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bkwrm523 · 2 years

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World’s Greatest Detective

Title: World’s Greatest Detective Rating: Explicit Pairing: Bruce Wayne/reader Word Count: 2519 Warnings: Sex in the batsuit, oral.... playful interrogation? Summary: You’re hiding something from Bruce, and he’s going to find out what. One way or another. Author’s Note: As usual, this is in no particular universe.

In your defense, it had been Clark Kent’s idea.

Apparently, the whole thing had spawned during a conversation with Lois. You weren’t sure exactly how it’d gone; probably Clark expressing a desire to do something to cheer up Bruce. Not that Bruce was unusually unhappy; he was just like that. In any case, Clark had suggested it, and either Lois hadn’t been able to talk him out of it, or Clark had shown such puppy like enthusiasm and excitement about it, that she simply hadn’t had the heart to point out the flaws in his plan.

So now here you were. Part of a collection of your boyfriend Bruce Wayne’s friends and family. Planning a surprise birthday party for him. A surprise party for someone who was often called the world’s greatest detective.

You were doomed.

So, you weren’t particularly surprised one night when Bruce started to poke at you. It was late, Bruce had finished patrol, and you, he, and Alfred were finishing up. Putting things away, going over files, cleaning armor, the usual sort of things that needed to be tied up before you three could call yourselves done for the night. Bruce had taken off his cowl, but kept the rest of the armor on for the moment as he went over files in the computer.

“You’re hiding something from me.” Bruce broke the silence. Alfred was on the other side of the cave. Within shouting distance, but not the low conversational tone Bruce was using. You were next to him, entering your share of the night’s information into another terminal next to him. Bruce was using his Batman voice, the one that made you shiver.

“Bruce, are you arguing with the files again.” You asked him without looking up, feigning misunderstanding.

“I’m talking to you.” He replied sternly. “Do you think I don’t know when you’re lying to me?” It was the usual Batman voice, but there was something...

“Wait.” You replied, pausing what you were doing to give him a surprised and amused look. “Are you using your interrogation voice on me?”

“Answer the question.”

“What did I do?!” You feigned confusion and amusement, not actual offense. No need to turn the conversation ugly. Bruce stared at you for a long moment, then hit a comms button.

“Alfred.” Bruce said.

“Yes, Master Bruce?”

“Are you about done over there? I’d like some time alone with Y/n.” “Just about,” Alfred replied, setting down what he was holding, with a faint smirk that you could just see from where you sat. He turned and walked to the exit. “Do try to keep the noise down, sir.”

And then he was gone. You couldn’t help but feel excitement and dread in the pitt of your stomach.

You stood from your chair, aimlessly straightening the papers in front of you. “I think I’m gonna go to bed, too. It’s getting-”

“Stop.” Bruce interrupted you. You froze, unable to disobey. Your eyes were fixed on the desk, too nervous to look up and see his expression. You heard him move around, stand, and the slow footfalls over to you.

“Look at me.” Bruce’s voice was firm and menacing, but soft. You obeyed.

He’d put his cowl back on. And turned the voice changer on. Fuck. He rested his hands on the desk on either side of you, caging you in, and leaned in until he was inches away.

“What aren’t you telling me.” Batman growled at you. Your breath caught, and for a moment you couldn’t speak. Any other criminal might wet themselves in this situation. You, on the other hand, were unbearably turned on.

“I, uh.” Coherent words was a bit too much to ask under the circumstances.

“Tell me what you know.” Batman growled again.

“I... there’s...”

“Tell me what this is about, and I’ll kiss you until you’re limp and weak.”

Shit.

“You-your birthday. It’s about your birthday.” You couldn’t look away from his eyes, any more than you could not answer him. Bruce moved immediately.

Both his arms lifted from the table and wrapped around you. One of them low on your back, the other cupping the back of your skull and holding you in place as his lips landed on yours and ravaged you. You clung to him, arms gripping wherever they could reach, and sunk into him, able to do nothing more than submit to his passionate kiss. His tongue was in your mouth, and you whined a little, stimulated at how helpless you felt in his arms. He growled, and one leg pushed yours apart, slotting his hips between your legs until you could feel his suit’s codpiece pressing against you. Your hands clenched on fistfuls of his suit and you moaned as he ground the codpiece into you. His arms and the desk were all that was holding you up.

By the time he released you to slump back against the desk, you were dizzy. Just as limp and weak as he’d promised. His grip on you loosened, but his arms didn’t leave you. The arm on top moved from your head down to the back of your shoulders.

“What are you planning for my birthday.” Batman demanded. His voice was still a rough growl, but it was softer after the demanding kiss.

“B- Batman, please.” You whined, unable to focus beyond the memory of his lips on you.

“Please, what.”

“Touch me.”

“Tell me what you’re planning, and I will.”

“Fuck.” You avoided his eyes. You couldn’t turn him down. “It... a surprise party, I-” he didn’t wait for you to elaborate, before he went for your neck. You gave a startled yelp as he ravaged your skin, right where he knew you were most sensitive. Your head dropped forward onto his shoulder, panting at the overwhelming stimulation.

He ground his codpiece into you, again and again, making you moan and babble into his shoulder. Time stopped functioning, and all you were aware of was the orgasm approaching. You clawed at the back of his suit, trying to leave scratches on skin that wasn’t exposed at the moment, cried his name in an attempt to warn him, but no other words would come. His stubble and teeth scraped your sensitive skin, pushing you closer to the edge until you tumbled over it, screaming his name. He kept grinding into you, pushing you higher until you finally collapsed in his arms.

Batman held you for a moment, just letting you go limp and try to recover before he continued his interrogation.

“Good girls get orgasms.” Batman murmured in your ear. You thought you’d need longer after that last orgasm, but hearing him say that in the Batman voice with the voice changer on? You were suddenly very ready to go again. His arms tightened around you, and he lifted you until you were sitting on the desk. Your shirt was swiftly pulled off. He leaned in, arms going around you to reach for the catch on your bra. The feeling of his armored hands on your bare skin made you shiver. When you felt his lips touch your neck again you gave a startled yelp, and he gave a dark chuckle before frying your brain again. You dropped your head onto his shoulder, and your hands clenched at his armor. Your thighs clenched tightly around his hips, clinging to him instinctively. One of his hands detoured from your bra clasp to trail lightly up your spine. You yelped and squirmed in his arms, drawing another dark chuckle.

He took pity on you after a moment, unlatching your bra and tossing it aside. And then... he pulled away from you, startling you. You leaned back a little, watching him curiously. He reached into a belt pouch, and pulled out a zip tie. Your breath caught and your eyes went huge. He smirked at you, easily reading your arousal at his move. He pulled your hands behind your back, and tied them in place. The zip tie was loose, though; just tight enough to hold your hands there, but loose enoguh that you’d be able to pull them free with a little determined wiggling.

Batman put one hand on your shoulder, and gently pushed you down until you were lying on your back, your legs hanging down in the air. He bent over you, resting one arm on the desk to support his weight, and attacked your nipple with lips and teeth and tongue. His free hand tweaked the remaining nipple. You squirmed and writhed on the table, instinctively trying to escape, but he’d left you nowhere to go. The sight alone of his cowl bent over your breasts was enough to make you whine for him.

