes there wasn’t one.

“But you just let me be sad.” 

His lashes fluttered. He was overcome with weakness in mind, body, and spirit, like a snapped tourniquet. “I’m glad it helps. Glad I can…” he trailed off as he stared at your tear-studded lips, feeling a shiver at the base of his spine. His pulse pounded in his wrists and throat. You’d lit him on fire. 

“Tell me.” 

Your forgiving, sweet voice could unravel him, but right now it was pulling his grief to the surface. He stammered through damp eyes. “I’m not fine. It’s terrifying not to trust my senses.” 

Your hand cupped his elbow and the first tear fell. You followed it the same way he did yours. “It’s a big adjustment.” You squeezed his arm and his chin fell to his chest. “You rely on them so much with Batman, too.” 

“Completely. To make sense of cases and clues…” You shifted toward him, shoving your knee up to look at him more fully. He felt like he should shy away, but he didn’t want to. “How do I do that now? How do I trust myself ever again? When I see things that aren’t there, and misremember such crucial, dangerous…” you didn’t frighten when he ranted, his tone almost murderous. “I couldn’t remember the shooter that night. I still try, all the time, decades… that can’t happen again. It can’t.” 

Your smooth hands grabbed his, and he jumped. Your thumb ran over his knuckles, separating his mind from his body. The heat of vulnerability had him meet your eyes in a panic. He sprung forward and threw his arms around you, shoving his shaking body into the crook of your neck. His hands pressed hard into your back until he heard the tiniest whimper emanate from your chest. His eyes snapped open and he yanked back, flustered, panting, and painted with sweat. “Sorry, I didn’t ask–”

In a blink, he was in your arms again. Your body wrapped around his this time, squeezing his back harder than he had yours. He folded into you and let his body relax, his arms finding their place against your back once more. As you held him, he mourned how he’d ever find this again when you left. He spoke into your shoulder, muffling him. “I can’t believe I actually tried to. I don’t remember it. At all.” 

He felt you press firmer. He felt like your ribs might fuse. Your voice was right in his ear, closer than it had ever been. “Do you worry you’ll do it again and not know?”

His body all but went limp, and you fell together the few inches between your shoulders and the back of the sofa. “Which is strange.” With the snapping of the tourniquet, he no longer felt a weight tugging back attempts at honesty. The words formed on his lips, just as they did in his journals. 

“Why is it strange?” Your fingers rubbed his back with reassuring scrapes. His eyes drifted shut, and when he pulled you closer, he felt your heartbeat against his. 

“I’m not afraid to die. But I don’t want to do it to myself.” He felt tears rise again, and he gulped. For a few seconds, he felt the beats sync. It was surreal. Floating in a bubble of nirvana. “I want to know what’s happening to me. I don’t want to lose myself.” 

A sympathetic sound rumbled from your chest. “You haven’t seen any owls since starting treatment. Now you know what to look out for, you know? You can call me, or Alfred, or your doctor.”

His body tensed like he was on the edge of a cliff, but he’d never been more at ease. Your next speech was honeyed, tying a velvet ribbon around his heart. 

“You’re still discerning, and intuitive; that didn’t go away. You won’t ever stop being you. They can coexist.” You leaned your head against him, and he felt your mellow grin against his ear. “And I don’t pity you.” 

He took a deep breath. Your chest caved in to make space. He could kiss you. 

… He could kiss you.

“Bruce,”

Oh my god. 

“Your heart’s racing.” 

He loosened his grip on your back and pulled back his head to be side-to-side with yours. Electricity pulsed in the single inch between his lips and your neck. He gripped the fabric of your shirt into a loose fist, his blood rushing between his ears. All of his nerves and all of his courage gathered at the very back of his throat, narrowing it. Make a move. He needed to know you wanted this too.

He couldn’t bear to impose. You were just being kind… 

Kiss me. All earlier hesitation fell away. Please, please, please. 

He pulled back a little more, the tip of his nose brushing your ear. The world narrowed to his mouth and yours, but he couldn’t close the distance, or face you. Not when he was so lightheaded—but fuck, that was only getting worse. You were so sweet, so attentive, headstrong. How you looked when you argued with him, how that heat rushed to your ears, how indomitable you were, how sharp and soft you could be… your fingers curled into his back, and he accidentally sighed into your ear. Ask. 

“Master Bruce?”

He spun his head toward the door but you looked toward him, the opposing angles skimming your lips. Before either of you had time to react, Alfred appeared in the doorway. “Lieutenant needs you.”

His cheeks scorched as he hesitantly looked toward the old man, keeping his eyes low. Batman could wait a few minutes… maybe he’d don the armor on the drive. If he got up from this couch, he knew he’d never have the guts again. He’d rationalize away the breathless longing of sinking into your kiss, selfishly keep his touches to himself… “Can it wait?” 

“He’s here.”

[percabething]

this mess we're in

masterlist - concept

bruce wayne x original female character (nameless oc, written in third person. it could be considered a reader since there's basically no physical description of her). 4k.

drifter bruce, mutual pining, angst, hurt/some comfort, subway stations, they are both a little bit manipulative, friends to situationship.

It's a good night for the liars to confess.

Read on AO3

This is something of an exercise to get back into writing mode. It's choppy, messy, pretty repetitive and very dramatic and a little bit inspired by the Twilight rewatch I've been doing (sorry, Rob). It goes nowhere near where I wanted to get at which is a shame but I literally feel like that tiktok audio that says this is all I've got. I also made a lot of shit up regading streets and distances and timelines and events; but what you need to know is that it takes place a little less than year before the events of the movie, the other stuff is rather easy to overlook.

This is supposed to be a one shot thing type of situation. However, I hope to edit this some other time, or maybe even add something more, but for now this is it I think. I guess here goes nothing. Enjoy.

+

There's a stain exactly 14 inches from her feet. It's shaped like a country, a faraway one that if she could do something more than just stare at the ground, she is sure she could remember the name of. Food, vomit, blood, useless to try to guess what it is. What she is sure of is that it makes her sick, yet there's something about it that has induced her into some sort of trance. The cigarette she lit up a few minutes ago burns endlessly forgotten between her fingers. A man, sleeping on a dirty bench on the opposite platform, screams from nightmares from time to time, his voice getting trapped between the moldy walls. The first time she heard him, it had frightened her, but now, along with the creaky quietness of the station, it only adds to the momentum, makes her glad that silence doesn't reign here. 

There's also the fact that her clothes are drenched from walking in the rain all the way down from Kane St. to Fisher St., probably a good and dark 10-something blocks. She didn't count. Water pools underneath her feet, where the grime of the station and the ashes from her cigarette mix and rivulet down the edge of the platform as she stands barely behind the yellow line, the tip of her shoes touching it. Even though the station is deserted, it's almost a death wish. 

Alfred hadn't seen her leave. It had been unexpected for her too—her getaway. She was counting on a few missed calls from him in a few hours; this was her night after all, and he didn't like it when there was no one around to tend to the bat if he came back injured. But there were no signs of him, and the darkness of the house and the stale air of the cave felt so thick, pressing, and pounding on her temples that she felt like she was going insane.

Yet she still stands there in the Stygian station, dirty and moldy and suffocating. Like there's no escape from him at all. 

The cigarette flickers dangerously close to her skin. It's on its last breath, and the sole thought of throwing it out and lighting another makes her feel exhausted. So when the lights of the station stammer on and off and his quiet voice cuts through the silence, it feels like it burns, because it does. 

"Are you trying to get yourself killed?" 

"I'm trying to get to my place," she answers with a shaky breath, trying to disguise the shock of his appearance. She flexes her hand by her side, ignoring how the burn stings. Her rapid heart makes her conscious that her body is stiff and cold from the rain. "I'll be alright."

"It's dangerous," she can still hear the remains of the other voice, the one he uses when he doesn't want to be Bruce. It's rare to see it dither like it does right now. A quick glance at him makes her see he isn't wearing the suit, which is good. She hasn't really gotten used to the full thing; she isn't even sure she likes it. Alfred likes to call this particular look of his "the drifter." It’s not exactly the Batman and yet not quite Bruce, a mutt. Like this, he feels more... familiar. Sometimes, she believes this is where he fits best. It’s the version she always gets at night.

He stands there, with his bulky clothes that make him look like a giant; cap and hood on. The dim light of the station allows her to see some of the black paint smudged on his eyes, dripping down his cheeks because of the rainwater. If this were anyone else, they would find him terrifying, but to her, he just looks charming, in a sort of fucked up way. He also looks pathetic, much like her, both drenched and pretending they aren't shivering. 

"These tunnels are crawling with scum."

"Well, you are already here, so," her bite is answered by a look of hurt on his face, and in the heat of the moment, just as she meets his eyes for a brief second, she is almost tempted to give him a apology, but she is supposed to be angry too. She fixes her eyes back on the tunnel and tries, uselessly so, to light up her last damp cigarette to get rid of the trepidation in her legs. Goddamn Gotham weather.

"Let's go back hom—" The undeliberate silence of his pause makes her doubt everything, and only now does she notice the man from before has stopped screaming. It happens to her some other times too, the unrelenting sickness, when she is sewing his wounds and neither of them dares say a word, him still lost in the streets of Gotham and her thinking of that school night at college when he first showed up bleeding on her doorstep. "Or at least let me take you."

"It's fine, this line runs all night."

The tunnel stretches black and vicious, no sign of her train. It's probably some minutes to four. Or five, she isn't sure. Fuck it. She can wait, she has gotten good at that. Nights have become a restless blur of hours blending together until he arrives or Alfred relieves her. Wait and heal. Wait and heal. Wait. Wait. Wait. 

"The train isn't coming." 

"Please, Br—please just, just let me, alright?"

──────────────────────────────

There's a crack in her voice but she still manages to keep a tone of finality in her words, so he takes a step back and waits, too. 

It's impossible to say if they wait for hours or barely minutes. There's nothing around to give her an idea of the time except for the ache of her legs and the chill that runs down her damp skin. She stands with her back to him, backpack clutched to her chest— an instinct that is difficult to shake off even when Gotham's guardian is there with you; watching how the pillars that separate the tracks vibrate as another train passes above them. 

"It will be dawn soon, you should go rest," That, technically, is truish. It's what she says around this time of the night, rest, even if she is well aware he won't. Sometimes, she isn't sure he sleeps at all. 

"I know you don't want me here, but I'm not leaving you alone," his soft voice echoes around the emptiness that surrounds them, or at least it seems to. This isn't the Bat anymore, whatever shred was left of him has dissipated. Now he just sounds worn. It makes her look. She only has her unconscious to thank for that. "Just sit down, please." 

Tiredness weights down heavily on her shoulders. She decides it's only that what makes her turn around and slowly take a few steps to sit down on a graffiti-covered bench. 

"How did you know I was here?" her fingers coil around the cold seat beneath her, the one she burnt tingles and throbs like it has a life of its own.

The closeness makes his presence feel sharper now, pulsing. She fixes her eyes back on the stain, now too far to find it's misshapes. From the corner of her eye, she can see him drop his backpack and begin to unzip his jacket, wet from driving in the rain. The motion makes it almost seem as if their routine hasn't been altered at all. The difference is they aren't on his territory, nor hers. Outside, the night will continue to deepen before the sun finds its way back up. This is neutral ground.

"I was getting back. Saw you sprinting down 44th street," he drops his jacket on the bench by her side and then takes off the hoodie he wears underneath, dry, unlike the first layer. He is wearing the flannel shirt underneath, the one that's so old and worn it's almost colorless. She likes it because it looks sweet on him. She has always wondered if it's his father's. Bruce replaces his jacket with the hoodie and nods at it. "Put that on. You'll get sick otherwise." 

"I just needed some fresh air," she says pathetically; distracted by the gesture, by the warmth of the sweatshirt that smells of grease and of dirty motor oil and of him as she puts it on. It clouds whatever feeling she was having about him up to that moment. This happened often too, besides the waiting, the inability to stay mad at him for long. 

"On a stormy night on the subway?" There's a curl of his lip that resembles a smirk as he finishes putting his jacket back on and sits down next to her, securing his backpack between his legs. 

"I think you are hurt because you aren't usually this funny." 

"Nah, it was an easy night."

She won't say she finds that hard to believe, they both know it's just a little white lie. She knows, by the way he moves and the way he carefully leans back against the cold tiles of the subway wall, that he is all bruised up again, like she has seen thousands of times before, nights where he comes back littered dark, cuts deep enough to keep a man out of work for weeks, yet he is still out there. It makes her feel nauseous with guilt. 

"How long since you been in your place?" 

Behind the guilt his voice carries, the question holds a genuine curiosity that takes her by surprise. He isn't usually one to ask on nights like these. She is.  Where are you hurt? What did they dose you with? Why didn't you come sooner? 

"A few months, I don't know. Honestly, I don’t remember," she shifts anxiously as the need for a cigarette grows stronger. "Since Alfred said I should take some of my stuff to the tower, I guess. Never really got back."

"Do you miss it?" 

"It's a shitty apartment," the only thing she could afford after dropping out of her last year of grad school. The last of her savings only got her a bug-infested one room, a place that never felt like a home— did he almost say home before?  —but with her new salary she kept paying for the rent in case she needed a place to hide, like tonight. "It's not exactly something missable,"

"Then why are you so keen on getting there tonight?"

"Do you have a smoke?" Bruce's shake of his head is minimal as he watches frantically searching for one. It's too soon. Too soon for the questioning to get pushy. He needs to learn to wait, and she needs a cigarette. She thinks maybe she has a carton lost somewhere on the bottom of her bag still untouched by the water. 

"You smoke since when?"

"Oh, yes," she exclaims in a whisper when she finds a crumpled but still useful one and lights the thing up with shaky hands. "I took it up first year of med school. Only thing that would calm me,"  

"I've never seen you do it." 

"I go up to the terrace. Sometimes Alfred joins me, we share one,"  we talk about you. The thought almost makes her smile. Alfred always has stories to tell, military or not, but Bruce is definitely his favorite subject. "But it's a primitive thing, I know."

"I didn't say anything."

"I know you are thinking about it."

The long drag she takes burns sweetly as she stares at Bruce's hand, reaching out to take the smoke from her to prove her wrong. She is always amazed by how tender he is with his movements and the things he does in the middle of the night. She has seen it, fragments on the recording of his contact lenses that would make a normal person flinch in horror. She has seen the frantic look in his eyes, searching for clues, signals, the way out of the maze. She sees it now, the delicate way he plucks the smoke off her fingers, their skin touching briefly, and holds it with a regal elegance. He puts it in his mouth, then takes a long drag too, his body visibly relaxing in the seconds it takes for the nicotine to reach his bloodstream. It's good the smoke she exhales blurs the space they are in. 

"Does it hurt?" he motions her other hand with a nod of his head, smoke slipping through his nostrils. 

"I guess," she shrugs. 

"You guess? You are the one who always tells me to be more precise in my answers when you check me."  

"Do as I say not as I do?" she leans her head back against the tiles and offers him a wan smile, taking the cigarette back from him. 

"Can I?"

It's really nothing, she has had her share of scalper cuts. It comes with the job, fleeting pain, incomparable to what he goes through every night. But she can't say no to him, so she nods her head , hoping the movement isn't too eager and desperate.

She has to bite the inside of her cheek when he takes her hand and quickly searches for something to cling to so she stays in place; there's an old scar on his knuckles that runs down to his wrist. It had been her first big job after accepting to work for him. He had been so still while she sewed it. Every time she looked up to check on him, he didn't seem bothered by the pain, but by the embarrassment of being seen taking pleasure in the prick of the needle. 

His grip is soft while he inspects her middle finger, coarse skin dancing across her own, barely applying any pressure. And then, like it means nothing, he brings her hand up to his mouth and wraps his lips around her finger, making her breath hitch when he flicks his tongue and sucks gently.

This has to be the most he has ever touched her. Touching him is something she does every day, although not without suffering through every tiny intervention, without sucking in a breath every time she bandages him so his heat doesn’t leave a mark. Although by now it's definitely too late for that. But this— him touching her, this has to count as psychological torture. Because the flimsy pain of a cigarette burn has no comparison to how he makes everything scorch.

