#How to Plot and Plan From the Comfort of Any Chair

[ellesthots]

code of ethics

iv. “rumination”

read on AO3 🤎

parts: previous / next

plot: you devise a plan to get your professor to fess up.

pairing: professor!bruce wayne x student!reader

cw: 18+

words: 4k

a/n: sooo happy to be back with another chapter!! we're sooo close to the end 🤭 per usual, loveee to hear all of your thoughts if you'd like to share!

“No fucking way.” You and your roommate stared at her laptop, the word REGISTERED screaming at you in two hundred decibels. 

“Exactly what I said: he’s an asshole. Gets off on manipulating students so he can feel high and mighty, and feed whatever bullshit…” 

Unable to hear her over the blood pulsing against your eardrums with such force you thought it might rupture, you grabbed your phone and shoved it to her with shaking hands. She signed in, and you scrolled to her courses: ETHICS 511, TA, REGISTERED. 

Fuck. 

“It’s real, dude.” She held out her phone to an email from the registrar: ATTN: Required Materials for ETHICS 511 (TA): 

Dear ADRIANA,

Prior to your first day of class, your professor has requested you review these materials: COURSE SYLLABUS and TEACHING ASSISTANT EXPECTATIONS.

Please direct any questions to the professor of the course. This is an automated email that is not monitored. Be sure to mind Add/Drop deadlines for SPRING TERM to ensure proper disbursement of aid. 

Attached were the two documents, and you snatched the phone from her without question. She scoffed, mumbling something degrading about Professor Wayne as you zoomed through the documents, heart pounding. 

Arrive ten minutes prior to start time… communicate office hours on first day… be prepared to introduce yourself to the class… includes answering student questions and passing out materials… must have working knowledge of all elements of the Google Suite… attend all class sessions… 

When you looked up, the room was empty and your eyes bleary; you let the phone slip through your fingers and fall atop the comforter as shame and embarrassment flooded the space. So he had been avoiding you. In fact, he’d gone to considerable lengths to ensure you two would never interact again. It was like a bullet to the chest.

You plopped back on your bed, the ceiling swirling. Had you been so awfully unpleasant? You shut your eyes and thought back to the session prior to the final, before the switch, the last time things felt fine. Had you said something terrible you’d entirely overlooked? 

You and him had just finished going over your last-needed edits. You’d tucked the paper into your folder, then the folder into your backpack. Normal. 

You’d been wearing jeans and a sweater, your hair as it normally was, and he’d been wearing his usual button-up with slacks. His pen sat in his hand, and your paper on top of the desk between you. Normal. 

He’d taken off his glasses, as he usually did after revising. He’d cracked a joke about needing to get a lanyard thing to keep them around his neck, but you couldn’t place which word he’d used. Everything was… as it was. 

By this time of the meeting all of your anticipatory nerves had settled, and you’d gotten braver. “How old are you?” you’d asked, and you wanted to shove your head under a pillow at the memory. That must’ve been where you fucked up. 

But it wasn’t. You recalled his smile at that comment like the back of your hand. It crinkled the corners of his eyes and made the blue of them hazy, more tolerable to soak up without catching a chill. “How old do you think I am?” 

The question had been said as he sat back in his chair, eyeing you playfully. Even now while simply analyzing, you felt your cheeks heat. Angles, angles, and more angles; the slope of his chest to his hips when he relaxed, the hard cut of his jaw, and his hands that looked oh so capable. 

His hair had gone a bit limp and strayed over his brow, making you grip the edge of the seat. You remembered taking the opportunity to let your gaze fall upon all of him from the waist up. Selfishly roaming from the top of his abdomen up to his shoulders, down his biceps and the forearms that were delightfully exposed after another erotic sleeve roll-up when you came in, then all the way back to his eyes. Not normal to soak him up so transparently, but given the question, this couldn’t have ruined things. Right? 

“Could be twenty-eight, could be forty.” You’d mirrored his body language, easing back until your head hit the seat. His brow twitched, and you bit your cheek to hold his eye contact. 