Then, abruptly, he stopped. And stood. Batman turned his attention away from you for a moment, unclasped both gloves, and set them down to the side. You didn’t see exactly where. His now bare hands went to your pants, making you shiver again when his skin brushed yours so close to your pussy. He undid your pants, pulling pants and underwear off, discarding them. Then he grabbed the nearby chair, pulled it over, and sat down. Right between your parted legs. Your throat was suddenly dry at the sight of him, still in the cowl, between your legs. His eyes met yours. You felt like his prey, and you didn’t mind a bit.

“Good girls get orgasms.” Batman reminded you. He broke your gaze then, looking down at your wet and waiting pussy. Then he leaned in, and devoured you.

One arm went across your hips, pinning you down and his thumb dropped down to tease your clit. The other hand reached up your body to toy with one breast as his tongue thrust inside you.

His tongue found your gspot, rubbing against it and making your eyes roll back in your head and you thrashed on the table. He ate you out like you were his favorite meal, like he never wanted to come up for air. You squeaked and squirmed and whined his name, but there was no escaping. Batman groaned into your pussy, and you felt the vibrations stimulating you and moaned helplessly. Your hands struggled against the binds, but you weren’t escaping. You shook in his grip, and felt an orgasm rapidly approaching. You cried his name, gave broken pleas, but he never let up. You screamed, your senses overwhelmed, and jerked in his grip. You vision went white and time stopped, until he finally let you down.

It was a few moments before you came back to yourself. Bruce was leaning over you, still cowled. His face was clean, you suspected he’d wiped it off or something. His arms were planted on either side of you, and he was gently nuzzling your face, waiting for you to come back.

“Batman,” you murmured, no real intention following the word. You’d simply uttered his name out of a desire to hear it. He smiled a little and kissed you, long and gentle with slowly growing desire. The kiss continued into a long makeout, your hands struggling a little without result behind your back in a desire to touch him. He ground his pelvis into you, gently at first, until he lit another fire in you and had you squirming and whining for more.

He finally broke from your lips, letting you gasp for breath, and stood. Your eyes followed him as his hands went to his belt. You watched, breathless with anticipation as he removed just the crotch from his suit, a bit of his upper thigh plating coming with it. He pushed down the pants of his underarmor suit, just enough to reveal his cock, huge and erect and weeping for you. Your lips parted, your breathing coming hard with desire. Bruce leaned back over you, planting his arms on the desk, moving until just the tip of his cock poked your eager pussy.

“One last question.” Batman growled. You’d honestly forgotten about the voice changer until right then. You groaned and dropped your head back to the table in exhasperation.

“Batman, please-” you whined, but he didn’t wait for you to finish.

“Who was involved. In my birthday surprise.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“I won’t fuck you until you tell me.” Batman growled, his voice low and tense with need. But you knew better than to hope he’d break.

“Goddamnit.” you swore. Bruce’s hips swivled against you, rubbing his cock against you just enough to remind you how it’d feel to have him buried inside you. You tried to keep your mouth shut, but damnit he felt good, and you wanted more. Needed more.

“All right all right!” You screamed, unable to resist any longer. “Clark, it was Clark’s id-” he didn’t let you finish before he plunged into you.

Slowly, letting your pussy adjust to his immense girth. You screamed his name and arched your back under him, unable to focus beyond the feeling of his cock filling you more and more, inch by inch. He finally bottomed out, and buried his face in your neck while he waited for you to adjust, giving little nips and licks occasionally. When you adjusted, you tried to wrap your legs around his hips, but your muscles felt sore and dead, and you couldn’t make them move.

“Move,” you gasped. “Please!”

Batman growled again, and obeyed.

One of his planted arms moved to your shoulders, holding you in place for his powerful thrusts to rock the desk. His teeth sunk into your neck, and you wanted more than anything to wrap your arms around him, to grasp the ears on his cowl, but your hands were still bound behind you. You tried to squirm, to arch into him, but you could barely think beyond the feeling of his thick cock pounding you beyond reasonable thought. You two had fucked with him partly in the suit before, but something about him keeping the cowl and voice changer on to interrogate you drove you wild.

Your overworked pussy didn’t last long before you were coming again, and you last consious thought before pleasure overtook you was to feel him coming inside you, and then everything went black.

You awoke in Bruce’s cot in the batcave. Cleaned up, and changed into one of Bruce’s spare button down shirts and boxers. You were lying on your side, snuggled into Bruce’s bare chest as he drew patterns on your back. He’d changed too, stripped down to nothing but his underwear. You made a small moan, alerting him that you were awake, and he looked down at you.

“Are you all right?” Bruce asked, concern creasing his forehead.

“Better than all right, after that.” You smiled up at him, soothing his worry that he’d hurt you. He smiled back at you.

“I look forward to you explaining this to Clark.” Bruce told you, looking smug. Your cheeks heated in embaressment, and you looked away from Bruce’s gaze.

“Oh no, I’m not telling him shit. You’re just gonna have to explain how you found out.”

“We’ll see.”

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the-wintershade · 1 year

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becoming unraveled | pattinson!batman

series: staring into the echo | 1 | 2 | 3 pairing: pattinson!batman x reader summary: bruce needs to hear the truth. wc: 2.3k+ genre: angsty, reader has doubts about feelings, sad, but has a happy ending (here it is!)

His voice, sad and open, calls to you. “Was it something I did?”

Your face wavers and your feet stop moving.

Of course, this has nothing to do with him. This is all about you. This is about a relationship that you’re realizing you imagined all in your head.

He did nothing wrong. He has a right to pursue and like who he wanted. You’re an adult. You’re responsible for how you feel. You’re trying to sit and deal with your emotions.

But you never meant for Bruce to feel like he could do anything to jeopardize what the two of you had. You just wanted to process and wait for it all to go away.

Slowly, you turn around. His shoulders timidly fold into each other. He looks so vulnerable. You can’t stand it.

You decide to try to tell the truth.

You can’t promise you would tell everything, that might be too risky if you’re trying to protect the relationship you have, but you would at least try to help him understand.

“No.” Your face scrunched into a look of concern. Bruce responds, becoming less sorrow-filled and more inquisitive. “Of course not, Bruce.”

“Then why do I feel like I did something to upset you?”

“You didn’t,” you shake your head.

He slowly pads closer, watching to make sure you don’t back away from him. You don’t this time. “You never said anything to me before you left. You didn’t let me check if you were hurt. I don’t think you were even going to answer my texts.” He stops right in front of you, your toes nearly touching. He reaches down and grasps your hands, giving them a gentle squeeze. “Tell me, what did I do?”

You swallow. Worry engulfs his eyes as they scan across your face, up and down your arms.

The last thing you expected was for Bruce to come and seek you out. You couldn’t help but keep asking yourself, where was this other woman?

You need to bring her up. While you enjoyed having him so close to you, so worried about you, and so insistent on making things right, you need to know what happened between them before you let yourself fall into him.