How long they stay like that, she doesn't know. Hypnotized, she dares to drag her thumb along the curve of his jaw down his neck. She can swear she sees him lean in, or maybe it's the light, maybe she is dreaming again. His ridiculously fast pulse proves her wrong. It only stops when it all becomes so oppressively intense it forces her to reveal the question that made her spiral all the way down here.  

"Why did you come to me that night?" 

It felt like decades ago now, that night's senior year of college. When he arrived all dressed in black clothes, face bruised and with a gash on his side so gnarly she thought he was definitely going to bleed out and die in her dorm bedroom. She quickly realized it wasn't a joke when he collapsed in her arms, a trail of blood drops behind him. They weren't exactly each other's crowds, barely acquaintances who had shared some classes together and a couple of group essays in the university library for Professor Moore's course.  He was distant with everyone and she never thought she had proven herself to be interesting enough in the time she had known him to guarantee something like that.

Yet he was there, bleeding out on her floor. 

She had been paranoid all week after it, afraid he was going to die anytime because she didn't have the proper training yet. But he hadn't and the encounter repeated itself a couple of other times, not enough to make a routine of it but enough to start thinking about Bruce Wayne more than she should have.

On campus, on the rare times they crossed paths, a quick glance was all it took to acknowledge each other. She never asked why, or how he had gotten to that point, even if it was common sense to do so and when the beatings and the wounds were alarming, he stayed the night, mostly on her insistence to make sure he didn't experience any complications on his own.

The reasons and the consequences were elusive and the implications of their relationship were yet to bleed through. At that moment, it was simply something that made itself part of some of her nights. They would lie in the dark of her room, she on the floor so he could take the bed, waiting for dawn to arrive, and the conversation would be quiet and shallow, but it held something unspoken, an intimacy she didn't register until much later when it stopped.

Just before graduation he disappeared like he was never really there to begin with. Except for what the papers had to say about the billionaire orphan, she hadn't heard from him for 7 years. It ended like it began, in the blink of an eye. Until a year ago, when the mysterious vigilante made himself known. 

"We barely knew each other. I could have said something. Ratted you out," her words are rushed now, almost desperate. "I could have killed you."

Despite the outburst, he doesn't let go of her hand. No, he keeps it secure on his lap. He knows what she is talking about, she can see it in his eyes. On the way he takes a moment to lean back and place his head against the tile, mirroring her. 

"You didn't." 

"Why, Bruce?"

Maybe the why and what was selfish. Why her door. Why her. What had she done to deserve that kind of trust. But the maybes were worse. Maybe it had just been fate. Maybe he had knocked on a random door that night and it was just hers. Or maybe... maybe if he hadn't shown up. Maybe if she had said no that second night. Maybe she wouldn't have spent all those years after college dreaming about the last night she saw him. Or wondering if he was alright. Hoping and praying and imagining how it would be to bump into him on the street.

Maybe she wouldn't be just waiting for the day he doesn't arrive after a night of patrol, or the day her half-baked knowledge of medicine is not enough to save him. 

"You were studying to get into med school," his touch is too heavy at this moment so she takes her hand away, sits up, presses the heels of her hands on her thighs. "You are going to burn yourself again,"

"God!" she exclaims, tossing the stub hastily. "Just, speak to me with the truth for once." 

"You ask for something you can't give me either." 

He is being so insistent tonight. How does she tell him she was thinking about quitting, doing the same thing he did to keep the pain at bay even if the wound is bound to fester and infect them both. How does she tell him she even wrote him a note saying all this, that she burnt it on the fireplace before she left the tower running like a coward. How does she tell him that all of that disappeared the moment she heard his voice echo through the station. How does she tell him that she would do whatever he asked her for, that this devotion feels like an ulcer eating her away. She can't.

She can only look away so he doesn't see the tears welling up in her eyes. 

"I—"

"I understand if you don't like how this has turned out and if you want to leave... I won't hold you back," He leans forward on his knees, this time it's his turn to look away, to fixate on some random stain on the dirty floor. 

"That's the thing, Bruce. I thought about that... but I don't think I'll ever make it very far from that tower," she finally confesses. He seems to search for the confirmation of her words in her eyes too, surprise evident on his face. "I don't want to get away from you. Not from you. From the waiting. The silence. My own thoughts. I get this idea... that you won't come back. It feeds with every cut and scratch and blow you get. I can't... I can't stand the thought—"

"Hey—"

"And you don't speak to me. At least those nights at college you talked to me. Lately, you don't even look at me and I don't know if I have done something wrong or you are mad at me or—"

"I only get mad at you when you run off to deserted subway stations." 

"Then say something to me. Scold me, yell at me, tell me to shut up and get on that bike, tell me I'm not a good doctor, that I should do better." 

"You  are  a good doctor."

"I'm not. I'm just making your night harder," she sucks in a breath, willing her sobs to die down and not collapse in front of him. But the fear of losing him has become a moving shadow pressing down her neck. "You owe me nothing, and I'm here asking for so much."

The lights of the station flicker and for a few seconds they are surrounded by darkness again. Her hand unconsciously clings to his knee, terrified he will suddenly disappear and all this has just been a fragment of a fantasy. 

"When I saw you leaving tonight. I thought, I thought maybe I had been dosed with something and— that I was just imagining you. I've seen ghosts before. But you... I thought maybe I'm finally going crazy for good," he states as the light comes back, the admission is barely a whisper. His fingers have coiled around her wrist in those seconds of darkness, bringing her closer without either of them realizing. A pull, an invisible thread. "I remember every night I knocked on your door that year. There wasn't a reason. Or something that made sense. You were... the first thing that came to my mind. It just— it felt right. The only thing I regret from that time is I never said thank you before I left."

He had. Said thank you. He had lingered for a second too long at the door with the intention of saying something else, something important, plastered on his face. Then it was obvious what it was, but in that moment he had kissed her cheek instead, with the utmost care. She remembers. How could she not, he is always lurking in the shadows of her memory, especially in moments like this, with their flesh and bone touching, tangled up one another in a deserted subway station. Sometimes he too feels like a spectral apparition, slipping through her fingers like smoke.

The tears taste salty on the edge of her lips as her thumb traces the ridges of the scar on his hand. 

"You still have time." 

Even if it's minutes before dawn, it's still pitch dark when they finally step outside. Darkness in Gotham has always been capricious like that.

Bruce lets her have his gloves and the helmet before pushing his way through the city with the bike, makes sure she holds to him tight all the way down there. Through the visor, she observes how the ghostly silhouettes of the motorcycle headlights glisten against the wet pavement before they delve once again inside the tunnels that will lead them back to the cave. There's no signed promise. It will take years of rain to wash away the empire of dirt.

But it is a good night for the liars to confess. 

+

Thank you for reading, and if you enjoyed this, I would really really love to hear your thoughts! <3

[percabething]

WE ARE SO BACK

of kisses on cheeks

luke castellan x best friend reader 4k

you’re acting weird. luke is going to find out why

— title from how you get the girl by tswift. chapter 3.5 of the killerverse but you dont have to read the rest to understand!

— absolute insane embarrassing cringe levels of pining because they’re in their mid teens ++ its circa killer’s poisoning in the woods.

You think you’re being secretive about it, but Luke knows you’re avoiding him.

Your ‘avoidance’ isn’t silence. You’d never stop talking to him, but this is probably the closest thing to it.

You joke with him like normal when other people are around, sending him smiles so sweet his shoulders relax with relief. But when he tries to catch your eye during a lull in the conversation you suddenly forget who he is, looking straight past him to stare at a tree or passing bird.

The situation becomes so desperate that he resorts to tactical warfare.

In other words, he pulls on your hair to get on your nerves. He isn’t sure what he’s hoping for — preferably an emotion stronger than the lukewarm smiles you’re giving him — but receives nothing but a twitch of your eye.

Frankly, it’s scary. It’s been like this all morning.

—

It’s one of those rare days in October where it reaches just over seventy-four degrees, which means that everyone is happier than usual. It also means that the two of you could play hooky without the usual repercussions.

You decide to head deeper into the woods today. It’s farther in than usual, because even though your counselors won’t care that you skipped out on archery today, they’re bound to give you disappointed looks if they see you lounging around openly by the lake.

It’s only been a couple of years since the two of you have come to camp, but Luke is already beginning to find it insanely boring. There’s nothing to do except the same six activities and there’s nowhere to go except the miles of woods on site. You’ve already combed through what feels like every square inch of the place, taking him with you even when he drags his feet.

You find some spot just south of the shed where they keep the canoes. It’s shielded from the wind by a big oak tree you decide to lay your back against, yawning almost immediately when you sit down. The sun has warmed the ground and made it an optimal nap spot, apparently.

Luke sits a little bit ahead of you, keeping you in his peripheral vision. It gives him an unobstructed view of the small clearing you're in, and it’s fortunately nicer than most corners of the woods you take him to.

(He’s also pretty sure this is where he knocked you on your ass during Capture the Flag once, but he knows you’d deny it if he brought it up.)

Luke unfolds a piece of scrap paper from his pocket. He’s not that bad at drawing for a beginner, but he’s pretty sure art isn’t for him. He’s only doing it because Annabeth encouraged him to try.

She has sketchbooks full of random things. It’s mostly buildings she finds interesting and the occasional scene of camp, but all of it is insanely good and Luke would be lying if he said he wasn’t a little bit jealous.

He personally finds the act of drawing insanely boring, and it’s even worse because he’s pretty average at it. Annabeth insists he just has to find something he likes and it’ll come natural to him, but he’s seen everything at camp millions of times over again and knows it’ll be lame no matter what.

For now, he’s satisfied with drawing another uninspired view of a tree to give to Annabeth.

From behind him, you take the ball cap off his head, exposing his messy head of hair. He’s too tired to argue for it back when he watches you put it on, letting the bill settle over your eyes.

“No shot you’re sleeping right now,” he says hotly. “All you do is sleep. I barely even talk to you ‘cause all you wanna do is nap all the time.”

“Looking after you is exhausting,” you say, smiling as you do.

He scoffs, but lets you put your feet sideways in his lap while you try and get comfortable.

Stifling another yawn, you explain. “Carter and Nika were up all night talking. They’re trying to pull a prank on Austin.”

“And you didn’t tell them to go to bed?”

You shrug. “I’m not a hypocrite. We’re loud whenever we have sleepovers too.”

He pinches your calf but doesn’t say anything else. There’s absolutely no way you guys whisper that loud.

“I’m giving you an hour,” he lies. He knows he’s going to let you sleep longer than that. He always does. “Then we’re actually doing something.”

You press your sneaker into his thigh before laying back, leaving Luke somewhat alone with his thoughts and a blank page.

It probably takes him fifteen minutes to pick up his pencil. It’s partly because he doesn’t know what to draw, but it’s also because you start complaining whenever he stops passing his hand back and forth over your thigh.

He stops five times and you complain five times, but after the sixth time you’re silent. It’s at this time he decides on sketching the tree ahead of him. It looks just like the ten other trees he’s given Annabeth this week, but some practice is better than no practice. Maybe the wood nymphs will be extra nice to him if he gives them a drawing of their favorite tree, or something.

He adds in the sun just to see what it’d look like, and decides against it when it ends up making the whole thing cartoony. A few minutes later, he gets halfway into a drawing of a bird before it flies away, leaving Luke with a rough shape and making him more irritated than before.

He finally gives up when a squirrel shows up and chews through the flower he was drawing for you.

Luke sighs, leaning back against his hands and letting his eyes go to the only other thing around.

You.

You’re fast asleep already, so he takes the time to look at you. There’s a scratch going up the side of your calf, stopping around the bend of your knee. The hoodie over your shoulders is his — the one with the paint stains he hasn’t worn in a while. He’s never been happier that he gave up that piece of clothing, especially now that he sees how comfortable you are in it. He squeezes your ankle affectionately.

Before he thinks too much about it, he picks up his pencil and begins to draw.

He gets more into it than he thought he would. It takes him a few tries to get the shape of your jaw right, but it’s probably the only thing he’s drawn today that he’s remotely happy with.

It turns out that Annabeth was right. Drawing something he liked did make it a lot easier. Sketching the curve of your cheek was a lot more fun than drawing another uninspired pine branch.

Luke stares at the lead on the paper for so long he only notices you’re shifting around when you jolt awake.

The paper in his lap flutters into the dirt. It’s not like he was doing anything wrong, but his face still grows hot as he shoves it back into the pocket of his jacket.

Grogginess makes your movements sluggish. He lets his hand pass over your leg again, wondering if that'd be enough to put you back to sleep.

“Good nap?” he asks.

He pokes at the back of your thigh, and your eyes snap up at him.

There’s tears in them.

“Woah—hey.” He sits closer to you, trying to get you to look at him. Leaves protest under his knees. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

He doesn’t think you’re going to start crying, but you’re teary and quiet and he doesn’t really know what to do. You’re so warm with sleep that sweat has formed on your upper brow.

He knocks off the cap to see you better, but it does nothing but make you press your palms into your face. The nerves are making you so tense he can’t pry your hands away.

“Killer,” he says slowly. “Come here. Do you want to—”

As if you hadn’t been close to tears a second before, your hands drop from your face. “Can we go back, please?”

You don’t look sad anymore. Just tired.

Your breathing is fine, but he still reaches to feel the pulse at your wrist. Just to check. Just to be sure you’re actually alright.

It doesn’t take you long to get what he’s doing. You frown. “Luke, stop. I’m fine.”

Your pulse thrums erratically under his thumb. He looks you up and down, searching for… something he’s not really sure of.

Injury isn’t possible. He’s been with you the whole time.

“Luke, please,” you insist, rising on unsteady legs. You reach for his wrists this time to tug him up with you. “Let’s go back.”

You look tired, and Luke is forced to accept the fact that you aren’t going to talk about it right now. He gathers his stuff in one arm and you in the other, and you begin the quiet walk back to camp.

—

It’s been a few hours since then, and you’re still not totally back to normal. You’re still avoiding him. Whatever you dreamed about must’ve been bad.

Because that’s what it had to be, right? A bad dream?

There wasn’t anything wrong with you physically. You were a little shaken up, but a bad dream would’ve done that to anybody.

Whatever it was, Luke is determined to figure it out.

He finds the perfect time to investigate when everyone is captivated by Board Game Night. Luke is supposed to be the banker for his siblings’ Monopoly game (he’s the only person trusted not to steal the fake money), but he’s too busy watching you play Clue with Annabeth and your friends.

He sits through thirty minutes of Travis’ failed attempts at stealing money before he catches sight of you getting up across the room.

The plastic container of money goes flying when Luke stands up too. Paper flutters to the ground as everyone fumbles to catch the crumpled bills.

You mumble something to your group before turning in the direction of the exit.

“Luke!” Cynthia complains. Tiny red hotels land all over the floor. Her empire on the left side of the board has been crushed.

“I uh… gotta piss,” he lies, jumping over the board to catch up with you.

“I win, then!” someone (likely Travis) declares.

Luke leaves the ensuing argument in his rearview as he jogs out the front doors.

You’re insanely fast unfortunately, because you’re already about a third of the way to the bathrooms by the time Luke’s sneakers are even touching the grass.

The sound of the crunching leaves beneath his feet catches your attention immediately, if the way that you start walking faster indicates anything.

“Killer,” he says loudly, so you know it’s him and not some rando following you. “Can I come?”

You turn slowly to face him like you’re in a microwave. A smile is plastered on your face, and though it’s not fake, it’s a little awkward. “To the girl’s bathroom?”

He catches up with you in a few strides, more winded than he’ll admit. “I’ll wait outside, if that’s okay. You shouldn’t be walking around by yourself.”

The upturn of your lips softens into something a little more natural. You tilt your head, extending your hand. “Let’s go then, hero.”

The bathrooms aren’t too far away, so Luke makes sure to drag his feet. You are kind enough to match his pace and not leave him in the dust, even if it means you’re walking at the rate of one yard per minute.

You squeeze his hand, a form of a truce. “How’s Monopoly?”

It makes him happy to know you weren’t ignoring him completely. “Fine. I’ve been giving your sister an extra couple of fifties when no one’s looking.”

A wicked smile spreads across your face. “I expected nothing less from you.”

Luke’s chest burns while he looks at you. He’s said it a million times before, but he wishes you were happy all the time.

“Are you okay?”

Luke knows he’s spoken out of turn, but the way your eyes widen makes it loud and clear.