“Forty?” He could’ve been offended, but the light dancing off his eyes said something else entirely.  

“You’ve got a PhD, Professor.” The instant it rolled off your tongue it had taken on a different meaning, at least to you; the word slipped out with texture, novelty. 

“Thirty-one.” 

“When’d you get your degree?” Your interest had piqued at him only being a few years your senior, concocting dirty fantasies you feared might escape in a Freudian slip; but besides that, it was pleasant, normal conversation. Normal, normal, normal, for two humans that had been privately talking to each other for an hour or two each week for three months. You couldn’t decipher a single thing that could have set him off, anything that would justify him disliking you so much. 

“Twenty-four.” He stood, likely—and thankfully—missing the way your jaw slacked. 

“How is that possible?”

“Had a lively social life in high school. No time for college credit.” He’d stood then, keeping to his predictable schedule. Push chair in, grab jacket, left arm, then the right, then a glance to see if you were getting ready to leave. 

“So you’re a genius.” 

His face had flushed at that—you wondered if that was the moment; you’d surely embarrassed him, and for a man of his status, that was a surefire way to get on bad terms. But, again, again, his response gave away none of that. “Kind way to describe a nerd.”

Nerd had sounded so foreign out of his beautiful, cut-from-marble form. On the walks there, you’d compared him to poison, taking a little bit each week to build a tolerance to his charms. Enough to act like a human with him, and pretend like you weren’t on the verge of sinking to your knees. “Trying to make sure I stay on that ‘pass’ side of things so close to the end of the term.”

“You don’t need to worry about that.” His voice was strong and reassuring, booming off your bedroom walls like it was the cramped office. He’d shaken his head while grabbing his bag from the desk. “You’re spectacular.” 

“Kind way to describe a paper about the politics of psychiatric facilities.” 

THERE!

You sat up in bed as you pinpointed the moment his demeanor shifted. His attention had moved from your face to his shoes, his blinking got faster, and he didn’t look up again. He’d hung behind and locked the door after you pranced out, and you’d managed to walk half the hallway before realizing he hadn’t followed. 

The evening ended with a wave for him to hurry, followed by a shred of hesitance you hadn’t caught in the whirlwind of being around him; you’d held the door open this time, and he slipped through with a quiet thanks. So over the moon with how his jacket brushed your arm as he hurried through it, you hadn’t caught that he didn’t wave back as you walked to the stairs and parted. 

“I don’t get it. We were getting along so well.” The kitchen was bright after the depressive abyss of your room, and you lamented on how fun it had been to be around him. Getting a peek behind the curtain at the man who was actually funny, a bit shy, even hearing the occasional stutter from the well-spoken Greek god. 

Your roommate pushed a plate of food toward you. “Probably how he gets ya.” 

A taco balanced between your thumb and pointer finger, fragrant and warm. “How so?”

“Act nice while he’s on the hook, then dip after the course evals roll in.” She rolled her eyes like he’d told her his ploy herself. You frowned, letting the taco rest against the plate. He had followed up with an email emphasizing completing the evaluations in a timely manner; no other professor sent reminders about them, and he hadn’t done that at the end of Fall term. 

Huh. The taco was a bit burnt, but nothing you could complain about as someone who neither cooked nor bought the groceries; but as the resident utilities-payer, if she’d left the heating on while the apartment was empty, you could’ve offloaded some of this tension. Lord knows she wouldn’t deserve it, but this stress took on a mind of its own and begged for release.

Why would she plate you so much food when you were so upset? Why could she take the class, and not you? Why’d you have to get ready for another term when the rug had just been pulled from under you? With his glare steady and ready whenever your eyes closed, you wanted to rot in bed on your phone, sulk in this sting, this sinking in your stomach, this clenching of your chest, jaw, shoulders, ugh! Thinking of walking through the humanities building now was horrifying; rushing past his classroom, praying with equal fervor that you would and wouldn’t catch a glimpse of him. The thought made a chill run down your spine, and you got up from the barstool. 