You close your eyes, scrunching your brows together in a grimace. You can’t believe you’re going through with this.

“What?” Bruce asks, noticing your facial expression, an anxious tone both softening and lifting his pitch. His grip on your hands tightens. “What is it?”

“It’s stupid,” you breathe.

“It’s not, whatever it is. Talk to me.”

You take a deep breath and open your eyes. You make sure to keep your gaze locked on the floor and not on him. He can’t read what he can’t see. “Did the woman with the red hair go back with you to the manor?”

“What woman with the red hair?”

You scoff. You knew this was stupid. Either he’s denying this on purpose or he really does not remember what you’re talking about. “The woman you were talking to when we got out of the building.”

His silence prompts you to look up at him. His expression twists in confusion, eyes shifting slightly as he sorts through his memories. “Oh! Selina.”

Just what anybody wants to hear. The bright recognition in his voice has you ready to confirm your suspicions about her going home with him. Then Bruce keeps talking.

“The woman with the red hair,” Bruce continues. “That was Selina. Selina Kyle. We’re working together to try to get information about the Riddler’s targets. Her friend is missing. She got a lead but lost them in the building explosion.”

You take another deep breath.

He didn’t answer your question. But now you’re more interested in questioning him a bit about the nature of their relationship. Even if you have to result to lower methods, methods you don’t even like the fact that you were about to use.

“You two seemed pretty cozy,” you murmur, trying to keep your eyes away from his face again. He would know what you’re doing if he looks you in the eye. You feel his confusion in the silence.

“She was pretty upset, but it’s not like that.” Bruce squeezes your hands. “We’re just temporary partners. Once we figure things out, we’ll go our separate—wait,” Bruce hesitates and you bite your lip to keep yourself still.

There was that partner word again. As much as you’re elated to hear that he doesn’t think of Selina in that way, it doesn’t dismiss the fact that you don’t know how he views your relationship. Your heart starts to race in his silence. “Are you jealous?”

You could lie, but you told yourself already that you wouldn’t do that. You need to stand your ground, no matter how scary that was. “I don’t know.” Your hands twitch in Bruce’s steady hold. “I just was confused. You looked at her like she was more than just a partner.”

Bruce starts laughing, and you would be lying if you said that it doesn’t tick you off a little. This is a very serious conversation.

You’re beginning to pour your heart out to him. If he isn’t going to take that seriously, you would stop talking to him entirely.

“If you’re going to laugh at my feelings, we can just talk later.” You start to back away from him, slipping your hands from his grasp, but he tightens his hold, keeping you planted where you had only taken a few steps back.

His eyes open as his chuckles die down. His gaze fills with clarity and…happiness?

Only a few moments ago he looked upset and confused, now he looks as if he had made a special discovery that helped him unlock a puzzle.

“I’m sorry for laughing. I do take your feelings very seriously. I just never thought we would get to this moment.” His eyes are so bright now; they draw you in, refusing to let you look away.

“What moment?”

“The one where I can finally be honest with you because I know you feel the same.”

Your heart picks up again. You’re starting to get whiplash from all of the emotional ups and downs.

But now, you let a bit of hope seep through, lightening your face and coloring your voice in tiny bits of giggles that echoed his.

Was he going to admit what you’d been waiting to hear? Did he see you as more than just a partner?

You anxiously shifted your weight from one foot to the other. “Okay, out with it, Bat guy.”

Bruce gently drops your hands. For a second, you thought this is going to go differently, that he’s going to say how thankful he is for your partnership and talk about how he works hard not to jeopardize it.

But then he brings his hands up to cup your face, tilting your chin to look him in the eye.

“I didn’t sleep with her. I was up half the night worrying about you. I could barely sleep thinking you were upset with me.”

You sigh in relief, letting your eyes slip closed. The hope you kept firmly in check spilled forth through your veins, heating your veins and adding a flush to your cheeks. You meant more. You mean more to him.

“So, you see me as more than a partner?” You smile at him, knowing how tender and vulnerable your eyes look.

Before you would have locked your expression down immediately. Now, there’s no need. You’re safe with Bruce, even if the answer is a no.

That same tenderness reflects in the intensity of his stare. Then, he gently leans in, waiting for your foreheads to touch and for you to angle your chin toward his face before he presses his lips against yours. He drops a hand to wrap around your waist, pulling you into his chest. Your hands curl into his shirt.

His kiss is firm but soft, and he surges forward to capture your lips again before leaning back to press his forehead against yours. “Yes, I see you as more than a partner,” he whispers against your lips.

Your stomach erupts in butterflies while your heart calms down. You could feel a puffiness starting to form on your lips.

He feels the same way. He really feels the same way.

“What about me?” Bruce pulls back to brush some of your hair away from your face. “Am I more than a partner to you?”

You smirk and reach up on your tiptoes to kiss him again, lingering longer than you need to. Your core warms as his arm tightens against your back. When you break for air, you chuckle. “I’m not in the habit of kissing my working partners.”

“Oh really?” Bruce laughs. “Well good. Otherwise, HR would have a file about a mile long on you.”

Your laughter is bright and smiley and warm. Bruce grins, a warmth in his eyes.

“You’ve been more than a partner to me for some time.” You murmur, wrapping your arms around his neck and running a couple of fingers along his skin. His breathing stops for a second before he demurely smirks.

Right as he’s getting ready to kiss you again, your phone rings. You check your watch.

It’s 8:05 am. You’re missing breakfast with Gordon.

You disentangle yourself from Bruce, but not without begging Bruce to let you go. His laughs follow you into your room. You answer the phone without looking at the caller ID; you already know who it was.

“Hey, Gordon. I’m so sorry. Something came up.” You answer, breathless and still giddy.

“That bat guy showed up at your place, didn’t he?”

You chuckle, ready to ask how he knew but then you remembered the bat signal the other night and how Gordon could tell something was wrong with you and how Bruce knew you went back to the department instead of going straight home.

“You told him to come here?” You ask.

Gordon is silent for a moment. “I recommended it.”

“Wow. Look at you, matchmaker for the department.” Bruce now leans against your door, looking at you on the phone with a happy grin. He must have already figured out who you’re talking to.

“You guys have a good thing going on. Figured all you needed to do was talk it out.”

“You’re really something Lieutenant. You knew he was going to show up in the morning?”

“No. I told him to wait till the evening after you’d blown off some steam. He’s the nutjob who thought the earlier the better.”

“Is that so?”

“Mhm. Did he use the biscuit excuse?”

“As a matter of fact, he did.” You cock your head to the side to look at Bruce. He looks back with an innocently curious look on his face. You make up your mind to tease him about it later.

“That was a decent one,” Gordon hums. “A little on the nose for my taste, but it seemed to work because here I am with a pot of coffee in front of me and nobody to drink it with.”

“I’m still going to be there. I just might need 15-20 more minutes.”

“Fine. It’s not like I’m going anywhere.”

“See you soon, Gordon.”

“Yeah. Hey. Bring that bat guy with you, will you? I think I’ve earned a free breakfast.”