“Uh, what do you mean?” you say, pulling him to a stop.

“Nothing.” He shrugs, the picture of nonchalance. “I was just worried about you. You scared me earlier.”

You slip your hand out of his to pat his cheek. “You don’t have to be worried, Luke. I’m fine.”

“You gotta see where I’m coming from, though,” he says, catching your wrist when you try to walk away. “You were crying earlier. I thought you were hurt.”

You frown, then give a weird look to his hand around your wrist. “I’m okay. You don’t have to worry, I promise.”

“Hey, hey, hey,” he says, watching you try to slip out of his reach again. “I let you worry about me. Why aren’t you letting me worry about you?”

The look you give him is loaded. “Because I actually need to worry about you. You nearly snapped your neck trying to backflip off the dock yesterday.”

“Pfft. I was fine.”

Luke’s not some rookie. He wants to say that he’s done much more dangerous stunts off of much more dangerous structures, but he has a feeling that won’t go over so well with you.

“And I was fine too,” you argue. “No need to worry.”

“Let’s just say we can both worry, and you tell me what you were crying about.”

You almost look upset. “I wasn’t crying—”

“—Didn’t know there’s another word for when tears are coming out of someone’s eyes—”

You scoff so loudly it practically echoes. “You’re being totally ridiculous, Luke.”

“Killer,” he nearly snaps. “You’re my best friend and I care about you. I don’t think that’s ridiculous.”

His words disarm you. The irritation in your eyes evaporates — your argument fizzles out just as quickly as it started.

The fight leaves you almost immediately. Very quietly, you admit it.

“I had a dream about you.”

Luke knows you hate arguing with him, but he’s surprised you gave in this early on. He was ready for about ten more rounds of back and forth.

You look upset again. He beckons you closer, ready to bat your fears away.

“I get nightmares all the time. You know that better than I do.” Luke’s pleased to see that you step willingly into his reach. He squeezes your upper arms in a way he hopes is soothing. “Half of my bad dreams have to do with something happening to you. Why didn’t you tell me?”

Luke’s pretty sure he has more nightmares than dreams. He’s seen you die a hundred times over, a fact he’s admitted to you every time he wakes you up with his restless sleep. Sometimes his dreams are about Annabeth or even himself, but you seem to be the most popular star in his night terrors.

When his nightmares are bad enough, they can ruin his entire day. He’s grateful that you’re there for most of them, since your sleepovers are so common. You’re willing to sit with him at ungodly hours of the night, doing nothing but matching each other's breathing until one of you falls back asleep.

When they’re really bad and Luke’s reluctant to let go of you, you play imaginary tic-tac-toe on one of your arms. He’s beyond lucky to have you.

“You coulda just talked to me. Why’re you running away, killer?”

When you’d woken up from your nightmare earlier, you seemed to want to do nothing but get away from him. It would be embarrassing to admit that the thought of that stings, so Luke tries not to think about it.

You shift around nervously on your feet like you’re about to take flight any second. There’s a brief moment where your eyes flicker away from him, and Luke remembers he kind of ambushed you on the way to the bathroom.

“Oh,” he says, embarrassed. “I’ll uh— let you go. My bad—”

You look confused and then irritated all over again. “It wasn’t a nightmare, Luke.”

He turns the information over in his head.

Huh.

You had a dream. About him.

Unfortunately, Luke is a teenage boy.

He laughs.

“You had a dream about me, huh? What kind?”

Whatever emotion was on your face turns quickly into horror. “Not like that, you asshole!”

You whip your head around, walking away faster than Luke can jog. The only reason you probably don’t sprint away is because he drops an arm around your shoulder, sticking you to his side.

He’s still shaking with laughter. You scowl.

You try shoving his face away with the heel of your hand, and you’re very regretful when — as usual — he takes it as an opportunity to lock your hands together.

“Why do I even try?” you grumble to yourself.

For the rest of the walk to the bathroom, you are simmering with anger while Luke smiles, your hands linked in front of you.

“I know! I know, I’m sorry. You looked stressed, I was just kidding.”

(He was only half kidding. He was pretty sure it was that kind of dream.)

“Please never speak. Ever again.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he agrees quickly. It’s only a few seconds until you reach the bathrooms, so he lets go of your hand when he’s certain you won’t (rightfully) shove him.

“I’m too nice to you, Luke.” You sigh heavily as you take the steps up to the big building. He trails behind you dutifully. “I’ve made your ego too big. I’m actively hurting the whole camp.”

He gives you a wet kiss on the cheek, lighting up when you don’t wipe it away. “Yeah, yeah, I said I was sorry. Tell me what your dream was about and I’ll let you go.”

“No. You're a dick, but you’re still my friend. If I tell you, your head will get so big that it’ll explode. I already know.”

It is an impulsive decision to ask, “Was I that good?”

“Yes.” Your voice is flat while you push open the door to the bathrooms. “That’s why I was crying.”

Despite the boredom in your voice, Luke catches a glimpse of your smile when you look away.

“Tell me, killer,” he says to the silhouette of your back. He’s sure you can hear the smile in his voice. “I’ll do you a favor.”

“Already owe me plenty of those.”

“Then you can cash one in right now!”

You sigh loudly again, but Luke knows you’re just being dramatic for fun. You turn around, leaning against the open doorway. There’s a soft gust of wind, and you look rather pretty even when you’re half-glaring at him. The fluorescent lights behind you form a halo over your head.

It’s muffled by your embarrassment, but you say something that sounds like, “I had a dream that you got a girlfriend.”

Luke nearly laughs at the thought, but he knows that you’d take it wrong if he busted out laughing right now. Very calmly, he says, “You gotta speak up, killer. I don’t understand.”

Your hands are clasped together behind your back, probably making creases in the fabric. Very quickly, you repeat, “I had a dream that you got a girlfriend.”

Luke squints. He tilts his head slightly and taps the other side in hopes it’ll fix his hearing issue. “Uh. Say that again?”

You lean forward to shove at his shoulder, your eyes tilted towards the floor.

You’re embarrassed.

“I know you heard it the first time. I’m not saying it again.”

The words ring in his head.

I had a dream that you got a girlfriend.

It wasn’t a hallucination. You actually said that.

He sputters, his face catching on literal fire. “I—oh. I didn’t… couldn’t hear you. Did she… Who was she?”

You roll your eyes at his first choice of question. “I dunno. Some girl.”

Luke definitely feels like there’s more to it, but he’ll take whatever information he can get. “But why were you crying? Was she mean to you?”

You stay quiet. You’re halfway into the building now, shifting away from him.

“She was nice,” you offer, picking at a piece of wood on the pillar you’re leaning on.

“That’s why you were upset?”

You shake your head. “No.”

“Killer.”

“What?”

“Just tell me. I won’t joke, I promise.”

He even tucks hair out of your face because he knows it makes you happy when he does. Something he’s learned about you over the years is that just the right amount of affection will get you to do anything — even admit something you find super embarrassing.

The confession spills out of you without another second of prompting.

“I was sad because you had a girlfriend. And nothing was the same anymore.”

The thought of it is insane to him. Sure, having a girlfriend is something he’s thought about before, but not once has he ever thought about it affecting your friendship.

After all, you’re you. No single person could ever come between that.

“Why?” he asks genuinely. “You’re my best friend. Nothing will change that.”

You step out of the doorway to stand in front of him, which Luke takes as an absolute win.

He opens his arms, and you wrap yourself around his torso. “Thanks, hero. But we weren’t spending any time together when you had a girlfriend. And I get why, but I was just upset.”

This is interesting to him, seeing as finding time for you is like a literal power he has. He once communicated with you through paper and a window when you were isolated with the flu.

Luke gives you a self indulgent shoulder rub. “Why didn’t we spend time together?”

You shrug. “You spent all your time with your girlfriend instead. It was so weird. I couldn’t remember the last time I spoke to you.”

Luke thinks the way you’re so worked up about it is sweet. He understands why you’re upset, but he wishes you knew that there was no possibility of this specific dream becoming real.

Even his nightmares where you’re jumped by an evil Chiron are more likely to happen than him ignoring you.

“I wouldn’t stop talking to you, no matter if I had a girlfriend or not. You’re important to me. I don’t know what I’d do if we weren’t friends.”

You stay quiet with your chin hooked over his shoulder. You don’t really believe him — Luke can tell by the way you don’t settle.

“Okay,” you say.

“Hey. I’m serious.”

“I know.”

He says your real name, and you soften into the hug.

(It’s like his trump card.)

He wonders if thinking like this would make him a bad future boyfriend, but he tells you the truth. “Nothing would change my friendship with you. Not even a girlfriend.”

You pick at a loose thread along the line of his shoulder.

“C’mon, you know me. I’d never stop talking to you. Ever. You come first before anything.”

Luke trails off towards the end of his last sentence. If he did have a girlfriend, that part wouldn’t sound normal, but he says it anyway because it’s true. He would choose you over anyone.

When you lean back, it’s to smile at him. He finds himself reflecting it back to you.

“You done worrying now?” he asks.

You’ve been biting your lip. It’s stained a little red, and he presses his thumb into a spot where you’ve drawn blood.

“Yep. I’m done worrying.”

Luke already knows he has a stupid smile on his face when you close the door to the bathrooms. He just doesn’t care.

a/n. killer is the girl best friend luke tells other girls not to worry about (she is going to sleep in his bed tonight btw.)

i tried to make the end as cheesy and sappy and cringy as i could bc i already Know they were traumatizing anyone at camp who’s ever had a crush on the other lol. #FREECAMPHALFBLOOD

[percabething]

Fateful Beginnings

XXXIX. “why, why, why?”

parts: previous / next

plot: there’s just something about Bruce that clicks into place, whether you like it or not.

pairing: battinson!bruce wayne x fem!reader

cw: 18+, blood, melancholy, tension

words: 7.4k

a/n: some things are bubbling over !! 🤭 ahh this is such a critical chapter !! as always, i adore knowing what you think !! any and all reactions, i will ecstatically receive them <3

A scream ripped apart your throat, your hands thrashing around your head to knock the gun away. Too terrified to open your eyes, you crunched your body inward, covering your ears with your palms and praying it would be over soon. Hot tears streamed thick off your cheeks, and you couldn’t take in a full breath. Soft vibrations shook your bed, and you heard a hinge creak. 

Thank god, Bruce. Your shaky hands fell to your sides and you sniffed, your eyes swollen with tears shed while you’d slept. It would be over soon.

Your dad stood in the doorway, panicked. “What’s going on?”

Too disappointed to procure an explanation, you hung your head, and worked to find your breath. He joined you at the edge of your bed, slowly rubbing your back. It was disorienting smelling your dad’s classic Old Spice deodorant he always wore, having been prepared to be embraced by the scent of gentle detergent and spicy body wash. Your body finally convinced it wasn’t dying nor getting comforted by Bruce Wayne, you fell back against the pillow. “Just a nightmare.”

“I need to tell your mother you’re okay, but I’ll be back.” He moved to get up but you called after him, weakly. “I want to go back to sleep, it’s fine.”

He stalled in the doorway, his graying hair framing his frown. “Never heard you scream like that, hon.” 

“Seriously, it’s fine. I want to sleep.”

“I’ll check on you later.”

“Okay.”

You rolled over in bed so your face was covered, almost hoping you’d suffocate. You willed yourself back to sleep, desperate to escape the disappointment that was slapping against your skin like sand knowing Bruce wasn’t there to hug you. How much more pathetic could you get, idolizing guilt-fueled hugs while lonely in your childhood bedroom? Nothing could convince you he didn’t regret them.

And nothing else would convince you to sleep, either. You’d pretended to snore when you heard your door opening an hour later, successfully tricking your dad into being peacefully asleep. You hated to worry him, hated to worry Bruce, hated that Miller had gotten you trapped in an alley in the first place. Everything hurt. The night felt wide, big, and lonely, and even that thought was a poor pill to swallow. You weren’t alone, but you probably would be soon. Your parents sat in the room next door, alive, and yet you couldn’t feel more isolated. 

You pulled the blanket around you, the sensation of Bruce’s arms wrapping round yours temporarily abating the flashbacks, but creating the most visceral sadness you’d felt in ages. A hollowness you’d felt so many times before, but never hitting so hard. His arms had been so wide, warm, and strong… while you wanted to sit in the sadness of knowing you’d never feel them again, you didn’t let yourself. You weren’t deserving of him holding you. 

But you wrapped the blanket tighter, squeezing your eyes and biting your tongue against the ravenous guilt as your head sunk deeper into the imaginary valley of his hugs. Your breathing slowed and your eyelids fluttered shut without effort as you reminisced on the rumble of his chest when you’d apologized, the stillness of the night around you, and the all-encompassing, deep-seated sense of safety that had surrounded you then. You sobbed yourself to sleep, but the nightmares were gone. 

The next morning you woke up to your mom’s gentle request to accompany her to the grocery. Not wanting to cause further distress, you tugged some sweats on and followed her to the kitchen for breakfast. Your eyes lingered on the copy of the Gazette your parents had somehow gotten their hands on, where your interview was front and center. On Bruce Wayne: Personal Reflections and a Promise to Gotham. You didn’t appreciate how difficult it was to tear your eyes away from it, grab the keys, and walk out the door.

Hoping you wouldn’t run into any of the trio had proved fruitful. You helped your mom grab some fruits, veggies, pasta, and snacks, still not used to pushing her wheelchair in front of you. Still not used to her being sick. Still hoping she didn’t get the placebo. Still hoping it would all work out. 

In the midst of checking out, your phone buzzed. Dr. Crane. Your mother waved you off, mouthing that she could finish, and you wandered to the freezer section before picking up. Though he’d been consistent, you still hadn’t gotten in the rhythm of anticipating his phone calls. Like a broken record, he asked you how Bruce seemed at the meeting, and the rally, his tone harsher with each interaction. 

“He seemed fine. A bit more distant, but fine.” 

“Not good. If he shows up Tuesday, ask him how he’s holding up. Call me no later than the next day, do you understand?” 

“Yes. I’m sorry for not being more forthright, it’s been such a whirlwind,”

“Would you give these excuses if he ends up dead?”

You almost dropped your phone, your mouth flying open at his frankness. Quickly, so as not to disturb the mother with three energetic children dancing around the Kid Cuisine, you rushed out of the aisle, stumbled through the rest of the call, and assured him you’d call Wednesday afternoon with an update. He ended the call with another reminder of how dire the situation remained, in a tone that made it seem like everything was your fault. Maybe it was.

You were numb through the rest of the weekend, routinely driving your mom to her appointment, sitting with her for her shot, driving her home, then going on walks through the neighborhood. You followed that pattern through the weekend. It passed without dwelling, without happiness or distress. The leaves were just starting to fall from the dense-leaved branches swaying in the wind. Life was kinder here, gentler, but it didn’t soothe you. 

Looking at the tree in your yard at the end of the breezy Sunday walk was the first time you came back into your body. Under the tree was patchy green grass, but you overlaid it with an imaginary pile of leaves from the photo you’d shown Bruce. Your heart compressed remembering the crossed line, and the very real possibility of no more one-on-ones with him. The wind blew your hair into your face, and your mom asked for help up the stairs. You felt neither here nor there, stuck between two cities, and two very different lives. For the first time you almost missed Gotham. You couldn’t place why.

Walter rubbed your leg when you came in, following you to the kitchen for a glass of water before settling onto the couch. He nestled in your lap and you spent the rest of the evening struggling not to dissociate. Your dad cooked something in the kitchen, your mom knit something at the end of the couch that Walter kept eyeing, and you sat, aching with how fragile this all was.

Your phone buzzed. Walter jumped when you startled, his claws tightening on your knees. 

Everyone has apartments secured through next fall. 

Working on getting subway passes secured.

Had he… not told Alfred not to speak to you? His butler as he’d so coolly referred to him the other day, had already texted you that. You frowned. 

“What’re you looking at, sweetie?” Your mom set down her knitting needles, folding her hands in her lap. Walter readjusted with a huff, tail flicking. 

Thanks for the update! Too chipper for someone creating more work for him. Thanks for the update. But what if the conversation ended there? 

Thanks for the update, that sounds like a good idea. 