“So can I drop the class?” She put the remainders of the meal into a pop-top in the fridge. “Now that we know the frog is in fact not a prince?”

Mid-step, you paused. The chill morphed into something spikier, more resentful. ‘Maybe he gets what he wants because he intimidates people’ came to you in a thought bubble, echoing around the hollow cave of your chest. A loose plan was forming. “No.”

“I can’t just keep it, you know. I am not going to be around that loser, let alone pay to. He gets his dick sucked enough from everyone else.”

You shied away from saying you’d spent the past six months dreaming about that precise thing. “The drop deadline isn’t for two weeks.” You told her to forward the email to you, signing off as you entered your room with a firm and slightly giddy, “Trust me.” 

Thin black fabric skirted the middle of your thighs against the Gotham wind, your backpack pulling hard on your shoulders, symbolic in its want for you to go home and quit this ridiculous plan; a plan that was more likely to get you prioritized on his shit list than erased from it. You kept your head on a swivel, paranoid that Professor Wayne would see you at any moment, weaponizing his x-ray vision to see down to your bitter core and snuff you out. 

You yanked down your skirt you'd obsessed over for days before you climbed the stairs, heaving a deep breath as you strode down the main hall. Fussing with your hair and making sure your mascara hadn’t smudged in the rain was difficult whilst juggling printouts of the syllabus, and didn’t help with regulating your breathing. Fabulous. Each step made you less sure this was a good decision, and you nearly turned back.

“Excuse me, where’s room 142?”

A man—no, boy; he looked fresh out of middle school—stopped you, shoving a schedule in your face. You didn’t think anyone had seemed this young when you took ethics before. You motioned for him to settle in beside you, and winced at the memory of the professor rejecting you. “You can follow me, I’m headed there.”

“Thank god.” The stranger sighed with disproportionate relief, like you were a crisis responder and he had an active house fire. “I was wandering around for the last half hour. Campus is so big. Have you taken classes with him before?”

“Professor Wayne?” You kept your tone light and curious; he looked like the type to tattle. Did they let high schoolers take a free grad class in the spring or something?

The guy stepped on the back of your heel, and he yelped. “Sorry—yeah, yes. I looked at his Rate My Professor and it’s…” 

You grinned, feeling transported back to August the year before, terrified to meet the infamous Bruce Wayne. “It’s quite controversial.” 

“He was the only professor whose class wasn’t full. Which was weird, because isn’t he supposed to be ultra-famous here? Or his family is?”

“Maybe people caught that he’s a harsh grader, and it’s not worth the eye candy.” It was, and you prayed the boy wouldn’t pry. You wanted to curl into a ball at how you’d do the mentorship all over again, with the same result, just to be in his orbit. 

“Class is probably gonna be full of girls drooling over him.” 

You laughed to yourself; it was never just the women who fell over themselves. Some of the biggest kissasses had been men, who stared too long at Professor Wayne’s sculpted biceps before looking nervously down at their laptops. 

A heavy metal door zoomed into view, and your breath hitched, the waterproof folio digging into your arm. This was a terrible idea at baseline, and you’d tried to make yourself look as teasing as possible on top of it. Anything to frustrate him, including tempting an unwritten dress code just so he might snap and admit that he hated you, that he hated all students, but you especially so. 

Kid Who Was Definitely Not Going to Swoon Over His Professor opened the door, and you noticed a handful of students chattering amongst themselves as you strolled in. Their attention snapped to the door when it shut, disappointment coloring their expressions at the man of the hour yet to arrive. 

His desk seemed larger when you were standing behind it, the monitors dwarfing the folio you slid by the keyboard. What the fuck am I doing? “I have printouts of the syllabus to hand you all.” Your voice shook a tad, fumbling with the zipper catching on an unruly piece of paper. “He’ll—Professor Wayne will be here in a few minutes.”

Someone from the front row told you to speak up, and another asked what your name was. You cleared your throat and finally got the zipper unstuck, pulling out the stack to begin passing things out. “I’m Y/n, the TA. I took this class in the fall.”