“Will do, Lieutenant.”

You click off the phone and shake your head at Bruce. “What?” He knowingly smiles.

“You little schemer. You planned this thing with Gordon. And there are no biscuits! You lied to me.”

He grins, white teeth peaking out behind his lips as he walks closer. “You know Alfred has plenty waiting for you back at the manor. Plus, I needed somebody to run some thoughts by. I thought I was reading into the situation wrong. I needed a second opinion.”

“Hmm. I guess I can believe that.” Bruce comes to a stop right in front of you, bending down to press a kiss against your temple. Butterflies flutter in your stomach again.

It’s nice to know that all of your worries would lead you to this moment with him. Now, you don’t have to concern yourself with how he thought about you.

Bruce likes you and sees you as something precious in his life. It’s endearing as much as it was scary.

Your honesty paid off. The voices in your head are quiet now. The memories with Bruce change from black and white back to gold.

Now you could just be. Just be with him.

“Oh, also, Gordon invited Batman to breakfast.” You squeeze his shoulder as you walk around him to retrieve the clothes you were going to change into.

“He did?” Bruce’s face scrunches into a confused expression.

“He did. He expects repayment for his services in the form of an early morning meal.”

“Of course,” Bruce chuckles. “I should get back to the manor to change then.”

“Sounds good.” You set your uniform down in your bathroom before you quickly bounce back over to Bruce. “See you soon.”

You lean up and press a kiss against his lips. Bruce responds right away, a hand lifting to your cheek to draw you in, another holding your waist. His lips gently move across yours.

This is really happening. You’re together with Bruce. That the little voice that held on to him was right.

Bruce presses one long kiss to your lips before he backs away, smiling in a daze. “Drive safe,” he tells you, turning around to leave your apartment.

A warmth blossoms in your core that you haven’t felt in a long time.

That warmth follows you from the shower, to your car, to the diner, and expands again when you feel Bruce, now dressed as Batman, slide into your side of the booth, nudging your knee under the table.

taglist! @beautifulgrungekid (I got u)

#site #battinson fic #battinson x reader #battinson angst #battinson/reader #battinson fanfiction #bruce wayne #bruce wayne fanfiction #bruce wayne fic #bruce wayne x reader #bruce wayne/reader #series: staring into the echo #s: staring into the echo

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lingerasthesmokeoncedid · 1 year

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pairing: pattinson!batman x reader

summary: When her thread on r/GothamUnsolved (claiming that Bruce Wayne is the Batman) goes viral, an amateur sleuth finds herself at odds with both the man - and the Dark Knight.

wc: 10k+

genre: a romantic comedy between two deeply strange weirdos

warnings: canon-typical violence, bruce wayne is bad at google

“After the events of the Gotham Flood, the Batman has become something of a folk hero around the streets of our “fair” city. But what if I told you that the Batman isn’t all he seems? What if I told you that the caped crusader, the man who solved the Riddler and the masked menace of Gotham’s evil-doers isn’t just some guy? What if I told you…he’s Bruce Wayne?” -Excerpt from “Bruce Wayne is The Batman (NOT CLICKBAIT),” a forty-six part reddit thread by TheRealGothamGirl

Three years ago, after devouring a True Crime podcast about the Wayne murders, a nobody barista found her way to the r/GothamUnsolved subreddit.

It wasn't much of a hobby, just a forum dedicated to amateur sleuths attempting to piece together the perpetrators of crimes the Gotham PD was unable – or unwilling – to solve themselves. Ever since, in the hours between the dead-end job she worked to one day (hopefully) put herself through law school, she poured over the subreddit and its various threads, picking apart evidence and seeking it out herself.

Six of her own investigations had led to arrests, she was proud to say. Not that anyone knew who she was. The forum was entirely anonymous, and she wanted to keep it that way. The last thing she needed was some of Gotham’s criminal element coming after her for exposing their identities or that of their accomplices – if they did, she figured they’d definitely kill her, and considering that the Gotham PD solved fewer homicides than her favorite subreddit, her killer would likely never be found.

But every amateur sleuth like her had a white whale – that one unsolved mystery that would haunt them for the rest of her days. In her case, however, the while whale was more of a dark knight. A Kevlar bat.

She wasn’t the first to drive themselves basically crazy over the identity of The Batman. Many on the forum had tried, only to run into dead ends or talk themselves in circles or point the finger at plainly ridiculous candidates. ( Harvey Dent? Really? ) However, she was - she believed, anyway - the first person to get it right.

So, after months of meticulous research, a few illegal dumpster dives outside of Wayne Enterprises, a few less-than-accidental run-ins with muggers so she could lure the Batman for closer inspection, and some incredible luck, she published her findings: a forty-six part reddit thread detailing most of her evidence, enough evidence that a jury of Bruce Wayne’s peers would have no choice to convict him, enough evidence to prove that the crown prince of Gotham was really its caped crusader, enough evidence to prove to anyone with half a brain that Bruce Wayne was unbelievably, irrevocably, incontrovertibly –

“Not the Batman. No. Definitely not.”

All day, behind the counter of the shitty print shop where she scanned other people’s theses and endlessly shuffled corporate reports into bracketed binders, she’d had to listen and smile and push highlights while customer after customer snickered at the ridiculous theory that had gone viral last night – the “insane” “conspiracy theory” that Bruce Wayne was The Batman. Each of them totally unaware that they were talking to the woman who’d spent months of her life crafting it.

All of that, she could have taken. But when the crackling television on the wall played a newscast with brooding Bruce Wayne snickering at the idea – staring into the camera as he said it, as if he were taunting her, specifically…that was the last straw.

“I don’t know, Mr. Wayne, this online poster seems to have really gotten people talking. Are you sure you’re not The Batman?”

“Miss Vale, how crazy would I have to be to run around Gotham City dressed as a bat?”

Vicki Vale, GCN's resident Bruce Wayne stalker, accepted this with a giggle, allowing Bruce Wayne to disappear into his city offices so she might sum up her ambush interview for the folks at home. But the woman behind the desk at the print shop bit the inside of her cheek.

What Bruce Wayne had just said? It wasn’t a denial. And she did think he was crazy enough to run around the city as a bat.

In fact, she knew he was.

Pinned Comment from Mod_GothamUnsolved: “Hey, Front Page! Due to an increase in inflammatory comments and threats against OP for this post, we are locking down our comments - approved users only for now. Sorry! Don’t be dicks next time! Keep an eye on our subreddit for more Bats-related content, though. OP claims to have more information forthcoming.”

That night when her shift was over, she tucked her keys between her knuckles, carried her umbrella in her free hand, and returned by the better-lit streets – basic operating procedure for anyone who wanted to live to see another day in Gotham – to the crappy loft in the crappier side of town where she lived. Every step was agitated agony. She knew it wasn’t literally true, but it felt as if everyone who laughed, everyone who smiled, everyone who glanced down at their phone, was making fun of her theory.

But it wasn’t a theory. Bruce Wayne was Batman. He was. She just had to prove it–

When she slammed the door of apartment 1319B open, her blood ran cold.