“What’s that hon?” Your dad walked in holding a tray of whatever dinner was tonight, you’d already forgotten. The drive to stare at nothing but your screen until he responded was too great, so you tucked the phone under your thigh, face-down. Walter tapped at it with his paw. 

You yawned, playing off the worried smile that’d intruded on your cheeks. “I’m working with someone to house people. The weather is horrible in winter.” 

“Who are you working with?”

There was no way in hell you were saying his name in this house when they’d just understood to stop calling him your boyfriend. “A philanthropist. Someone with too much money on their hands.”

“That’s good, honey.”

BZZT.

Thanks for the push. 

By this point Walter was done with you, your overly-excited breathing pattern making him jump from your lap to your mom’s. Thanks for the push? Thanks for promising his time and money without any contact? 

Honesty. It was always the least complicated. 

You don’t have to thank me, I should’ve asked.

People are safe because of you. 

Don’t have to ask when safety is involved.

You didn’t think he really meant that, and his kindness didn’t sit well. Was he worried he came off too mean? Had you shown how affected you were by his silence, wore it on your sleeve at the encampment? Was he someone who worried about the feelings of others? Don’t think so. What was it you’d said again? Mutually-assured destruction? Holding the miserable weight of the lie had made you forget it wasn’t just guilt that spurred his continued engagement with you: you knew his biggest secret. 

I didn’t do anything, actually. You and Alfred have been doing the work.

Wouldn’t have happened if you didn’t set it in motion.

Just as you moved to put it away, it buzzed again.

See you at Hady’s rally?

God, he didn’t have to be so nice. He didn’t have to talk to you. How could you convince him? That you wouldn’t tell his secret, that he didn’t have to talk to you, that it actually was not cool to step over boundaries time and time again? You wanted to release him from the burden of knowing you. 

But, to not leave him hanging, you responded before turning your phone off the rest of the night.

I’ll be there.

In the middle of the night on the brink of sleep, you slapped around your mattress to turn on your phone’s alarm. Your mom had dubbed you chauffeur for her visit with Debbie in the morning.  “She’d love to see you.” Rather, love to know that you were still alive, conceptualizing Gotham (not too incorrectly) as a giant, lethal maze. This rendered your usual approach to sleep, at least since the attack, an even more taxing affair; keeping your eyes open as long as they could hold their own weight to stave off the inevitable nightmares. 

Peering through slits to turn the brightness down, you had a text from Bruce.

I’m not mad at you.

He’d sent it ten minutes ago. You blinked and checked the time: 3:35am. 

With half a crumb of energy left, no room for adrenaline to spike a body worn from emotion, you stumbled through a text. Too many backspaces and rewrites, but it sent. 

It’s okay if you are. You don’t have to talk to me, seriously. 

You set your alarm and figured he was out, too busy stopping some guys in a back alley to respond. 

Do you not want me to?

You had a similar somatic response as when you’d thrown your phone across the room. It embarrassed you how much you wanted him to keep talking to you. To let you know he was okay. To keep unwrapping the endless layers of his armor. 

I’m just saying you don’t need to feel obligated. 

The adrenaline that you’d thought couldn’t possibly inhabit your body as it neared comatose was storming through your veins and propping your elbow to use both hands. 

I don’t. 

There’s no way.

No way?

Sometimes his simplest responses had you feeling the most; you felt the crumbling weight of your history once more, cracking a canyon between you. So many threads intertwining there was no way to tell what motive was propelling the conversation at any given time. 

I know too much.

Can I call?

You looked around your room like anyone would show up. Like a camera crew would pop out and tell you this was an elaborate scheme about the way a normal person would react to a billionaire vigilante. That Gotham was one big play. That your reactions were being measured and studied for the betterment of humanity. The curveballs kept feeling like orchestrated plot twists. 

Sure.

His name popped up onscreen. Speaker, then down on your mattress. “Hello?”

“Don’t feel bad for knowing.”

You grinned, the laugh you held in evaporating the shock at calling him for the first time. His tone was so matter-of-fact, like he thought his demand was gospel. “It doesn’t work like that.”

He paused so long you wondered if the call had dropped. His speech was pressured, but slowed as the words continued to flow. “I don’t mind that you didn’t ask. I’m not mad at you. It’s good to help. I wasn’t helping in that way.” He took a short breath then, slowing his tempo. “It’s not your fault that you know. You don’t need to carry this.”

You slipped down closer to the speaker, slipping your hand under your head as it hit the pillow. “You don’t need to worry about if I’m mad at you. You don’t need to worry about keeping me safe. If you think it’s your fault, you don’t need to hold that. You’ve done enough.”

Your head sunk deeper into the pillow. “I’ve done too much.” 

He paused again. You held your breath, that guilt scrambling you up. Outside of the sound of a branch tapping against your window with the pull of the wind, the night was still around his words. “I don’t want you holding that, either.” 

Your voice warbled, but you hoped it came across steady. Maybe the rain had started up in Gotham, and the roof of his car was muffling it. Your body was drained. Your conscience peeking through. “I don’t deserve to let it go.” 

“You wanted to help.” Maybe it was a figment of your imagination and you were projecting, but his tone softened, and your blanket held you again. “I don’t blame you for trying.” Impossible, but as if he heard the tears rolling down your cheeks, he repeated it, gently. “I won’t ever blame you for that.” 

Even as the tears streamed down your face and soaked the pillow with a river of wet, as you scrunched your body to contain any audible sound of your tears, as you felt the room’s emptiness swallow you up, you so pathetically, desperately, wanted to know he was alright. You wanted to hold him so you could feel it.

Only when you were sure your voice wouldn’t shake did you respond. “You don’t mean that.”

“And you did help.”

But at what cost? You bit your lip and covered it with your hand, fighting with everything you had to keep your sobs at bay. You pictured how he might’ve looked now, emotionally fractured and worn. Deflection was the only response that let the tears stay unheard. “Aren’t you supposed to be saving people right now?”

“Trying to.”

The silence that followed was thrumming with something unplaceable, but unmistakably present. Not quite tension, not quite release. Deliberation? 

What if you told him the truth? Whispered below the echo of the wind, caught between the layers of wallpaper, resigned to staying in this bed the rest of your life if it all blew up in your face? Bruce, I have something to tell you… you opened your mouth through the tears. 

“I’ll let you sleep.” 

Both saying bye, he hung up first. You pressed your wet cheek to the pillow, and repeated his words until you drifted away.

All weekend, Bruce had tried to forget you. The therapy appointment rattled around the back of his thoughts, unable to be sufficiently shelved. Only after the third night on patrol where he couldn’t shake you off did he get serious, leaving early for the first time in his project not due to debilitating injury. Instead, he bathed in the glow of his computer as he researched trauma responses. After a few hours of frustrated scrolling, wearing through the bearings on his stool with incessant leg-shaking, he had an answer: his body was confused, associating you with the loss of his parents, and he could decondition that response through exposure.

He already knew basic psychology; in the years following their deaths, he’d read every one of his dad’s textbooks. They covered everything from neurobiology to motivational interviewing techniques, especially helpful with convincing the thin-skinned criminal into releasing critical information. Bruce never thought to direct that knowledge toward himself, particularly not toward his emotions. What was the point of sitting in the confines of his thoughts when he could be out making a real difference? But now, something he’d just learned was exceptionally common, that suppression had clawed its way to the surface. Turned out the ‘feel to heal’ charade Iris and Alfred had been on about had been getting at something after all.

It made perfect sense; so much so, in fact, that he was upset he hadn’t made the obvious connection sooner. When you discovered his identity, it had jeopardized the entire mission; it forced his life’s work, his family’s legacy, the future of Gotham, to hang in the balance. It must have threatened an underlying sense of safety and stability—the same thing that happened when his parents had been killed. A shock, something entirely unprecedented. Triggering his fight or flight and throwing off his nervous system. Forming you into a walking embodiment of his trauma. Associating you with that fear. A grip so rooted and overwhelming it kept you at the front of his concerns, making him vomit on street corners and panic at the thought of you. 

Bruce saw it so clearly now it was almost funny. Caring about your wellbeing had been an automatic act of self-preservation; if you were appeased (a fawn response, he’d read), his safety, his secret, was more secure. Security felt good, of course it did, which was why he felt nice being around you. Iris hadn’t taught him anything he didn’t already know; he’d already been engaging in exposure therapy without awareness. All the pieces fell comfortably into place, like the next steps: spending more time with you to build distress tolerance. Desensitize himself from the trigger, enhancing focus and productivity for the good of Gotham. Cracking the code flooded him with such relief he could hardly breathe. 

Following his expression in therapy, he’d resonated with a mantra: ‘where there’s smoke, there’s fire’. If something in interactions with you activated him, he’d go toward it. Ask more questions, sit in the tense silence—the most important aspect being that he wouldn’t turn away. He’d outlined a few particularly distressing parts of previous interactions, planning to document progress as he went. ‘Only way out is through’, and all that.

One of the triggers was asking you to spend time with him. Another was being alone with you. It didn’t take long for him to set his path, outfitting a spare room into a home theater after Saturday night’s research. Watching movies, talking… he felt the anxious adrenaline heating his veins already. 

After enough clumsily dropped screwdrivers and wood boards, Alfred had wandered up to check on him. His mind was busy after hours of phone calls to apartment buildings around the city, having no bandwidth to poke around Bruce’s antics. He hadn’t said anything, just looked around, nodded, and left. Bruce was glad for it. He hadn’t the slightest idea how he’d explain that this room was essentially an extension of New Discoveries. A visit he’d also kept secret from the man, too.

The room was a few levels above the bedrooms. Far enough away from his usual Tower dwellings, he wouldn’t have to think about it outside of actively walking to it. He’d also considered the possibility of having that room as its own sort of exposure—maybe after enough visits he’d associate the room with the same symptoms, and just sitting in it could prove therapeutic. He wondered how many movies he’d have to endure before you stopped being activating. He hoped one hand would be enough to count them on, and as few fingers as possible. One-two. Pointer and middle.

He’d messaged you after setting up the room; sweeping, lugging, building, organizing, placing, it had been more than he’d anticipated, ending up on the floor of the just-rolled carpet at three in the morning. He was haunted by the realization that he hadn’t reorganized or built a single piece of furniture since his parent’s death. In an attempt at normalcy, he’d been certain Dory and Alfred had schemed on days he was away to trade out his mattress, wordlessly placing new copies of the same outfit in his laundry basket at the end of the week. 

Texting you had brought a compulsion above water; a thought so intrusive it wouldn’t leave him alone, bruising him with an emotional gut-punch until he pressed send. He needed you to know he wasn’t upset with you. Clear the air, reorient, after days of sitting in the confines of his garbled thoughts had drained him. Even patrol hadn’t fixed it; he’d been distracted, unable to tunnel his vision to anything that wasn’t you. 

He’d sat on the edge of the new couch as he talked with you, phone jammed to his ear with excessive force. When he hung up he felt like a pot ready to boil; overthinking what he said, how he said it, and to what end he’d said it for. Had it been to placate you? It had to be, right? That’s what all of this was, safety-seeking.

He’d spent the next day in the batcave scribbling ideas for the next few nights out, including tentative dates of when to spend time with you. Though he continued to push himself to the brink, it didn’t keep the thoughts at bay when his body hit the mattress. The lullaby of exposure’s sweet relief was the only reprieve. It was imminent, he knew it. It would be over soon. 

Tuesday afternoon, his hands shook while buttoning his dress shirt, forcing abandonment for the first shirt without them. His form in the mirror looked lopsided, missing accessories. Alfred had a collection of rings and watches in a chest by the desk in his study, and after slipping each on every finger, the only one that fit was a polished gold band. He matched a watch to it, ran pomade through his hair about a hundred times before his rotator cuffs drew sore, and, not able to find the Guerlain, sprayed the next cologne on his dresser and made do.

When he wasn’t micromanaging his appearance, he was pacing the room upstairs for anything out of place. He checked in the mini fridge, checking the single-serving bubbly wines tucked between bottles of water, and on the side-table where various candies sat. 

He reassured himself it was necessary he was doing this, and therefore good. The room already made him nervous, made his skin itchy and hot beneath the cashmere that begged to escape the cling of his sweaty skin. If someone peeled open his chest, they could see a wall building in real time. What if you didn’t want to come? What if you walked in and thought the whole thing was as ridiculous, stupid, and silly as he felt it was? 

Too quickly he turned to leave, breaking apart a scab on his side from the night before. In his muddled state, an assailant had landed a cut just above his waist. Just deep enough to ache more than it stung. Bruce flicked the light off, hoping the shade of his shirt would cover any oozing blood.

You felt less welcome each time you entered these rooms. Shifting eyes or outright stares, it didn’t matter—the message ‘you don’t belong here’ with a side-order of ‘slut’ echoed off the walls and twinkled in the chandeliers. Dismissing their opinions was easier when you couldn’t feel their eyes like daggers on your skin, though you still tried.

 You cringed to think this was the ceiling of excellence, but if they wanted to think you’d fucked your way ‘to the top’, so be it. Maybe your homestyle charm could eventually convince them to release their grip on archaic, patriarchal vices. 

Who were you kidding—you had far higher priorities than being a martyr of feminism against rumors of Bruce Wayne.

Speaking of, he was the first person you noticed in the crowd; Bruce was thrown in the middle of the bustle, a likely side-effect of the nationally-covered Manifest Killer, as people across socials were calling the man who’d tried to befriend him. As great your desire to follow that lead, you’d reminded yourself to commit your energy to the election; in a city as huge and chaotic as Gotham, you’d never make any headway otherwise.

On the plane here you’d thought about whether or not to follow up with the Crown Point residents, and considered consulting him about it. Troubleshoot the ethics of interviewing them after essentially giving them such transformative gifts as housing and food. By the end of the flight you’d begrudgingly tossed the prospect of publishing their thoughts, finding no way to remain unbiased on either end of the exchange. When you worried about removing their voice, it helped to remember they were safe now. Wasn’t that the point of helping them be heard, anyway? Wasn’t that what they’d explicitly told you they wanted?

The subtle halo of warmth around Bruce caused your train of thought to falter; from what you could see, he looked spruced up tonight. Black on black on black, making his inky hair pop a shade lighter. For once not shrouding his ears, his hair was combed back clean, and the combination made him stand out in the sea of brown, gray, and white—a gold ring on his pinky snagged your attention. He’s never worn rings before. 

The warmth grew spiky and suffocating as you watched concerned, sympathetic pouts swoon around him. A dozen women snuggled close, personal, almost flush to parts of his body. A few held his wrists, rubbed his arms, and one of them leaned their head on his shoulder. For a moment, as you watched one of them toy with the hem of his sweater, your concerns about coming across entitled were abated. Did they even ask? 

You couldn’t see his face, unable to tell if he was loving or hating it, but you had a hypothesis. Possibly being the single most prized bachelor in the U.S. and, most importantly, a man in Gotham, led you to believe he was calculating how many of them could fit in his bed at once. What had he said at graduation? Already spoken for? Had that been a kind way to reject your parent’s fantasies? 

Your gaze traveled the perimeter of him; his broad shoulders, the subtle outline of his biceps under the turtleneck. He ran a hand through his hair, a movement which had his back muscles rippling, and your stomach somersaulted. He tucked his hand into the front pocket of his slacks, which pulled the fabric ever so slightly tighter around his thighs. 

A manicured hand traveled from the hem of his sleeve up to the skin below his ear, and your stomach curdled with a strange possessiveness. Only realized you’d been biting your lip when one of the women bit theirs. Each touch of their hands along his body deepened the straining tension in your chest, percolated along your own fingertips. He had to be enjoying the women primping themselves before walking up, eyes sparkling and wide, cheeks blushed, dying for a quick brush of his skin or a velvety whisper.

Bruce turned around then, his attention wandering from the entrance to sweep across the room. His face only entered full view when his eyes latched on to yours. Maybe it was how his hair was splayed across his forehead, or the smudge of his dark lashes and brows against the paleness of his cheeks, or the angle of his shoulders when he turned, but heat prickled every pore, a flash of it sinking into your cheeks so hot it burned, and your heart leapt into your throat. 

You tucked your eyes back toward the appetizers, hastening your gait to escape his immobilizing eye contact. The lights became fuller, brighter, and the room’s chorus faded to a dull purr. Had his jaw always been so cut? Face always so clean shaven? Had your jaw always threatened to tremble when he looked at you like that? Was your breathing always this conscious? 