You tried not to get a papercut while counting heads and ensuing syllabi to give to each row, but students kept peppering questions; when had anyone paid this much attention to a TA? 

“Is he as bad as the reviews say?”

“He’s—”

“Professor Wayne is not bad, he has high expectations. Some of us are here to learn.”

A brunette with a perfectly-laid spread of paper, pen, and MacBook sat with her hands in her lap. Her deep brown eyes struck you. Isabel. Her wide grin deepened the knot in your stomach. He hadn’t blocked her from registering for another course of his, so it wasn’t a mentor/mentee thing. 

“Make sure papers are formatted correctly, and that none of your questions are in the syllabus or lecture material. He’s very detail-oriented.” Standing in front of a sea of students made you hyper-aware of how short the skirt was. You were such a joke. This was such a joke. What were you thinking? What the hell would this even do? 

“As any professor should be. We’re paying to be here, aren’t we?”

“What’s up your ass?”

Jesus… Was this a goddamn high school class, truly? 

Isabel turned sharply to see who spoke. “Sorry I don’t care to gossip about someone here to teach us.”

You struggled with the last row of handouts, cursing yourself for this miserable plan. 

“Trying to be his sugar baby?”

Isabel slammed out of her seat. “Excuse me?”

“Hey, hey!” As much as you wanted her to go beat the guy smirking in the back corner, you didn’t want to know what Professor Wayne might say if a bloodbath broke out under your care on day one. “Everyone’s here to learn, alright? Let’s not make it hostile.”

You shot a glare at the guy snickering, and held in a scream when he stared at your exposed thighs. You got ahead of what was sure to be another sexist remark, and clenched your free hand into a fist. “If I hear another comment like that, I’ll have you booted from the course.” As for if you had that power, you didn’t think so, but it quieted the creep enough.

“Good evening, everyone.” 

The door creaked open, revealing Professor Wayne striding in donning his usual attire, satchel slung on his hip, coffee in-hand. “Staff meeting ran a bit long, but the syllabus is fairly straightforward. I assume everyone has already read it.” 

As if on cue, papers rustled around the room as everyone flipped it, scouring the detailed instructions like their lives depended on it; the temperature dropped considerably. In just a few month’s time, you’d forgotten how commanding he was in front of a crowd. 

“Adriana, thank you for getting the syllabus passed out. I—” He stopped mid-sentence, then recovered with a thunk of his books onto the desk. 

Oh, god. You could hear her voice in your head taunting you before you left: horrific idea, what if it comes back on me, he’ll kick you out, are you sure?

“Yes, Professor?” Fuck. 

He stared at you blankly. Should you walk to him? Stay put? His eye contact was scalding, like he threw boiling water over your head. 

“Excuse me, class. I need to consult with our TA for a few minutes.” He dropped your gaze, shoulders lowering with what seemed like an exasperated sigh; you couldn’t tell from across the lecture hall. “Want to make sure we’re on the same page.” 

You might pass out; you’d hit your head on the edge of a desk and never recover. Now that you knew he hated you specifically, that it wasn’t just a mix-up, all courage melted from your veins. You didn’t even have enough to deny him like you wanted, hightailing it to the front of the class as he walked toward the side door. 

We are on the same page, you thought between glances at his fucking shoulder blades. You won’t tell me why you despise me, so of course I pretended to be my friend and signed up using her information and stole the materials from her email to spite you. The door clicked shut behind you, and you blinked back to the moment.

Professor Wayne brought his hands to his hips. You couldn’t bear to look him in the face, but the movement of the air anointed you with his cologne and you could hardly breathe. Familiar, bright… “What are you doing here?”

“Assisting.” God, I’m such a smartass. But he makes me one! It’s his fucking fault! 

A disgruntled sound fell from him, and it speared right through you. You probably looked like a guilty dog, head down, all too still. 

“Tell Adriana to attend next week’s lecture, or I’m filing a report.” 