Oh, she was going to prove it alright.

Because there, rifling through one of her cabinets as if it were his own home, was the short, gruff, stocky, suited man she’d seen in more than a dozen photographs of Bruce Wayne and his associates.

“Oh. Mr. Pennyworth. Fancy seeing you here…” She closed the door behind her, rolling her eyes around the room to highlight just how supremely fucked up it was for him to be here. “...in my apartment.”

For his part, Mr. Pennyworth did not seem fazed by the strangeness of his presence there.

“Hello there,” he hummed, perfectly pleasant as he finally closed a cupboard and crossed to face her in the corner of the room that served as what could generously be called kitchenette. “I’m afraid we haven’t been formally introduced.”

“No,” she said, “but I bet you already know who I am. Don’t you?”

No denial. Instead, he slid a file across the grotty, coffee-stained countertop that served as her cook surface, her mail table, her desk, and her dining room. With one hesitant hand, she flicked it open to find exactly what she’d expected: pages and pages of print outs. Not just of her online post history, but of everything else. She couldn’t help but smile. No, beam . This was confirmation. She had found The Batman. And The Batman had sent his little minion to take her off of their trail. Only a truly threatened man would uncover the identity behind her online handle, break into her home, and present her with what looked like a blackmail folder. It basically screamed, “I’m guilty. I'm the Batman.”

“You’ve caused a bit of trouble for my boss,” Mr. Pennyworth informed her.

“And he’s caused a lot of trouble for the city.”

The man sniffed. “Unless you call causing a shortage of black clothing and Radiohead records trouble , we’ll have to agree to disagree on that point, Miss.”

Her lip twitched. The butler had jokes. That delighted her in a way she hadn’t expected. Still, she played dumb. “I can’t imagine what Bruce Wayne’s personal fixer would want with little old me.”

“This is all very embarrassing for Mr. Wayne, as I’m sure you can understand. Being associated with some kook–”

“Isn’t it more embarrassing to actually be that kook?” She mused. “Maybe if he didn’t want to be associated, he would, you know, stop being Batman?”

The slightest flash of annoyance crossed Mr. Pennyworth’s face. “–But he understands that you have a keen investigative mind and admires your tenacity. Even if it’s turned up the wrong result. He thinks he can help with that.”

And here it was. The only logical conclusion of Bruce Wayne discovering her identity. He was going to bribe her. Well, he could have her killed, but that would be so sloppy. These rich guys. Always the same. “Oh, yeah?”

“The Wayne Foundation would like to make a donation to your education,” Mr. Pennyworth said, passing another envelope across the desk, this time, sealed and check-sized. “A fully funded scholarship to Gotham University’s law program. You could train your mind. Put that tenacity to good use. Make the world a better place.”

“And stop pursuing this Bruce Wayne as Batman thing all together, I guess?”

“Well, I imagine you won’t have time,” he said, the implication clear. Her silence in exchange for this money, for her future. “What with all of that coursework you’ll be doing.”

She picked up the check, toying with its weight in her hand. How strange that something so small could have such power to change her life. A deep breath, then: “I appreciate this. I hope you tell Mr. Wayne that.”

“I will–”

With three easy gestures, she ripped the check into pieces and resigned them to the nearby trash can. “And you can also tell him that the next time he wants to intimidate me, he should put on his little costume and do it himself.”

UPDATED TO ADD: Today, I had a visit from Alfred Pennyworth, Mr. Bruce Wayne’s personal fixer (mentioned in sections 1, 2, 4, 7-45 of my investigation). He very politely invited me to cease my investigation into Bruce Wayne. And told me that if I did, the Wayne Foundation would happily pay for me to finally go to law school, something I’ve wanted to do but never have been able to afford. For anyone who still doubts my theory, I think Mr. Pennyworth pretty much proved it. Why would Bruce Wayne need to buy me off if what I said wasn’t true? Don’t believe me? See the security camera stills below - taken inside of my apartment. That’s Alfred Pennyworth, going through my cabinets. Thanks for stopping by, Mr. Pennyworth, but I’m here for the truth. Bruce Wayne’s money may be able to buy a lot of things in this town, but it’s not going to buy my silence."- Excerpt from “Bruce Wayne is The Batman (NOT CLICKBAIT),” a forty-seven part reddit thread by TheRealGothamGirl

Every Tuesday, on her only day off, she had a little ritual. First, she went to the Gotham Public Library to sort through the public records and pick up a new smutty romance book to read before bedtime over the next week. Then, she went to the courthouse and police station to pull any reports she might have needed for her research. And finally, she would go to the deli behind the police station, order the cheapest sandwich on the menu (usually given at a discount, as she requested day-old bread instead of fresh), and sit on her favorite park bench to enjoy her paperwork, her sandwich, and - on rare days like these - the sunshine.

However, on her walk to the bench today, a long, black coat wearing a tall, imposing man knocked her off of her path when their bodies accidentally collided. As she stumbled back from the force of him, her papers flying everywhere and her sandwich bag tumbling into the nearby grass, a brittle, soft voice reached her ears:

“Excuse me, miss–”

Familiar. She’d heard that voice before.

Crouched down to grab her papers, she looked up to see that the voice belonged to just the man she’d suspected – or feared.

It was Bruce Wayne. In the flesh. Without his armor or his mask. And when their eyes met, he smiled at her. Not a big smile, not anything he might have flashed in the papers, but something softer. Almost genuine. Almost good enough to awaken a whole sea of butterflies in the pit of her stomach.

“Oh,” he said, wincing his greeting. A little shy. A little awkward. “Hello. I'm sorry about that. Here. Can I...?”

He crouched down to help her. For a moment, she lost her breath and every word she’d ever learned. There was nothing but him. She’d been close to him before – once. But other than that fleeting exchange, one she was sure he didn’t remember, she only knew him from photographs and archival footage. In those videos, he’d always seemed…

Well, not to be rude, but a little bit like if the sickly orphan boy in a Charles Dickens novel had been cast in a 90’s grunge band’s music video.

In person, though, so close, he was something completely different. Sure, the basics of him were still the same, but there was an intoxicating indirectness about him – as though he didn’t understand the basics of human interaction…but something about her made him want to try.

She shook off the feeling almost as soon as it occurred to her.

There wasn’t anything special about her. This wasn’t a chance meeting in the park. It was another attempt to con her into dropping her Batman posts.

“That’s cute,” she muttered, attempting to pile her papers back into some semblance of order.

Bruce Wayne offered up stray pages as though he weren’t a billionaire crouched down in the middle of a public park. “What is?”

“This isn’t some chance meeting, Bruce Wayne . You’re pretending to run into me just a few days after your bruiser broke into my apartment.”

She glanced up to check out his reaction. A muscle in his jaw tightened and he looked anywhere but her.

“I didn’t ask him to do that. And–”

He stopped himself short, as though he’d caught himself almost saying something he shouldn’t have. When he handed her the last of her papers, she prodded:

“And?”

“And he didn’t break in,” Bruce mumbled. “He said the door wasn’t locked.”

“I notice you’re not denying the fake run-in.”