You grabbed a flute of champagne and moved it so quickly to your lips it clinked your teeth. As you pulled it away, the glass nearly slipped between your fingers, only caught at the last possible second before evading your grasp entirely. Something had slipped into place alongside the champagne, finding opportunity in the wake of sudden weightlessness. What is this feeling?

You found it impossible to look back. Whatever had fallen into alignment was pulsing in your throat and blurring your vision. Barely making out the women beside you speaking hushed, excited words, they spoke like they’d been given a cue. ‘He’s coming over, oh my gosh’ ‘He’s so—’

Clipping a gasp before it could materialize, it hit you all at once with a cruel overwhelm, like a frigid wave biting at frozen limbs. The feeling in your gut, the catch in your throat, the lightning rod that slammed through you whenever he smiled, whenever he laughed… Searing, whipping stings of emotion ripped through you. 

“Hey.” 

Shit, shit, shit. An immediate longing broke ground, a desire to wedge yourself against his chest and cling onto him while his arms skated your back. Breathing bottomed out, your feet fell through the floor as you chanced a look up, tripping into stormy blue eyes. Eyes that appeared questioning, pupils that begged widening, making you forget your tongue was capable of speaking. 

His eyes narrowed nearly imperceptibly while you wrestled—rather, fell victim to—the crooked sensation of being consumed by him. His attention so focused, the gentle tenor of his voice, the slope of his cheekbones, the texture of his skin, the color of his lips. The jump in your bones when his brows knit together, like they were doing now. So baroque, elevated, divine.

“You alright?”

You tore your gaze to the floor, but even the sight of his shoes stunned you with a dopamine rush. You were trapped, body simultaneously offline and throttled into overdrive. This feeling…

With the tempo of a cat stalking skittish prey, your eyes raised back to his. Crests of a blue so pale and soft danced through streaks of deeper, moodier hues. His lashes were lit from a fixture overhead, reminding you of a light stream through a meadow, or a river on a summer day. 

His eyes, oh, his eyes… lost in their current, you could drown and die happily. They trailed along your face now, and it felt like a caress. Like a palm and cheek cut from the same stone. Was he even real?

The squeak of a mic broke the trance and the dam was broken, flooding you with embarrassment. “Sorry, I’m tired,” your voice was muffled under Hady’s introduction across the room. “I came straight from the airport.” How long had you been gawking? And how much longer could you get away with it? 

He lowered his voice and leaned in. You wondered what would happen if he completed the journey and landed on your lips. A rush of blood went to your head. Though entirely overwhelming, the opportunity didn’t often present itself that you were so close you could smell his cologne and detergent, so you made sure to drink it up. New notes of pine and bergamot jammed your tongue between your teeth. That’s what it was: he was enchanting. “Would you be up for a movie after?”

Jesus, the thought of being alone with him was too much. You thought of the first excuse you could, hoping he’d get the hint before the red flush in your face took center stage. “My place is messy right now,”

He shrugged, and you stared at his lips in anticipation. He tucked his lower lip under his teeth right before he spoke, and you could’ve fainted. He wasn’t making this any easier to swallow. “My place works, if you want to do it.”

Guilt was present, but differently now—guilt about not caring what fueled his ask, too busy hypnotized by the prophecy of sitting beside him on his couch. You tried to play it cool but knew you were failing, and any hopes that he was too naive to notice didn’t have enough merit to form. 

“Yes, um.” Shaking your head was only making your vision hazier, so you stalled, blurting the first words that cropped up. “I want to do it. I’d love to do it.” 

You squeezed your eyes tight, wishing you could teleport away and back again after you got your bearings. A few minutes screaming in the mirror might do the trick, hands on either side of the porcelain sink, jumping in place to metabolize the cartwheels in your stomach. 

The laugh that came out was more of a bellow, or a cackle, sitting awkwardly in-between. “I just don’t know what movie to watch.” When you opened your eyes again, stars peppered the periphery. Your cheeks were so hot you could’ve fried an egg on them, you were absolutely certain. 

“Have the rest of the rally to think.”

You nodded and he nodded, and you couldn’t stop the pounding in your ears as he walked away, or the hotspots of where your eyeline wanted to focus. Not five minutes ago he’d been anyone else; familiar, but not special. You’d entered untouched by his charms, spells that ran laps around everyone else, yet you would leave stripped, barren, and won. You couldn’t in good faith entertain that this feeling was fleeting, borrowed, or fake. No matter how tempting it might be to pretend, to shove back the clear signals your body gave, this experience was too distinct to play coy. 

Assimilating into the crowd took more courage and energy than you might’ve liked. Eva and the others were clustered by the stage, scouring iPads and flashing photos. They refused to acknowledge you as you took a back aisle seat, but it felt less weighted—the rooms, the opinions, the people. Everything except him.

You couldn’t stop your eyes wandering his street, spending the rest of the rally memorizing trivial things like his height and which leg he put more weight on. Parts of him were highlighted you’d never noticed before. How he drew a breath when anyone talked to him, like he hoped he’d disappear. Every time someone touched him his eyebrow cocked; the right one if they were on his left, the left on his right. The double blink he did when someone waved a demure goodbye, right before his eyes fixed on the ground between his feet. How his thumb dragged across his pointer finger for a minute after each interaction. How his face was utterly flat until someone approached him directly, and he pulled an expression together. The stories I’m making up in my head. 

Hady had time for press questions with a noticeably sparse crowd, but you didn’t have any. You’d been too busy staring at Bruce going on two hours, and it still wasn’t long enough. You didn’t have any philosophical, earth-shattering takeaways from that time, only a lilting paranoia of why you hadn’t sooner realized how incredibly attractive he was. It was so transparent. 

Filing toward the exit. 

Your phone buzzed. 

Need a ride? 

You looked to see him staring at you from across the room, phone in hand. His brow cocked as if to ask again, and you could’ve sworn a breeze swept the foyer, skin permanently adorned in goosebumps. What type?

Your face flushed furiously, thrown off kilter by the hex he’d cast on the room. Whatever deity wanted some karmic release, they needed to slow down. Feeling exposed, you nodded, and he looked down to his screen again. 

Back in five minutes. 

And he was already gone. You followed the group in front of you without thought; unaware of your surroundings, you caught the heel of the man in front, and his glare brought you back to the dirt. 

Bruce Wayne? Of everyone you’d ever met, every minute and hour spent conversing with people your whole entire life… him? This feeling was scarily embedded, like it’d been lying dormant and festering. 

You shook out your shoulders and shook out your wrists. You were incorrect, it was fleeting, it was fake. It was everything you thought it wasn’t, because it couldn’t be this. Instead of a truth to be excavated, it could be simple—he was attractive. Pretty. Really, really pretty. That was all it needed to be. 

The room held more oxygen now that he was gone, letting your mind defrost. To ensure it stayed that way, you fixated on different parts of the room. An askew shingle on a chandelier, a man laughing while his wife stood behind rolling her eyes, that same group of people holding up the exit. 

Intrusively, you pictured how it might be to blend into the crowd. What might it have been like if you hadn’t gone to the club that night? At the very least, you’d be able to get close to him without scandal. Whether or not you’d be a part of his many ogling admirers was less of an open-shut case. If he hadn’t snapped at you here, hadn’t seethed at you in the basement and set you on edge, if he hadn’t slammed his hands on his dining table and stormed out, would things have been different? Would these clandestine meetings be cracked wide open? Would you have even bothered with him? Would he have even bothered with you? You felt so out of your mind it wasn’t funny.

Sounds of umbrellas bursting open broke you from the line, and you hurried for the exit after ten minutes of daydreaming. Bruce was only now pulling up with the headlights cut, a smear of something bright on the wheel strangling your lungs. In a second you were beside him, gaping at the blood painting his knuckles. 

It was then that you attuned to his breathing, fast and deep, and noticed the sweat beading on his forehead, and the smush of his now-matted hair. He glanced at your seatbelt, waiting for the hesitant click before gunning it. “What happened?”

He shook his head; beneath the cracked skin and blood drippings, his knuckles bloomed a stark white as he tightened his grip on the wheel. He noticed you staring there, and grumbled an answer to interrupt your fixating. “Had to interrupt something.” He’d circled around campus to throw off reporters when a masked group shot pellets at a whining, terrified dog. A few choice punches and they’d gone running, flashing lights of the police chasing them in the background as he’d circled back to city hall.

Giving him a once-over showed a black ski mask tucked between his thigh and center console. It glinted red under a passing streetlight, revealing a large wet spot on his right side. “Bruce, stop, you’re–”

“I’m fine.” He winced after, driving a strong shake of his head. His face remained scrunched, his fingers somehow still tightening around the steering. A side glance as you opened your mouth to speak prompted him to roll his eyes, pressing harder on the gas. 

“You’re bleeding a lot.” Sick and tired of hearing him say how fine he was, you unclicked your seatbelt. He shot a glare and slowed to a stop. “Do you have a first aid kit?”

His mouth twitched like he might say something, but he sat silently. His eyes moved as if mulling something over, culminating in a tight squeeze of his eyes and a frustrated sigh. He unbuckled and shifted toward you, raising his arm. His eyes looked the entire other direction, like he didn’t want to look at his injuries. Or he didn’t want to look at you. “Use the mask.” 

You picked up the damp fabric as his left hand pulled up his shirt, unsure how much this would even help. Something had grazed him just below the ribs, oozing bright, thin blood from the center. Your hand hovered a few inches away, feeling how scrapy the knit was. “I don’t know, it’s really rough,”

“Wipe it.”

Your bag slipped on your shoulder as you leaned in, reminding you of the cotton tee you’d worn at the airport. You dropped the mask and fumbled around to pull it out.

“What are you doing?”

He sucked in air with a gasp when you did the first swipe, his posture snapping upright. He stayed there, tense, as you dabbed at the small slit. Your fingers slipped when you folded to a dry section, knuckles grazing his skin. He let out a strangled breath from his nose. 

You looked up to gauge his pain, and his face was tight, eyes closed, lips pursed. “I got most of it,”

“Get it all.” His voice was low and hoarse. You didn’t think he’d ever looked more uncomfortable. It didn’t look that bad…

You eyed him nervously, but obliged. Your left hand flattened around the wound, carefully spreading it apart to soak up the blood nearly spilling over. Applying firm, cautious pressure caused his abdomen to clench, the tiniest groan from him making your fingers grow cold and trembly. 

Immediately your eyes wandered his torso. Each bruise and scar demanded your concentration, a concentration that was drawing increasingly inward as your pulse raced, following the slopes and valleys of his abs. You struggled to dominate your jagged, short breaths before they gave you away. What if I reached out and, fuck. His skin pleaded to be explored and, oh my god, he’s so close, we’re alone. 

His shuddering, clenched body, fuck! Shame bit at you, shoveling insults until you crumbled and pulled both hands from his body. It was hot to see him in pain? God, you were so fucking shitty to him. The collision of such hot and cold emotions nauseated you. 

“Put them back.” 

You stilled. “What?” 

You looked at each other like a deer in headlights. He swallowed hard, stammering. “U-Unless you finished.”

You hadn’t heard him stutter before. “Uh,”

“I thought you stopped because of pain,”

“I mean, kinda,”

“It is painful, but,”

“I know, I’m, I finished.”

You both faced front and stared at the empty street. Must hurt more than I think. You followed his lead and buckled when he did, trying not to sneak glances to the corner of your vision until he pulled his shirt down. You wrung your fingers in your lap. 

Just as you were prepared for him to take the usual left turn in, he swung a right, tucking the car into a vacant side street. 

“Want to move to the back?”

Your heart skipped, and you nearly choked on the spit that had accumulated in the back of your throat. Before you could utter a redundant what?, your face spoke for you. Confused, he gestured to the seat behind him. He turned his guarded, absent stare to the leather console between you. “Reporters.”

Oh. You scurried out so he might not catch how much deeper your complexion was turning, frightened enough by how willing you’d been. You laid flat to the seat, folding your hands over your stomach as he took off. You pressed the apex of your thumbs into the bottom of your ribcage, tempering your breathing. Your heart fluttered and jumped, your stomach was hard as a rock, and the world moved a million miles an hour. 

Streetlights reflected off the windows, dancing parallelograms of light across the interior roof. Street turned to driveway, lights turned to flashes, and desire turned to torment. Why the hell did it have to be him? Why, why, why? 

[percabething]

Warm - Bruce Wayne x Reader

Masterlist

A/N: I got an ask that said bruce wayne would forget how to speak if you sat in his lap so here we are. just a short one bc i have a few longer fics for bruce in the works and a few for adrian but i still wanna post something so :)

Word Count: 1.3k+

Warnings: language??? idk i think that's all

───✱*.｡:｡✱*.:｡✧*.｡✰*.:｡✧*.｡:｡*.｡✱ ───

You forgot how cold it is down in the Batcave.

You're sitting so close to him, with your head leaning on his shoulder and his big leather jacket wrapped around your body, yet you're still chilly. Your bare legs are covered in goosebumps, and upon self reflection you realise that wearing only a flimsy pair of pyjamas to visit your boyfriend in the cold basement of his tower probably wasn't the best idea.

Bruce is fine, though, his body having adapted to the frigid air in the two years he's spent down here. Still, you're shocked by the fact that he's wearing only an oversized black shirt and a pair of sweats.

He's leaning forwards, watching the footage on the screen with intent, narrowed eyes. Occasionally, he'll point at the recording and tell you something about that particular moment, but you're not listening. Not really. Instead, your eyes are trailing from his broad shoulders down to his thighs, taking in every little piece of him. He looks so warm and comfortable, and you want nothing more than to be in his arms, to have him shield you from the cold.

And that's exactly what you're going to get, you decide.

You're inching closer to him, pressing your bouncing legs against his, waiting for the right moment to pounce on him and steal all of his warmth for yourself. He notices, too, because he looks down at you with raised, concerned brows and tells you softly, "You can go back upstairs, if you want. I'll be up soon."

To which you nuzzle his shoulder and reply with a quiet, "No, it's okay. I'm fine." You turn your attention to the screen, watching the footage of the crime scene for a moment. "Isn't it a little weird that you were invited to the crime scene? I mean, I didn't think Gordon would be allowed to do that."

"He isn't." He reaches his arm out and speeds up the video, just for a few seconds. "But the killer left this." On the screen, there's a card addressed 'To The Batman', and you watch as the card is opened. There's a riddle in there, and a key, too.

"Why would the killer leave that for you?" You ask, glancing between Bruce and the screen.

He lets out a sigh. It's soft, but there's a hint of frustration in there. It's not aimed at you, though you're aware that you probably just asked a stupid question. If he knew why the killer left a card for him, he wouldn't be sat beside you right now, searching for any missing clues in the footage. "I don't know. There's a cipher, too." He picks the cipher up from his desk and leans back in his chair.

Finally. Bingo.

He's looking down at the cipher, explaining the key to you and how it all links together, so you seize the opportunity. You stand up for a moment, and he doesn't even pay any attention to what you're doing until you're wrapping your arms around his neck, lowering yourself down until you're straddling him in his seat, your knees pressed against his thighs.

"....We think it's a— A—...." He trails off, letting out a shaky breath. He's still looking at the cipher in his hand, but his eyes are totally unfocused. His lips are parted, and from what you can make out from the dim lights, he has the cutest pink blush on his cheeks. You love getting him like this, all flustered and wound up. You've been dating for a while now, but with the way he reacts to your touch and intimate gestures, anyone would think you're still in the early days. It's a testament to how touch starved he was before you. It makes your heart hurt, that he never had anyone love him in this way before you came along, but you're so overjoyed that you're the only one who gets to love him like this now.

When he finally brings himself to nervously glance up at you, you give him a sweet smile. "Sorry. I'm just really cold, and you looked warm so..."

"S'okay." He murmurs, brushing his cipher-less hand down your waist gently.

"What were you saying before?" You ask, brushing a few loose strands of hair from his forehead. Now that you're settled in his lap, maybe you'll actually listen to what he's telling you.

"N-nothing. No. It doesn't— It's not important. You don't— It's not— Not important." He manages to stutter out, his voice barely shove a whisper.