“A report?” His dark brows were scrunched tight, mouth turned down. A few fingers on his hips tapped against his belt, signaling his impatience. The hallway was barren and wide, but you couldn’t feel more claustrophobic if you tried. Looking at him now struck all oxygen from the building.

“Enrolling in classes with another student’s information is illegal.” 

“It’s not that serious,”

“Oh, it isn’t?” He shifted his weight to his back leg, his mouth falling open with a scoff. You wanted to slap him. You wanted to kiss it. “Then they shouldn’t care when I send it in.” 

“You said you didn’t need a TA.” 

“Plans changed.” 

“So I can sign up with my information, then?”

His lips formed a tight line, and you knew you’d found grip. “No.” 

Maybe it was because he looked tense, but you were brought right to October, standing awkwardly by his desk waiting for him to grill you; he didn’t need a red pen to prove his disdain, his distaste was evident in how he looked. Like you were a fly buzzing in his ear, or a piece of gum stuck to his shoe. Your voice softened, defeat and defiance lapping at you in equal measure. “Why not?”

Professor Wayne’s lashes fluttered, and his hands dropped from his hips. You wished they’d lift up your skirt already. “We should set up a meeting with the administration.”

“The administration?!” What happened to being a spectacular student? Having a perfect essay? Being the prime candidate for a TA? All the warmth you’d felt in his office vaporized. Gone like it never existed. 

“This conversation requires a mediator.”

You leveled with his glare for a second, sizing him up. Would pleading, demanding, or being a squeaky wheel get you to the truth faster? “Just tell me.”

“If you must know, we will go through the proper channels.” He pushed past to reach for the door, but you stepped in front of it on instinct. Pathetic, and desperate, to know why the first person who made you believe you were worth your acceptance letter was effectively throwing you in the trash. 

“Not happening.”

His jaw ticked, spiking your adrenaline. “Then unfortunately I can’t help you.”

“Why does anyone else need to be involved?”

“If you’d like me to set up a meeting,”

“Screw the meeting.” Whiny. I sound too whiny.

“Y/n.”

Impossible, but you did everything in your power to hurtle through the sound of him saying your name. Time was ticking, he was slipping, and you knew he’d beat you to the other door if it was a matter of racing. His eyes were so mean now, frigid; little resemblance to the refreshing, foamy waves of before. 

“I fucked up in ethics to the point you said it was impossible to pass, then said I wrote a perfect essay for 505, but suddenly you won’t talk to me? Won’t tell me why I can’t TA, when my friend can sign up without even taking the course herself?”

“Your work holds no concern.” Running on autopilot, responding like you weren’t even speaking, but you went with it.

“Then what is it?”

It was almost physical how tangibly you felt a wall go up. Something was right fucking there. You wanted to take a step closer. You couldn’t. 

“Is my work good, or do you want to get rid of me?”

His eyes flicked to yours and struck the air from your lungs. “Your work is good.” 

You could sense by the way he said it that he wouldn’t budge; that he held all the power here, and you could pound your fists against the brick all you wanted, but it would only break your own skin. Defeat won out, slamming your spirit into the dirt. You wished he hadn’t been so nice, so affirming. That his voice didn’t make you tremble, that his focused attention didn’t feel like ecstasy. Tears sprung, but you wished they wouldn’t. “You used to actually talk to me.”

“And it was inappropriate.” 

“What?”

“I’ll set up a meeting with the department.” 

“No,” he turned to head to the other door, and in a rush of panic, you grabbed him by the wrist. Your palm burned at the contact, but you didn’t let go.

He didn’t move, singing his same refrain. “You do good work. Leave it at that.”

“I can’t.” Tears carved wet stripes into your cheeks as easily as balsa wood. “I know it’s something. It’s nagging at me. I can’t—it runs circles in my mind all fucking day. Every day.” You needed to sob, release the boa constrictor around your throat, but you couldn’t. Not until you knew.

Professor Wayne looked back, and his shoulders dropped. Something unplaceable flickered across his features. “Then see me after class.” 

You dropped his wrist and watched him walk away, thrumming from the sliver of sympathy in his voice and the heat that lingered on your palm. 

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