“This isn’t fake," he protested, at last. "I don’t even know you–”

Lie. How was a man with a whole-ass double life so bad at lying?

Maybe that was why he barely made it out of Wayne Manor or his offices. Maybe he was such a bad liar that if he showed his face in public too much, the whole world would see through him. She fought to fit her folders back into her bag, her sandwich quite forgotten nearby.

“Bruce. I discovered your super-secret identity. You��re not fooling me with this whole innocent guy act.”

Dropping the pretense of this meeting being an accident – thank God, she was glad he didn’t see fit to insult her intelligence any longer – he leaned forward, lowering his voice as though they were sharing a confidence. “I don’t have a secret identity.”

He’d gotten closer to her than he’d probably meant, but she could tell he wasn’t going to back down until he had his answer. So, for a moment, they shared the same air, huffing out cold puffs of powdered breath onto the frigid afternoon wind. His lips – so easily identifiable by anyone with eyes as the Batman’s lips – were pink from the cold. She dragged her gaze from them, then met his.

“Okay, then,” she said, squaring up to him. “Prove it.”

“Prove what, that I’m not Batman?”

“Yes. And you can do that by taking me to dinner.”

404. Batman error.

The man blinked, apparently not expecting her to ask him that question – or, more bafflingly to her, shocked that any woman would want to go on a date with him.

“I…” A muscle twitched between his eyes. Confusion. “I’m sorry?”

She practically sang her answer, quite pleased with herself. How wonderful to play with him this way, to tease him with a challenge she knew he would never meet…to taunt herself with a date she knew she would never get. But it was fun to pretend, just for a second. “The Batman goes out every night between eleven forty-seven and and eleven fifty-two. He doesn’t disappear until sunrise. Take me to dinner. If he’s out tonight and you’re with me, that will prove that you’re not The Batman.”

It would have been so easy for Bruce Wayne to turn on his heel and abandon her. To call a full-court press assault on her character, to degrade her as a crazy conspiracy theorist and resign her silly little theory to the pages of one of those tabloids that had gotten rich off of smearing his dead parents with horrible theories of their own.

But he didn’t. And she wondered…

She wondered if maybe he wanted to have dinner with her.

“Eleven forty-seven is a late dinner, don’t you think?” He asked, a cooly conspiratorial glint in his eye.

“We’ll go to a diner.” She shrugged. “I like waffles.”

“Dinner,” he repeated, confirming. His lips tipping up again in that nearly-smile of his. “I’ll pick you up at 11:45.”

Going for her forgotten sandwich, she rolled her eyes. It was a fun game while it lasted. But she wouldn’t be falling prey to his promises. She wasn’t a fool. “Sure you will, Batman.”

“I’m not–”

But before he could finish that protest, she disappeared around a nearby tree, biting her bottom lip to keep from laughing.

COMMENT FROM @ BALLCHUGGER 69: Batman is the greatest hero. I don’t care who he is. Leave him alone, whore.

That night, she didn’t even bother to get dressed for a date. Didn’t even pretend it was a possibility. No, if anyone had come to pick her up from her shitbox apartment on the wrong side of the city, they would have found her sprawled on her couch in a pair of sweats and a sports bra, stealing internet from her next door neighbor so she could scroll reddit’s latest Bruce Wayne as Batman megathread and listen closely to a livestream of the Gotham PD scanner.

Sure enough, about ten minutes after Bruce was supposed to meet her for dinner, crackle-voice cops informed their comrades that the Bat had just strung up three low-level mob figures up by the ankles from a lamppost.

Ten minutes after that, a knock on the door drew her to it. But when she opened, there was only a small, weighty eggshell envelope waiting for her, taped just beneath the peep hole. When she opened it, a handwritten letter under Wayne Enterprises letterhead informed her that Bruce regretted his absence, but had been called away on an urgent matter.

She smirked as she tossed the letter carelessly into the trash. She’d always known he wasn’t going to show up. The Batman was never going to ignore the city when it was in danger – even if it meant protecting his identity.

She had to admit: she admired him for that.

REPLY TO @ BALLCHUGGER69: I never said he wasn’t a hero. I think he is. In fact, I know he is. So we agree there. But as to the whore comment…if Batman is so heroic, I don’t think he would like you talking to ladies like that.

Sometime around midnight, she decided - for no particular reason - to go for a little walk down to Bowery. The Batman’s main territory. She’d seen him here more than once - and she wanted to see for herself that Bruce Wayne wasn’t at some high society dinner or in his Wayne Enterprises high-rise, but out there, on the streets. Doing what he did best - hunting.

She stuck to the shadows, one hand on the pepper spray in her pocket and the other on the heavy handle of the umbrella she always carried for protection. But soon enough, she found him. Guiding a frightened woman to the safety of a police car, while her three assailants scrambled away.

When Batman turned, his glazed eyes caught hers in the shadow. She smirked. He could run after the bad guys, or he could confront her.

Again, he chose the noble thing. He ran after the criminals.

Admirable. And fortuitous, as the mud from last night's rain left perfect copies of his boot prints behind. Boot prints that she meticulously photographed for later examination.

@ CKent_DailyPlanetNews: After independently verifying recent revelations regarding Wayne Enterprise Employee Alfred Pennyworth and the reddit user who asserts that Bruce Wayne is Batman, I have agreed to cover this story for The Daily Planet. More developments to follow.

For the next few days, after Clark Kent reached out to her anonymous account on Reddit and they set up a time to discuss her Batman finds, she went about her normal routine and tried not to think about Bruce Wayne or his dark knight counterpart. She did her job, raced home, and dove into the other outstanding amateur sleuthing cases that had been piling up during the whole Batman thing.

But she should have known that once the Clark Kent news broke and the internet exploded over it, Bruce Wayne would not be far behind.

One afternoon, in the print shop, she was five paragraphs into a really good sex scene in her book when a hand appeared on the desk in front of her, opening and closing into a loose fist - uncomfortable, not threatening. She glanced up to find Bruce Wayne standing there. As unbearably awkward in real life as he was confident and dangerous as Batman.

She waited for him to speak first. When he finally did, it just came out:

“...Hi.”

“Hi,” she said in her best customer service voice. Trying to ignore how his unbroken stare made her want to melt into his stupid, sexy arms and act out one of those romance novel scenes she’d just been reading. The only thing that stopped her from doing so was the knowledge that she’d gotten him right where she wanted him. He was panicked. And panicked men always made mistakes. Mistakes that could lead to him outright confirming his real identity. “Can I help you?”

“Could I…” He swallowed, trying to strengthen his weak voice. “Can we talk?”

“As opposed to what we’re doing right now?”

“Alone, I mean.”

With a flourish, she rose from behind the printing desk and breezed past him to straighten the already-straightened display of staplers and graphic calculators.

“If you’re here to ask me out, I’m sorry, but my schedule is all full. I don’t go on second dates with guys who stand me up, Mr. Batman.”

“ Don’t call me that .”