You shake your head, "It is important, Bruce." You lean down and press your lips to his in a gentle, chaste kiss. "I want you to tell me." Partly because it's so cute watching him stumble over his words around you, and partly because you feel incredibly guilty for throwing him off.

He's quiet for a moment, staring up at you. He lets out a shaky breath before opening his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out, so he closes it again and glances away from you. As if not looking at you makes things easier. "We were—" His voice breaks and he clears his throat, taking a deep breath before continuing, "Alfred's been— He's been helping me out." His breath hitches in his throat when you run your hand down his cheek gently. "W-we were thinking it's a partial key. But— Uh. I— Uh, M'not so sure about that. I think— Maybe it's—" He lets out a quiet sigh. "Fuck. Sorry."

"It's okay. I think I'm the one who should be sorry. I had no idea that I'd be this much of a distraction." You tease. "I can get off, if it's an issue." You slowly start to push yourself up, but as expected he grabs on to your wrist with his free hand.

"No. You don't— Don't go. You can stay right here." He tells you.

"Are you sure? I don't wanna distract you."

Bruce shakes his head quickly, "You won't. You should— Stay here. I'll keep you warm." He gives you a small, reassuring smile.

He's lying. You know full well that you sitting in his lap is a distraction — a welcome one, but a distraction nonetheless. He can barely even think or form fluent, coherent sentences when you're sat on him like this. But he's insisting, so you grin at him and nod your head. "Okay. If you're sure."

"I am." He assures you.

You bury your face in his throat, nuzzling your nose against his warm skin. His breath hitches slightly, and he tenses up every time he feels your hot breath against his neck. But soon enough, he relaxes into your touch, and drops his shoulders until he's almost slouching. He's still studying the cipher, holding it behind your back in one hand while his other finds it's way into your hair, scratching at your scalp.

His lap is the safest place in Gotham.

You always find it so funny, that to everyone else he's so out of reach. They probably think he's incredibly lonely, with a cold soul from spending every single day of his life isolating himself in his tower. But they couldn't be more wrong. He has you, and you know he's anything but cold. He's a fire, in fact, and when you met him, he was sparking out. He was terribly lonely and lost, with no real reason to keep living. Then you came along, with your smile and your touch and your love, and you managed to stoke the embers of his dimming light. He's still lost, still trying to figure out his place in Gotham, what he's really fighting for. Some nights, his impulses get the better of him, and he crawls back into the shell of who he was before you.

That's okay. You understand, and you give your heart to him, anyway. He soon burns bright orange again.

As the minutes tick by, you start to feel your eyes drooping. His shoulder is the most comfortable pillow in the world right now, and your fight against sleep is feeble and listless from the get go. You know he doesn't have any plans to sleep, at least not yet. Sleep isn't something he does very often, nowadays. Chances are that you'll end up down here for a long time, until he decides to pick you up gently and carry you back upstairs to bed. Maybe you'll wake up next to him, maybe you won't. It doesn't matter, though, because either way you'll step into the elevator shortly after waking up, venture down to the basement and cuddle up in his arms all over again.

[percabething]

Cass' shadow being bat shaped???

No notes. Perfection.

[percabething]

Fateful Beginnings

XXXVIII. “for love”

parts: previous / next

plot: Bruce Wayne goes to therapy [NOT CLICKBAIT]

pairing: battinson!bruce wayne x fem!reader

cw: 18+, panic attack, vomit, blood, grief/trauma, yearning

words: 9.7k

a/n: more miscommunication, more of reader getting themselves into situations 💀 as far as I’m concerned, Bruce Wayne’s love language is ‘worry’. as always, i adore hearing allll of your comments!! please tell me everything lovelies, i adore interacting with you all <3

You’d probably bored him with your photos and reminiscing. Maybe he didn’t even have to go anywhere.

You’d hoped you’d been able to distract Bruce enough, even if he was just humoring you. In addition to the articles about the murderous stalker, you’d noted the bruises on his knuckles. After last Saturday when you’d learned he’d gone back to Batman, you’d been worried sick; worry tinged with anger at his immovable desire to get back into the muck, at his inability to let himself relax. You hoped you’d given him a sliver of that, a moment of reprieve so his system didn’t overload. It wasn’t realistic that his meds had fully set in yet. As Dr. Crane so diligently reminded you over the weekend, this time was fragile.

In a self-serving way that made your stomach hurt, in a way you didn’t want to fully admit to yourself and play off as a joke, the shock of the serial killer had sideswept your anxiety at having to see him again post-dream. The only time it had entered your brain again was when he’d made the comment about housing, blurting out so eloquently I thought I’d dreamt that. You’d wanted to sink into the floor, certain that your dream was plastered across your forehead.

At least he smiled some at the end of the night–he wouldn’t have sought you out at the rally’s end if he hadn’t wanted to talk to you, right? Or was this yet another thing fueled by his guilt? So soon off the heels of the attempt, and everything with Miller… yeah, he didn’t want to talk to you. Only felt like he needed to.

You waited at a separate intersection now, in an area of town you had never been to before. So holed up to downtown while being in classes, you hadn’t ventured much besides the places Mar dragged you every blue moon. Crown Point was separate from downtown, almost intentionally so—in your research for March’s rally, you’d learned that it was a neighborhood infamous for its poverty and crime. Most of the articles online spoke only about the latter, giving no credence to the reality of simply needing to get by. It had also been the neighborhood most impacted by the historic flood of 2022, never quite being resuscitated. You’d wanted to start hearing what the city thought of this campaign, and what better voices to highlight coming off the heels of Bruce’s first interview than the most abandoned?

Marginalized and disenfranchised didn’t even begin to cover it. It was like the city at large had tried to swallow up Crown Point—or better yet, tried to drown it in the depths of the river, desperately stomping out any signs of life. Cars were toppled over from accidents no one had bothered to attend to, or clean up from. Blood tinged all layers of the street, no street cleaners bothering to come by. Every apartment looked decimated; chunks of yellowed, dry grass sprung wild in cracks of concrete, surviving off blood, crude oil, and spite. Trash more than littered the streets, it became them; when you visited again, if you even saw a single soul, you’d need to wear boots. Some of the garbage was up to your knees.

You thought back to a group project in high school with Gabbi. She’d wanted to focus on the benefits of recycling, starting a campaign to expand the trash removal options at the school. She’d pulled up pictures of places like this, turning her nose up to the class as they presented. “We don’t want our city to turn into this, do we?” Even then, having never stepped foot outside your little town, you’d thought she was being callous and cruel.

The first sign of life presented itself as a rustle in some bushes. You cleared your throat of its gumminess on approach, suddenly feeling very much like an intruder. Street interviews were commonplace, it wasn’t supposed to be weird, but this side of town almost felt feral; like it’d been left alone for so long the buildings might bite back. What could I give them in return? Dr. Vry had always made it clear you weren’t supposed to give gifts in journalism; it was biased, and even if well-intentioned, demerited your work. Maybe it would be enough for you to see them, to help give their voice a boost. To know that someone was looking out for them.

Upon closer inspection, these bushes proved the entrance to a houseless camp. The residents had become very savvy, and you kept yourself tight to where you’d come in case they wanted you to leave. You had a penchant for walking unwanted into people’s homes, it seemed; but the tentative response was short-lived. A child emerged from a tent a few feet in front of you, and waved, running toward the back of the haphazardly-kempt wire fence lining the area. It was massive; hundreds of people could live here, easily. You noticed a couple sitting together eating some shelf-stable food on a nearby bench. Another kid playing with a stray cat in the far corner. Tents and tarps were plentiful, with the odd bike and mattress parked around.

“If you’re a cop, we don’t want you.” A tall woman sitting under a tarp gestured to you. “Lot of you have tried, but we won’t go.”

You shook your head. “I’m not, I uh, I’m a journalist with the Gazette. Wanted to know what the people of Crown Point thought about the upcoming election.”

A chorus of laughs erupted, many voices from places you couldn’t place. Some echoey, some dampened, some sounding like they were standing right beside you. The same woman shrugged, tossing her pillow to the side of her to lay back on. “The election doesn’t matter. Still leaving us to die.”

You went with her concern, probing it, validating it. “That’s why I’m here. I want to help your concerns be heard.”

“What’s the point of being heard if we’re gonna freeze anyway?” The man sitting on the bench chimed in, shaking his head with a tight, scrunched face. They were right; why would they want to speak if they were hungry, exhausted, and at risk of freezing to the cold, hard ground this winter? Your heart broke thinking of how many loved ones they’d already had to mourn.

The zing of it propelled the words out before you’d fully thought them through. “I could help all of you get housed, tonight.”

The man on the bench glared at you, the woman next to him looking up from her lap. The woman underneath the tarp that had spoken slowly sat up, eyebrow raising. “Is this a trick? Get us to leave so you can sweep the joint?”

Damn. What is Bruce gonna think about this? “No. I have… connections. At least for the time being. Hotels, motels, but eventually to something long-term.” What, there were a few hundred people here? Maximum? Some of them had to be families, couples. You swallowed a lump in your throat at the prospect of overpromising and underdelivering. You knew there were enough empty apartments, but not about hotels…

Rightfully so, they only became more suspicious, with more people peeking out from their tents to see who the hell was saying such things. “I worked with Bruce Wayne recently.” What to say?! “He talked about the housing crisis, he wants to help.”

“This isn’t more of that Renewal bullshit, right?”

“Wayne kid getting out now?”

“Why would he want to help us? Planning to run?”

They’d been hurt before. Led astray. They were just being protective. “I think he wants to follow his parents. I know they were philanthropic.”

“Can’t be too much, or he wouldn’t have his billions.”

You couldn’t believe you were standing here vouching for Bruce fucking Wayne, the man that just a few months ago scowled at you in his basement while essentially moralizing their existence. It dawned on you that you were promising them his money, and guilt washed through you yet again. “I’ll get in contact with his management. If that’s something you’d all want.”

The few people who were looking at you looked around at each other, and a pause hung longer than you thought it would. You stifled a sigh of relief at giving them a choice–you didn’t want to come in like some savior if it wasn’t what they wanted right now. You stifled another when they all nodded, and you disappeared back into the bushes after saying you’d only be a minute.

Calling him was hard. You stared at his contact in your phone like it was a mirage, and would leap from the screen and disappear any moment. Only once you heard a particularly strained meow from one of the camp’s cats did you press the button, all but slamming the phone to your ear. Ring one, ring two, ring three, ring four… you bit your cheek, already sore from biting it so much the night before. He isn’t gonna answer. He wants nothing to do with me. Rightfully so.

“Y/N?”

You loathed the way your body jumped when he said your name, a phenomenon you were becoming aware of ever since that night at your apartment. The request tumbled out of you, with both too much and not enough context; sudden, intrusive, and trapping. You were beginning to hate yourself, and the lengthy silence between your ask and his response had you jumping in place, holding tight, constricted air heavy in your chest. Fuck. I’ll have to tell everyone I was lying, that I didn’t have anything lined up. That you’d put your foot in your mouth, and felt entitled to his money. Maybe, in your emotional anguish, you’d even confess to them that you’d lied. That you’d lied to a big, important man about a big, important thing. All weekend you’d ruminated on his reputation, fully internalizing it for the first time.

“Be there soon.” His voice was flat, distant, and he abruptly hung up.

Not an okay, sure, or even a that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard, stay away from me from him. Just another obligation. Another thing he had to swallow with you; another way you made yourself a menace, another way he couldn’t escape you.

He arrived the same way, eyes cast down as he slammed the door shut. His hair wasn’t done, but the rest of him was—donning a light brown sweater against tapered black pants rather than his baggy black-on-black, tattered tee look. As much as you wanted to mirror his avoidance, you had to bite the bullet, maintaining your eyes to his face and breaking the silence. “Thank you, I’m, I know this is unexpected,”

His eyes flicked up to yours and he flinched, his face scrunching together as he faced the concrete again. You felt queasy. His voice was low and mumbled. You could barely hear him, though the city din was much lower out here. “—fine.” He shrugged, his shoulders tightening. Your gut cinched as you led him to the camp, each step drawing the nausea more to the surface. After the rollercoaster of the past week, it’d been too easy to forget the fragile line you walked with him.

By the time you both stood at the entrance, watching everyone’s eyes widen at Bruce’s presence, you were almost positive you’d crumble to the ground. By some lucky break, he decided to speak first. He sounded nothing like he had when he’d been with you seconds earlier.

“I know the chill is coming in soon, and we want to help you get housed. For the first few nights you’ll be staying in a hotel or motel in the city. Beyond that, my team will get you set up in an apartment long-term. Fully paid.” Some people asked him why he was doing this, but others were already taking down their tents, shoving everything into their arms and into stray plastic bags. He answered with: “Money has no use sitting in a cell while people can use it.”

You tried not to linger on the we of it all, but it was hard. He didn’t look at you as you both helped residents pack up their things, staying to opposite sides of the encampment. After you did a headcount, you realized there were only about a hundred-fifty people living here. A handful of them were children, a few elders, but most middle-aged, and single. When people would turn to finish grabbing their belongings, you’d stare at Bruce’s back, or his side-profile, or his face if he was facing you. He never so much as glanced your direction, even when he was paused, waiting.

Once everyone was packed, you took out your phone to scour hotel sites, presenting the second time he’d acknowledged your existence in the two hours you’d been there. His voice was quiet still, this time with more discernible reasons as to why, though he kept his interactions short, clipped, impersonal. “My butler’s handling it. Marriot’s coming off a conference, everyone can go there.” He mumbled something as he walked past about Alfred sending cars for everyone, directing you to stay back for the time being. He walked to the group toward the front and followed them out, saying something else you could hardly hear, but sounded like leadership.

Nearly in tears by how coolly he was behaving, you’d threatened to crumble until a small boy walked up to you holding a tiny kitten. The kitten shivered, their orange fur standing up in the wind tunnel the fencing and bushes created. They had open scabs around their back, and on the pads of their paws. “Mommy says he needs a doctor.”

Crouching down to meet his eye level, you reached out to gently pet the cat’s head. You could feel how small and weak they were. “Is this your kitty?”

He nodded. “His name is Bouncer.” He said it pointedly, like people had been calling Bouncer ‘cat’ against his wishes. His face was pouty, frustrated. He held the cat close to him, like you were going to take him away. “Can he come?”

“Yes, he can. I can take him to the doctor too if you’d like.” Dr. Vry’s second paycheck had come in over the weekend, so this task wasn’t something you’d have to ask Bruce’s card information for. Thank god.

“Bouncer.”

“I can take Bouncer to the cat doctor, and bring him back to you. How does that sound?” Your heart squeezed as you thought back to what had likely gotten him that name, the bouncing, leaping, energetic presence of a new kitten, seeing how clenched and tired the cat looked now.

The boy looked over your shoulder and pointed, and you followed his finger to Bruce, stepping back into the encampment. “You and him.” He pointed to the cat, brow furrowed, then back to Bruce again. “Get him.”

He was already motioning at Bruce, and you counted the sound of his footsteps until you felt him beside you. He wasn’t wearing the cologne he always wore at city hall meetings, the universe giving you a millisecond of relief. His voice was gentler when he spoke now, crouching to mimic your posture in front of the kid. “Is that your cat?”

The kid stared at you like you were supposed to introduce them. You didn’t look at him, only at the small, shaky head of the kitten in front of you. “That’s Bouncer. He needs to go to the vet.”

“You guys will.” He shoved the kitten in your arms, and you felt how chilly he was. His body trembled and shook, and you cradled his head as you looked into his face. The kid said something to Bruce about ‘the buddy system’ and ‘illegal’ to not go with someone else, but their conversation faded into the green of the kitten’s eyes. Their eyelids were covered in grime, their nose runny. Poor baby. You caressed their head, their eyes fluttering, and they stretched into a yawn, the tiny claws poking at your arms.

“Landon, there you are.” A woman, presumably his mom, walked up to the child and grabbed his elbow. “The cars are coming.”

“Bouncer! He’s going to the doctor.”

The lady met your eyes, and glanced between you and Bruce. She shook her head and hoisted the bag higher on her back. “No baby, we don’t have the money yet.”

You opened your mouth to speak, but Bruce intercepted. “I’ll cover it.”

The woman blushed, an exasperated sigh following. She ran her fingers through Landon’s hair. “You’re already doing so much, we can’t possibly,”

He shook his head and stood, but you stayed crouched. You pulled the kitten close to your chest, hoping to warm them off your body heat. “It’s no problem. I’ll have someone bring Bouncer to your room later tonight.”

As they shuffled away, the boy blew a kiss at the cat and waved; you gently grabbed the kitten’s paw and gave the teensiest wave back, careful not to move him much. As they turned out of view, stepping out of the bushes to the cars that supposedly awaited them all, you caught Bruce staring at you, blank-faced. He held the eye contact only a second, but it felt like a lifetime after being wholeheartedly avoided. You wished he would speak, you wanted to know what he was thinking so badly.

Instead, he shoved his hands into his pockets and strode forward, mumbling again. “Get in the backseat with it.”

You didn’t like his tone, but you didn’t feel in any position to complain; you’d probably cost him upwards of fifty thousand dollars today, not counting whatever the vet bill would be, food costs, and the long-term investment of housing everyone. You hadn’t consulted with him, of course he was angry. Of course he was being short with you. You didn’t care much about the money aspect, especially not as you walked past the crowds of people buzzing with anticipation to finally get a warm shower and soft bed, but when you paired it with your previous behavior, it didn’t feel too stellar. Seemed that as quick as the smoke cleared from a past fuckup, you were slamming another between the two of you.

Slipping into the backseat was easier than you thought; the kitten was far from rambunctious, tired and tiny, so you set them in the seat next to you and slid in, scooping them up as quickly as they’d been set down. As you gently pet their head, down their back, and wiggled their toes, you could’ve sworn you felt the beginnings of a purr. You looked out the tinted windows at the people climbing into Ubers and Lyfts, and rolled down the window to wave again at Landon before he climbed in the back of the rideshare.

Bruce slipped into the driver’s side and turned the car on as one pulled up beside you. Alfred was messing with his seatbelt before stepping out, seemingly orchestrating the rides. He said something to the group and those who had just hopped inside the cars, but Bruce sped off before you could hear it. Every movement of his felt impatient, stilted, forced. You remained silent the rest of the drive, the mood soured, millenniums away from the night before. You shifted your focus to the animal in your arms, which was automatic; they’d begun to let out pitiful meows, opening their eyes as much as they could.

You pulled into the parking lot of a clinic you’d never seen before, a 24 hour emergency vet. Bruce turned to take the cat, but Bouncer had clawed his way into your shirt, clinging on for dear life. You cooed at him, rubbing behind his ears, and stepped out without thinking, only realizing once both feet were on the ground to look for paparazzi. The beaming of the sun, a rarity in the inner city, caused a momentary panic, and you scurried into the clinic as fast as you knew you could protect the terrified pet in your arms. After pretending you’d found a stray cat and wanted to rescue them, you handed him to a tech, giving your card information and phone number to the man at the front desk. They told you for security reasons they’d need you to wait in your car, but they estimated it wouldn’t be longer than an hour. Apparently it was usually much busier, and the wait averaged twelve hours. Shit.

Walking out to the car brought an anxiety you hadn’t felt toward him since the first night at Wayne Tower. He didn’t look up when you walked past his window, nor when you slid into the backseat. In fact, he didn’t say a word for multiple minutes after, seemingly staring down at his feet, or the steering wheel. Is he okay?

“How long did they say it would be?” Still mumbling. Still with no further acknowledgment outside the bare minimum.

“About an hour.”

The silence continued for a cluster of minutes before you forced an apology through your mounting nerves. “I’m sorry. I know I should have asked you before. They asked what good was it to have their voice heard if they were gonna freeze to death anyway, and—”

“It’s fine.” But it didn’t sound fine, it sounded like he had an armory of sharp words to stab into you; an unspoken tension so tightly wound you had a feeling you couldn’t even ask about it without things escalating. Whatever it was, you felt it; a thick, dense cord jammed between and through you.

“It’s not right of me—”

“It’s fine.”

This felt eerily similar to how standoffish he’d acted the night after you hugged, but it didn’t make sense. All he’d done was drive you home. His reassurance wasn’t gentle, it was tempered. A kettle barely kept from boiling. Whenever he acted like this, you couldn’t help the storm brewing within you to pull him out of it, make him explain himself.

But you’d done too much. So you sat, twiddling your thumbs, and counted the seconds as they passed until the clinic called back. You put it on speaker so you wouldn’t have to repeat yourself to him.

“Hi Y/N, this is Mountain Valley vet clinic calling. Bouncer has been seen by our staff.” They went on to let you know that he had dermatitis and was extremely dehydrated; they gave him subcutaneous fluid, a wash, and a cone, as well as trimmed his nails. You agreed to purchasing the hypoallergenic kibble they recommended, and walked out a few minutes later with a cardboard carrier holding a tiny, washed kitten in a large cone.

Bruce still didn’t say a word.

Bruce felt like he might die.

You left him in the car with the kitten after insisting on the ride back that you get the creature some supplies. He peeked in once to see if it was breathing, and its bleary eyes stared up at him. He gave the little thing a pet, but that was the most he could do. He felt like he needed a trip to the doctor.

He didn’t want you to come back. He’d been pacing his room before you called, cataloging what he might say to you the next day. He’d been too terrified to sleep, afraid to shut his eyes after the debacle in the shower. He’d tried to come up with an excuse to not see you, but nothing revealed itself, and now he was here. Stuck in this stuffy, cramped car with you. Stuck remembering the tenderness in your body as you held the animal, stuck with the insurmountable, immovable, horrifying thought that there was nothing he could do but grow fonder and fonder of you with each interaction.

He wasn’t mad you’d taken the initiative; he was mad that his body had betrayed him, and annihilated his footing, making the sight of you absolutely unbearable. Seeing you felt like a hot branding iron, like your hand was wrapped around his throat to make him suffer, cutting off oxygen to his limbs until he felt them shrivel and die. He ached to lean toward you, converse, connect; but in equal measure, with equal force, nothing had ever felt more dangerous. Not even cutting the wire and plunging into the blood-filled waters during the flooding, though he knew how illogical it was.

He looked at the cat again. How you held it. How it clung onto you like the world would end if it let go. He couldn’t resist looking at you then. Couldn’t stomp out the part of him that wanted to do the exact same thing. It made him sick.

You slid into the backseat and for a split second he considered folding. Indulging the questions that spun his thoughts all afternoon. Why Crown Point? Why now? What article were you working on? Had anyone heckled you? Had Gavenstein or the other men said anything? Had you recovered yet from your injuries? What questions did you prepare for the rally that weren’t heard? How were you, really? Were you still having nightmares?

“Which room are they in?”

Holy shit, he’d been driving on autopilot, the Marriot sign projecting beams of light through his eyes in the parking lot. This was precisely why he couldn’t ask those questions, why it was imperative he resist the dynamic forming. He was entirely ragged and unnerved.

The click of your seatbelt unbuckling forced him to speak. “I’ll do it.”

“No, I’ll run up there, I was the—”

“You can’t be associated with this.”

“I already am. Look,”

His hand knocked into yours as he grabbed the box’s handle, and he slammed his head back on the headrest with a scowl as he yanked his arm away. His hand was burning where you’d touched, his heart racing…

“Just admit it.”

If he thought his heart was racing then, he had no idea what it was doing now, certain it would tear out of his chest. You couldn’t know about last night, impossible. You couldn’t. “Admit what?” It was easy for his tone to be harsh when he was this thrown. He counted the split of each second between your answer by the pounding of blood in his ears.

“You’re mad at me.”

His brow furrowed, gaze fixed on the top of the steering wheel. You shifted in your seat, the thin plastic handles of the Petco bag deepening the crease under your knuckles. It was oozing off of him. You nearly snapped when he denied it. “I’m not.”

“I know what I did was entitled.”

“Take the cat in.”

“You’re angry. That’s fine,”

He scoffed, something which didn’t help whatever case he was trying to front. “Do you want me to be?” He turned to face you, his face flushed with frustration. His chest was heaving, causing you to press your back flush to the seat in a strange anticipation. Almost like he might grab you if you got too close. Or run away.

You hid your surprise when he spoke again, his voice embittered. “Do you want me to tell you you shouldn’t have done that?” The collar of his sweater snagged your vision, your eyes oscillating there and back again. To his deep blue eyes with their fiery, unblinking focus… “That I don’t want you spending my family’s money? That you should’ve given it more thought?” His lips were fascinating as they wrapped around his words. “What do you want me to say?”

“Whatever it is you’re thinking.” The words caught in your throat, coming out breathy. His intensity filled you to the brim with overwhelm, knocking the wind clean out of you. It began to feel obscenely difficult to only focus on his eyes. Something flashed across his face, like apprehension, or worry, and quickly settled. “Don't pretend you’re not upset.”

He glared at you another beat, one that you soaked up more than you cared to admit, before grumbling back into his seat. You couldn’t make out what he was looking at, but he was looking down. He suddenly looked a few years older. Is he okay? “Room 731.”

You reached around, taking great care not to brush his arm, and grabbed Bouncer’s box from the passenger seat. The cabin air was stifling, charged with whatever complaints Bruce was set on denying, but you couldn’t resist a last look at the frail little cat in the big, huge box.

You thought about how Bruce hadn’t held him yet, and, even though he was causing a well of something to toil in you, and his tone brooked no further conversation, you shoved through it. Hopeful it could help him off the edge of whatever he was dealing with. Walter always helped you regulate. “Do you want to hold him before I go in?”

“Why?”

“You haven’t held him yet.” And he had a shitty week.

Like nothing more than obligation, he twisted his body toward the box and reached inside, expression cross and unyielding. The kitten meowed, and Bruce’s face scrunched as he saw the bubble on his back. “What happened?” He held the cat up and looked at it from another angle, his concern mounting.

“That’s the fluid.” The kitten let out a sizable scream as he kicked his paws, scrambling. Bruce held him almost at arm’s length, confused. His serious expression and the wiggling kitten caught between his hands was a sight you burned into memory for when you needed to laugh later. “Bring him closer, he’s just cold.”

He folded his arms mechanically, and at such a snail pace you wondered if the cat might outgrow the cone by the time he reached the plane of his chest. The feeling that welled up in you when the cat snuggled into him had you interrogating your subconscious for an ulterior motive. Something about seeing a stony man holding the world’s most fragile kitten had you feeling woozy. You could’ve sworn you saw the sunrise of a smile glint in his eyes.

“Is that Bruce Wayne?!”

“Duck.”

You made yourself one with the floor of the back seat as he threw the car in reverse, one hand on the kitten, one to the wheel. Being this low to the ground in a vehicle made your head spin, all thought leaving you save making sure you didn’t vomit.

He parked sooner than you anticipated, wasting no time. “I’ll walk the cat back. Give me the bag.” He placed the cat delicately in the box, but your head was pounding. You didn’t like having to do this. Having to lay horizontal every time someone might see you with him, stay ducked behind bushes, across the room at city hall. You knew why. You knew it would destroy any chance of you making it on your own, typecasting you as Bruce Wayne’s mistress the rest of your life. You saw it at the rally the night before. The looks the women gave you. The snickers the men did as you walked past. The way none of the other press would interact with you. You hated how you’d done this to yourself, not thinking of the implications of actually getting the interview, getting it published, and sticking around.

He shut the door, walking off. You reminded yourself, not-so-gently, that you’d be leaving soon. If Bruce was so frustrated by your presence, the least you could do–after Dr. Crane gave you the clear–was leave. Swiftly. No more chance encounters, no more meddling… all would be right with the world. Maybe you wouldn’t even miss him.

Bruce had amassed an even larger aura of annoyance by the time he came back. He didn’t cloak his scowl, or pause to chat; he peeled out of the side street and booked it for The Moore. You sat up slowly, hoping he wouldn’t strike you down with another demand, though you felt like you deserved it. You stared at the back of his hair, dark and messy, covering his ears and half his neck. If you wanted, you could reach out and touch him. Run your hands down his shoulders to his wrists, slip through his palm back into his fingers. You drew a sharp breath, covering the sound of it with another apology, the envelope of the luck you’d pushed nearly bursting at the seams. “It won’t happen again.”

Nothing in the car changed. He didn’t care, and you couldn’t blame him.

You hadn’t lingered when he pulled into the same alleyway, trying your best to slip out of his sportscar like an apparition. The stale air threatened to snuff you out, and for once you relished the mildewed public air as you gulped back to your apartment, heart tumbling down your sleeve. Everyone who walked past was blurry. The key shook in the lock as you pushed inside. It felt horrifying having him pull away, and horrifying that it was over something so avoidable. What if he could’ve came back and watched a show? If only you’d called him before? Instead of crossing boundary after boundary, fuck.

You wished he would’ve yelled at you. Torn you up. But you weren’t worth that. You were only worth brooding; tense silence that would inevitably turn into avoidance, which would mean he’d never talk to you again. No matter how often you told yourself it didn’t matter, god… sitting in his car last night had felt fun. The happy, bouncing adrenaline of hoping he’d find you at the end of the night when he’d waited precisely for your spot in line to join. His presence felt so warm.

You prayed he wouldn’t ignore you at City Hall, but it wasn’t heeded. It was as if you’d stopped existing. Alfred had texted you an update earlier that day about the housing situation, letting you know he’d secured apartments for the last of them through this time next year, probably the most obvious confirmation that Bruce was done interacting with you. He’d ended the text with: We’ll take it from here. You’d crossed a line.

The crossbody bag hanging heavy on your shoulder mocked your spine, though you’d packed light. At the meeting’s end, you kept to the foyer wall as you dug through it, pulling out the plane ticket to make sure it didn’t rip on the hard edges of the recorder and notebook shoved between chargers and sweatpants. Pen…

“Thought you were staying through the election.”

The bag slipped off your shoulder and fell to the floor, masking your gasp. Positive he wasn’t looking at you, you chanced a look up after stooping to grab your bag. His eyes were fixed on yours, relentless. You wondered how any criminals resisted him. “Um,” you swallowed, hard, your mind drifting away. After a few embarrassing breaths that felt weird to do while in direct eye contact, words found you. “I’m visiting for the weekend. Mom stuff.”

The bags under his eyes were pronounced. He sprayed that cologne again. His hair was done, but somehow still in his face. His sweater switched for a black turtleneck. You caught it all in piecemeal, never spending too long in one place. He hadn’t blinked, something which made you feel wholeheartedly exposed. You broke the stare, flustered, pretending to fiddle with the zipper on your bag to escape it, his smoldering—but when you looked up he was gone.

Bruce took his time pulling out his wallet, making small talk with the valet about the weather while he thumbed through hundreds. Depending on how soon you got in the Uber, he’d be rich. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine–he needed to stop there. A thousand dollar tip for parking his car? He didn’t want the guy to get suspicious.

The guy’s face was pale, and he stuttered. “Sir, did you–”

“Feeling generous.” Waiting to see if you were about to get abducted. He nodded and took his keys, taking short, slow strides while he pretended to take in the air, maybe give the paparazzi more glamor shots.

The faintest whisper of your name from across the street pulled his attention to a man driving a blue Toyota Corolla. No dents, no scratches. He wished he could make an ID on the driver, a stocky man with a thick beard and dirty blonde hair. He watched you get in in pieces–first your hand on the back passenger door, then your bag, then your hips, then your head. He realized too late he’d been openly gawking, stowing his hands to hide their shaking. When the Corolla drove off, he jumped into the driver’s seat and sped to the nearest place of isolation, swallowing spoons of bile. Were you safe? His rapid breathing was speeding up his body’s rejection of breakfast. Would you come back in pieces?

The very instant he’d thrown off the cameras, he stumbled out and vomited, one hand stabilizing him to the brick, the other holding his hair behind his ear. It splashed over his shoes and freckled his calves. He gasped between spurts, gag reflex mingling salt pooling by his lips. His forehead dragged on the concrete wall, catching some hairs of his eyebrow. Retching turned to dry heaves, which evolved to wheezes. He couldn’t follow you. He couldn’t drive you. Fuck.