It was a growl, the closest she’d yet seen to The Batman flashing past his Bruce Wayne exterior. A thrill shot up and down her spine. Keep him talking . She didn’t want to let him go. She loved this dance that they were doing, this go away closer they played. “You saw Clark Kent’s tweet, didn’t you?”

“I don’t know why you’re doing this–”

“Of course you don’t,” she mumbled. “You never even asked.”

“--But please. Stop. The city needs Batman–”

Clearly, he thought speaking faster and clearer and something approaching a big businessman voice was going to spook her. But she would not be deterred. She’d thought this through a million times. “And they need Bruce Wayne, too. I agree. I just wonder why they can’t have both at the same time.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Nothing.” He still hadn’t asked her why she was doing this. And every time their eyes met, she waited for some flash of recognition that she now knew would never come. Even if she told him now what she meant by that little comment, he wouldn’t listen. Why waste her breath? “Nothing you’d be interested in hearing, anyway.”

Rounding one of the shelves she stocked, he came face-to-face with her. The rack was the only barrier between them.

“I am asking you to stop this,” he pleaded, low and gentle.

“Or what? You’ll make me stop?”

“What do you want? What can I give you?”

Her lips tugged. Smug. “I told you, Mister Wayne. I want to go to dinner.”

“That’s not possible.”

“Well, then. I think we’re done here. As it happens, I have a meeting with Clark Kent later this week to talk about my findings.”

“You’ll be making a mistake.”

“Why?”

“Because one day, if you do this, maybe you’ll need Batman, and I won’t be there.”

That felt like a threat. It felt like a slap. He instantly recoiled, as if ashamed that he’d said it. But when he opened his mouth to no doubt apologize, she beat him to it.

She’d caught him. The harder he tried to deny the truth, the more he kept showing his hand. “... You won’t be there? Sounds like an admission to me.”

Bruce adjusted his coat, drawing the collar up around his neck. He ignored her question and took to convincing her – which sounded more and more like he was convincing himself. “This conversation is over. I’m not your Batman. Your ridiculous post is only going to get people hurt. No one will believe you. And you don’t have any proof, just conjecture and speculation and probably some very flimsy ‘evidence.’ Nothing can link me to The Batman. Nothing .”

She could have laughed. She almost did. But she managed to stop it. Laughing would have given away her whole play. Adopting a fake serious tone, she nodded solemnly. “Of course. Yeah. Silly of me. You . Batman. It’s ridiculous. I’ll just go ahead and cancel my meeting with Clark Kent.”

Something flashed in his expression. Relief? Gratitude? A tint of regret? “I…Thank you.”

With that, he went for the door, but only made it two steps before she called him back.

No proof, he’d said. Please. As if she would accuse the most powerful man in Gotham of being The Batman without any actual evidence.

“Just one more thing, Bruce.”

“Yes?”

When he turned back around, he found himself face-to-face with her phone screen, which flashed a perfect picture of Batman’s boot print, which she’d snapped during their last encounter.

The blood rushed from Bruce’s face. She smirked.

“What size shoe do you wear?”

COMMENT BY DENT4PREZ: Yo, GothamGirl, any more Batman updates?

REPLY BY TheRealGothamGirl: I’m working on another case right now. The world does not revolve around Batman!

She wasn’t sure what made her hold back the boot print picture. Considering Bruce Wayne’s shoe size was a matter of public record thanks to some particularly freaky BW TikTok stans, it would have been a significant piece of evidence to add to the pile currently being combed over by dozens of amateur sleuths like herself.

Maybe it was the slight panic she’d caught in his expression when she showed it to him. Perhaps it was the fact that if he did fully prove him without a shadow of a doubt…he’d have no reason to find her again, ending their brief flirtations.

Maybe she didn’t want to lose him, something she knew would happen if she pushed the truth any further.

It was selfish, she knew. To want to keep him. He belonged to the people, and so did the truth.

But another day or two couldn’t hurt. Especially now that he seemed to hate her.

One day, maybe you’ll need Batman and he won’t be there .

It was those words ringing in her ears when her latest cold case investigation took her to The Narrows, one of Gotham’s worst neighborhoods. The evidence had led her here, to an abandoned warehouse where she believed someone had stashed the trophies of the murders they’d committed, so a bit of light breaking and entering was on the menu tonight. But she wasn’t worried. She’d done this a dozen times. Narrows or no, it was an abandoned warehouse. What were the odds that anyone would –

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing in there?”

She was halfway out of the window when a man staring up at her from the street caught her. Damn. She was nearly homefree.

Adrenaline kicking into action, she threw herself out of the window, careful not to jostle the bag slung across her body – the one containing the killer’s treasures. The man was on her in a second, lunging with everything he had. All of her self-defense training flooded back to her. She dodged him at first, then knocked him back with her umbrella. The next time he approached, though, he caught her on the back foot, and before she knew it, he had her pinned against the wall.

Something sharp pierced her side.

She screamed.

The edges of her world went fuzzy.

Fuck . Had he stabbed her?

The blood loss was swift. His rancid breath on her cheek turned her stomach. But with one last flurry of energy, she emptied her pepper spray into his eyes, and he scrambled out into the darkness. Probably convinced that she wasn’t a threat to him anymore anyway. After all, he’d stabbed her .

When he abandoned their little drama, she crumbled down the wall, pinning her hands to her wound. She had to get out of there. Had to fix herself up. But she was…so tired. Down to her bones. The kind of exhaustion that made sleeping on the ground of a dark alleyway in The Narrows with a bag full of a serial killer’s treasures seem appealing.

Shock, she realized vaguely. This was shock. She was in shock. That’s why the wound didn’t hurt. That’s why she wanted to sleep. That’s why she didn’t notice – not at first – when a cloaked figure stalked into her line of sight.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” she groaned, lolling onto her side at the sight of him.

The Batman. Of all the dark alleyways in all the world, he had to walk into hers.

“Were you following me?” He growled, eyes darting up to the warehouse, where he instantly spotted the window she’d broken to force entry not twenty minutes ago.

“No,” she spit, tasting blood on her teeth now.

“Then why were you–”

“I was on another case.” She followed his line of sight as it traveled from the window down to her bag, which had sprawled open during the scuffle. With those weird shades in his mask, his expression proved unreadable, but she spotted the slightest tensing of his jaw. Ah, so she hadn’t followed him and he hadn’t followed her. They’d just both been hunting the same criminal and gotten here at the same time. “It just happened to be yours, I guess.”

It was only then that he looked at her – really looked at her, not in panic, not in rage – and noticed the red blooming behind the hands clenched at her stomach. His jaw parted this time, but he made no move to approach.

“Leave me alone. I can–I can–You already said what you would do if you found me in trouble. And I assume you’re a man with, like, a code or whatever. It’s what I deserve. Besides,” she wheezed, indicating the police sirens that had just gone off somewhere in the vicinity. “You have bad guys to catch.”

God , she was going to die here. She was going to die here and Batman was going to leave her to do it because he had more heroic things to do and also because she’d been threatening to expose him and also he was angry with her and–

Suddenly, he was all she could see. Kneeling at her side, arms at the ready to collect her.

“Can I touch you?”