He got dizzy again when he thought of the plane ticket. Hysteria had taken over him, freezing his veins with pure panic. You were killing him. How long it had taken you to answer, leaving him standing there, frigid. You were going to kill him.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to look at it, he couldn’t. He couldn’t talk to you. He wanted to fall into you. Learn more about you. Be around you. It was actually killing him, he should’ve just let you leave. He shouldn’t have talked to you. He’d seen that you’d bought the ticket a week ago on the receipt dangling out of your bag, it wasn’t an emergency, and that should’ve been enough, but he’d wrestled with asking you about what prompted the visit, if your mom was alright, just to hear you talk. Just to hear you talk!

He’d deluded himself into thinking he could ignore it. But the fear that gripped him now, the damn terror, the grating, emulsifying anxiety that liquified his insides at seeing you get into the car. He hadn’t thought it would be that bad. That it was still this bad. Why was it this bad?! He barely knew you! Why did it feel like you were dying? Why couldn’t he breathe?

Logic hadn’t helped quell the worry. Not yesterday, not last night, not the night before, not this morning, not during the meeting, not now. He was being stupid. Stupid, stupid…

He pulled out his phone and fought the urge to throw it. 8:20, you were probably at the airport by now. It wasn’t far, you’d absolutely be there if you hadn’t been kidnapped. Barrel to your skull. He should’ve driven you. Should’ve. Should’ve. Should’ve.

Get there safe?

But he couldn’t press send. He couldn’t wait on a response. He dropped the phone with the earthquake that were his fingers, scraping indents into his nails as he clawed at the ground for it. His chest was tight, his mind going in and out of a red backdrop, the sounds of the cars on the highway searing through his eardums. His throat was closing up. It was closing up, and he wouldn’t be able to breathe, he’d die right here, he’d die.

His finger hovered on the dial below your name.

The next day Bruce found himself sitting in a small waiting area at three in the afternoon. The walls were the same shade of beige, and the same secretary took his name. The seats were the only thing different, a lot softer than he remembered.

Seeing her face again felt disorienting, nearly catapulting him back to the months after the murder. She was older now, her hair filled with shades of gray. Her smile was the same, and her voice unchanged. It was the only thing tethering him to the same room down the stuffy hallway, into a room far smaller than he thought it had been.

“Bruce, welcome back. It’s been a few years, hasn’t it?” Iris was the only name he knew of hers. He hadn’t looked at the directory when he’d called, he’d only left his name, number, and his preference of provider. He struggled not to feel ten years old sitting in front of her after all this time, his body already folding in on itself. His hands warmed themselves squished between his thighs, his shoulders trying their damndest to connect.

He nodded, and glazed over while she went over the consent forms he’d already signed. He had to blink back to the room when she said ‘tell me more about that’.

“I don’t want a lot of sessions. I just need solutions. They need to stop.”

Iris nodded at him, her brows knit just so. Her chair was thick and upholstered, the yellow sitting discordantly with the shade of blue on the walls. “The panic attacks need to stop?”

“Yeah.”

She wrote something on her clipboard, scribbling the only sound in the room. “What usually precipitates the panic, Bruce?”

Per usual, her eyes drilled into him. Like they wouldn’t let him get out of it. “Nothing.”

The silence hung for a few beats, something she did often, but he’d conveniently forgotten. The first few sessions of theirs they’d sat in mutual silence, with the odd prompting question to try to bring him out of it. She threw him a bone this time. “Seems to come out of nowhere?”

He immediately knew why he’d stopped coming. He loathed to sit in his body, to have someone point their finger at all the sticky points. Like she did again, not letting up.

“What’s coming up?”

“People. People cause them.”

“Tell me more.” She crossed her leg and sat back in the seat, anticipating Bruce giving a novel. It made him only want to say less, and he only shrugged in response.

The silence continued for another two minutes, like a game of tug-of-war.

“Is it certain people?”

There was always a sticking point, too. The first question that set him on edge, brought him closer to the jagged edges of his mind he desperately tried to drown. He nodded slowly, not wanting to give anything away, not wanting to sit and stare at each other.

But that was all it was. Silent, apart from the ticking of the clock by the door. He knew why she did this, and why she did it now. She’d explained it one day, letting him know this was his space, and she could only do with it what he gave. She’d been kind enough when she said it, but he’d still felt like he was doing it wrong. Still loathed why he was in there in the first place. He hadn’t wanted to sit in this room while Alfred waited in the lobby, he wanted to eat dinner with his parents.

He forced more words to fill the space, determined to rid his body of the emotional toxin as hurriedly as possible. He tapped his foot impatiently. “So what do I do about it? If I have to keep being around those people?”

“What do you think?”

He grunted, sucking on his teeth to abate a scoff. “Just tell me what to do.”

She nodded, setting aside her clipboard. “Sounds like you really want relief from something excruciating.”

He hated when she used feeling words. Hated when she’d pull out the feelings wheel, try to get descriptive with the toils of his head and stomach. He didn’t realize he was breathing harder, eyes shifting about the room, until she drew attention to it. Of course she did.

“Are you starting to feel it right now?”

His hands gripped the edge of the couch, shoulders tensing. He felt like something was about to spill out of him, bubbling to the surface, but it wasn’t clear, it wasn’t tangible. He focused on the carpet, counting the rings of thread, staving it off. He felt himself begin to sway, and nodded.

Her pointed, slow breathing filled the room, and he begrudgingly matched it until his shoulders dropped. She’d described deep breathing to him twenty years ago as ‘pulling in air’ to your body so it can ‘keep you on the floor’. God, he hadn’t thought about that in over a decade. Once his breathing was under control, she struck again.

“Are you fine with me asking some questions about what it feels like?”

He waited for her to speak, eyeing her cautiously. She caught his imperceptible nod, something that made him more angry than he wanted to divulge. Always under the microscope.

“Let me know if it’s too activating, and we can go right back to breathing.” She pulled up her clipboard again, clicking her pen open. “Does it feel like your throat is closing up, chest tight, like you’re worried you won’t be able to breathe?”

His face grew hot. “Yes.”

“Any images cross your mind, or repeating thoughts?” She wrote something down while he hesitated, squeezing his eyes shut more with each syllable. He felt small. Tiny. Smaller than that kitten.

“That I'm dying.” The color red smeared across his vision, recurrently. When he opened his eyes and refocused, the image unblurred. His face scrunched, nose crinkling. “And… blood.”

Iris nodded, giving him a moment to take another regulating breath. She waited for his shoulders to drop again before pressing on. “I noticed you started trembling. Is there anything else you noticed? Thoughts, feelings, physical sensations?”

He’d been trembling? He looked down at his hands, knuckles white from gripping the couch, buzzing. His stomach flipped, burning, springing saliva to his tongue. He hated this. “Nausea.”

“If you could describe how you’re feeling in one word, what comes to mind?” Her pen hung loosely in her hand, balanced on one knuckle. Her eyes had more wrinkles around them. Her shoulders sagged more. The bookshelf that had been to her right was now a side table with a glass of water and box of tissues.

He deliberately reminded himself that the faster he answered, the faster he could leave. Moreso than that, the faster he could get over the bullshit plaguing him. “Fear.”

“Mmm.” She nodded, clicking her pen into the top of the board. He didn’t like how she was sitting up. What was she about to say? Had she already psychoanalyzed him enough? Could she give him a plan to walk out of here and never break down again? “Thank you for exploring that with me.” Bruce sat further back into the couch when she resituated closer, nervous to bridge any of the distance padding their interactions. “Mind if I make an observation?”

He gestured for her to speak, wishing his body would stop trembling, giving itself away to her. Everything felt too charged, she was choosing her words too carefully… her tone too soothing, too soft. She pulled a paper from her stack, from the bottom of the clipboard. “You gave me the exact same answers after the death of your parents. What comes up when I say that?”

No shit. He didn’t suppress his eye-roll, a decision she’d praised him for years ago. ‘Expressing yourself is good, Bruce. Gets it out of your system. That’s what this place is for.’ She didn’t acknowledge it now. “That’s when they started.”

Her sigh was gentle, accommodating. It made him uncomfortable to sit in a room that felt like someone walking through his brain. “The reason I ask is that we identified some triggers and base fears in our previous work together. I’m curious if they hold up now.”

Bruce vaguely recalled a few, the general concepts of people and grief, but nothing specific. Still, his palms grew sweaty, the shaking increasing–so much so that he had to metabolize it by tapping both feet against the ground. The sticker-worthy cliches were coming back to him in whispers. ‘Go through to get through’ ‘feel to heal’, phrases that Alfred had picked up from their brief group meetings, employing incessantly at home in the year following their deaths. Maybe getting to the root will solve it. Make his brain a crumb more hospitable, no longer running completely loose. Maybe it was something about needing to save you somehow, like he’d felt with his parents. Finally, something he could logic through. You’d be gone from Gotham soon enough, and wouldn’t need any saving. You didn’t even want saving. Yeah. Bring it. Easy.

“Would you like me to read them to you?”

Bruce nodded.

“One of the activating events for you was making friends at school. You described it as being ‘scary’ to spend time with others. When I asked what was ‘scary’ about that, you said: ‘I don't want to be more sad’.”

Ah, shit. He felt like the room was swallowing him up, the walls closing in.

“Another activating event was sleeping. You used to have a lot of nightmares. We deduced the nightmares were flashbacks to–”

He cut her off, hoping it would salvage the last molecules of oxygen left in the room. “I remember them.”

She glanced over her glasses—when had she put those on?—and paused before saying the rest. “When I asked you what helps, you said being alone. You said ‘more people means more funerals’.”

More, more, more. He was shoved under a spotlight, her eyes the lens of a microscope, excavating all of what he’d so diligently buried. Was this therapy or suffering? Therapeutic, or torturous? The room began to spin.

“Do you think that’s still true for you?”

Stars entered his vision, blurring her features into one blob. She started her breathing thing again, which only made him more aware of his body. He felt claws around his neck, nails jamming into his skull, a bear sitting on his chest that he couldn’t roll out from under. “It’s bullshit. I don’t care about her.” He winced, like you might have overheard it. “I don’t have a reason to.”

If she was thinking something, her eyes didn’t give it away. “Do you need a reason to care about someone?”

His eyes could’ve bulged out of his head, a scoff rolling off his tongue, escaping the ropes of doom pulling him under. Obviously!

He wanted her to stay silent. Do the silent thing. Do fucking anything than keep her foot on his neck. “What’s the reason for others in your life?”

Speaking = leaving faster. “Alfred, Dory, they’re family.” He shook his head, the back of his throat lighting up in flames. Shocked the words were still coming out, certain his esophagus wasn’t open anymore, wishing these confessions brought any relief. “It’s stupid. Stupid.” His breaths were shallow, rapid, and he felt his brain shut down in one thunk. “She hasn’t, I don’t,”

“Take a deep breath in through your nose, then a long breath out–”

He started to wheeze, clamoring to his feet. “I can’t do this,”

Iris sat forward. “Bruce,”

He fell to the side of the couch, gasping. “I can’t fucking breathe,” he folded over the edge, clutching his chest. He needed to go to the hospital. She needed to call 911 now, while he was still partially here. He wouldn’t for long, one of these breaths was going to be his last, he knew it…

She crouched next to him, making him think of you. He slapped the thought down as quick as it came, unbearable. Dying. Chest. Air. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

The last ten minutes had been hazy, in and out, but he was sitting on the opposite end of the couch now, fiddling with a stress ball she’d handed him during a grounding technique he barely remembered. His throat was thick with snot, his eyes hot and dry. He didn’t even have the strength to feel embarrassed, though the feeling kept knocking to be heard.

“How are you feeling now?” Her low, even voice was more soothing now. He was utterly depleted. Worn. Avoiding eye contact. “That grounding exercise seemed to help. Do you think so?”

Now he felt silly. Now he felt stupid, but he nodded. How ridiculous was it that he couldn’t even handle something as silly as a passing emotion? Call 911? She probably thought he was an idiot, but couldn’t say it because of therapeutic rapport or something. Or something. Even his thoughts weren’t forming right. He felt hollow.

“Panic attacks are terrifying, and draining. Do you want to stop for today, and come back next week?”

He had a visceral response, jolting back to life. “No. I want them to stop. Now.”

Her weak smile told him everything he needed to know. “Panic attacks are tricky. Especially when they’re attached to early traumas. Avoiding can sometimes have the opposite effect, increasing the panic response, and that fear you described.”

His body clenched with defeat, the last kicks of anger pouting like a little kid. “So I have to feel like this forever.”

She shook her head, but he didn’t believe her. If he wanted to panic, he could do that in any alley in the city. Could do it in his own bedroom. No witnesses. “Becoming more aware of triggers can help. Help us be kinder, gentler, utilize coping skills early on, before a full panic response. Sounds like one of the triggers is someone new in your life. That’s something we could explore.”

Fifteen minutes left on the clock, he shoved through. Still time for a breakthrough. No need to come back. Rapid fire. “Doesn’t that mean I don’t care? This panic?” It wasn’t a good feeling, and definitely not one anyone with any sense would associate with anything positive.

“Depends on what it stems from. Are you sure you’re wanting to discuss this today?”

“I want it done.”

A resonant pause, absolutely there to help his words echo. “What situations with her cause the attacks?”

“A lot.”

“What’s the most recent?”

“Being worried.” Shit, speaking this fast, maybe they could get somewhere.

“Being worried?”

The thought that swerved into him made him still. Made his chest hurt all over again. Made him afraid it wouldn’t stop. He pulled a sigh from the depth of his chest cavity, swearing he could taste the blood on his tongue. “That she’s gonna die.”

“Is that a common thread with the other times?”

He hardly heard her as he stared off into space, his mind and body numb.

“If this is too distressing,”

Bruce felt the world fall away. “When she tries to help me. It’s too much.” The clock didn’t tick anymore. His lungs didn’t breathe anymore. His stomach shivered, pulling its lining into his throat.

“Overbearing? Overstimulating?”

Every breath was a swallowed knife. Every word spoken under his breath evaporating into mist. “It’s like I'm on fire.”

He was far away, but finally in the feeling. “Stay with that. What is it saying?”

The walls shifted and moved, glimmers of light fusing to the center of his retinas. “…Run. Everywhere.” His face twitched. “Closer. Farther.” A tear slid down his cheek, but he couldn’t move. Blood spurted in his ears. Globbed over his shoes.

“Is any direction louder?”

“No. Yes.”

“Which one?”

It came out in a gasp, thick with saliva. “Closer.”

“But the flames hurt.”

His body shuddered. Exhaustion split his spine, his shoulders calloused from the barbell welded to his skin. His empty voice showed how intensely he yearned for rest. “Yeah.”

“Is that why you were saying it’s stupid? Stupid to walk into a fire?”

His jaw quivered when he nodded.

“Sounds like there’s something that draws you in.” She followed his analogy. “Fires can destroy, but they’re also warm. Full of light.”

His eyes shut and his chin fell to his chest. No words flowed in or out, no feelings but the weight of his bones and a keen awareness of the flesh casing them. He didn’t know how long he sat there. He couldn’t feel time passing at all.

“What’s pulling you closer?”

He winced.

“Is the fire too bright?”

All the saliva left his mouth, and he blinked back into the room, orbs of light swimming in his periphery. “I won’t make it.”

“Sounds like your body trying to protect itself. Survival.”

His face squeezed in unison with his hands, his body coming back into focus. “I don’t want to go through any of that ever again. I can’t.”

“Or you won’t make it?”

“I’m not made for that.”

“For what?”

He thought of the slip of the grapple between his fingers when he wasn’t sure it took. The disorienting overwhelm of an elbow to the mouth while a chorus of shouts and gunshots peppered his chest. The metal-on-metal wrenching of a loose axle joint on a high-speed chase. Nothing frightened him more than the feeling of being around you. And nothing had ever made him feel more ridiculous.

Bruce packed up then, taking his copy of the intake forms from her clipboard on the way out. She thanked him for coming, sharing that her schedule was pretty available for the coming weeks if he wanted to dive deeper. “It was pleasant to see you again, Bruce. I hope you take care.”

He took a moment before going to the basement to haul his weary body to bed. He laid on his back and counted the dusty cobwebs lacing the ceiling; if he suspended disbelief enough, he could place himself there. Counting the boards on his ceiling and the creaks of the walls in the wind. Feel the dying hope in his chest that it was all just a nightmare. See the fading indents of his mother’s slippers until the carpet bounced back.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to dive deeper. Maybe he wasn’t made for it, but god… you made the concept alluring.

[percabething]