“I bet you say that to all the criminals,” she snarked, the blood loss finally getting to her head.

He remained still. Stoic. He would not be touching her unless she gave her consent. Slowly, very slowly, she nodded. “Yeah. Fine. Go ahead.”

No sooner were the words out than he scooped her into his arms, cradling her against his chest, and walking her out of the alley.

She tried not to think about the firm warmth of his chest or how right it felt to curl up in his arms. Tried not to think about the easy way he picked her up – as if she was nothing, rather than the generously curved woman she’d always been.

When he lodged her in the back seat of what appeared to be what she’d pejoratively termed in her reddit post, “the Batmobile,” they were silent. He worked quickly, positioning her so he could withdraw a first aid kit and set to stitching up the wound gushing onto his smooth leather seats. She watched him with hazy vision – cataloging the precision with which he sank a needle into her ribcage and filled her with morphine, the way he cooed quietly when she hissed as he began stitching her up, the delicate care he took with picking the fabric of her clothes out of the gash in her side.

“I could blow up your life tomorrow,” she muttered. Though whether she was speaking to the bat or the man behind the mask, she didn’t know.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “You could.”

“But you’re still doing this. Why?”

“You have your reasons for doing what you’re doing.” His hands were gentle. So gentle for a vigilante. She was struck by the urge to rip those gloves off and see if those hands were as gentle as Bruce Wayne’s had been when he’d first touched her. “I have mine.”

“I hope I get to hear them someday,” she mumbled, teasing. “Maybe at dinner.”

“Batman doesn’t do dinner,” he said, apparently still trying to engage in his little game of pretend. As if he hadn’t just as good as admitted who he was. As if this night didn’t change anything.

The last thing she remembered, before she passed out from the drugs he’d given her, was the chuckle he rewarded her with when she replied, “Maybe not. But Bruce Wayne might.”

SIGNAL MESSAGE FROM CLARK KENT: Are we still on for our meeting tomorrow? I’m flying down tomorrow morning.

SIGNAL MESSAGE FROM ANONYMOUS: Flying? It’s like an hour drive. Aren’t you supposed to be some kind of environmentalist fighting Lex Luthor, Mr. Daily Planet?

SIGNAL MESSAGE FROM CLARK KENT: Typo. Damn autocorrect. Are we on?

SIGNAL MESSAGE FROM ANONYMOUS: Yeah.

SIGNAL MESSAGE FROM CLARK KENT: Make sure to bring the documents you mentioned in your posts.

The next morning, she woke up in her apartment. The wounds were the only proof that the night before had even happened. The Batman had saved her life. And according to the police blotter, he hadn’t stopped there. He’d taken her evidence and caught that killer – and on his way out of The Narrows after that, he’d apparently had enough time to stop two muggings.

As someone without health insurance who lived in the most dangerous city in the country, she was pretty used to attending Youtube medical school. Because of that, she had no trouble cleaning out Batman’s tidy stitches and keeping the bandages clean and dry. What she did have trouble with? Not thinking about him every time she moved. When the pain made her twitch, when the scabs begged to be scratched, with every bandage change, she couldn’t help but think about those warm, gentle hands against her skin. The easy, uncomplicated way he’d saved her. Those quiet words they’d shared in the dark.

It made her interview with Clark Kent, conducted in a small coffee shop off the beaten path, one where neither of them would be recognized, a little awkward. Every time she breathed too deeply, she was reminded of Batman – and the potential consequences of being here with a powerful journalist, her arms full of proof that would link him to Bruce Wayne.

“Miss–”

She shook her head as Clark fumbled with the recording app on his phone. “I think it’s better if I don’t use my name. You know it. You’ve confirmed my identity. That should be enough. Anonymous sources are still a thing, aren’t they?”

He flashed a grin. Friendly. Wholesome. Thoroughly un-Bruce-like. “Certainly. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Anonymous.”

The Muzak in the coffee shop stretched between them as he flipped through his pages of notes. For her part, she stared blankly into the distance past the nearby window. Her hand drifted to her ribcage, pressing past her coat and her shirt and the bandage straight to her slow-healing wound.

“What do you think will happen?” She asked, vaguely.

Clark adjusted his glasses. “What’s that?”

“When the people know, for sure, I mean, not just my speculation or whatever, that Bruce Wayne is Batman? What do you think will happen?”

“I can't see the future or anything, but I guess he'll be arrested. He’ll have to be, if there’s ever going to be any faith in Gotham’s institutions again. If my article has anything to say about it, that’s where he’ll end up. Isn’t that what you want? For the Batman to stop terrorizing the streets?”

No. No, it wasn’t what she’d wanted at all. She’d never wanted that. Clark Kent seemed like a decent enough guy, but… no .

Leaping to her feet, she grabbed at the briefcase of Wayne-related documents.

“You know – I forgot – I have a work thing.”

Nearly choking, Clark gawked at her. “But I came all the way from Metropolis.”

“I’m sorry, I just –”

“Leave the documents, at least.”

He bolted up from his chair, grabbing for her.

Too fast. Inhumanly fast.

She tried to wrench out of his grasp. “No–”

“Wait–”

With a twist, she stumbled back. Clark remained unmovable, but his head tipped suddenly, knocking his glasses clean off of his face. Giving her a perfect look at him.

It was just a split second, but a split second was all it took for an idea to plant in the mossy soil of her mind and take immovable root. Then, when his eyes focused on her bag, it already began to sprout.

“Sorry. You’re right,” he said, straightening, as if he’d already gotten everything he needed from her in that single look.

Which, she suspected, he had.

@ CKent_DailyPlanetNews: Confidential sources have withdrawn from the Bruce Wayne story. However, with the help of newly uncovered documents, I will diligently follow the truth wherever it takes me.

After Clark tweeted about her withdrawing from the story, she went home and deleted all of her threads on the Gotham Unsolved subreddit. She’d kept the evidence in a sealed locker in her house, and the digital footprint would surely live on forever, but at least she’d done something . Once she’d closed the book on Batman, she turned her attention to other matters, other cases that needed solving, other unsolved mysteries she hoped she wouldn’t screw up as royally as she had this one.

The Batman case was the first time she’d ever regretted solving one. She needed another win, anything to remind her that she was on the good side of this city, that she was contributing to its salvation rather than its decline.

Which is how, on a particularly snowy Tuesday afternoon, she found herself hunched over a cup of coffee (bought in place of her usual sandwich, because it was too cold to sit out here without coffee and she couldn’t afford both) and her records on her park bench when a shadow passed over her.

Not just any shadow. Bruce Wayne’s shadow.

“Oh. Mr. Wayne. I didn’t - I didn’t think I would -” the stammering continued a minute more before she finally slammed the folder in her lap closed and tried again: “How are you?”

“This is your spot, isn’t it?” He asked, not answering her question.

No wonder. He looked like shit. The bags under his eyes had gotten darker and more bruised. His coat engulfed him. She tried to tease some life back into him – anything to stop staring at the snowflakes currently settling on his eyelashes and melting into his lips.

“Spying on me again?”

He shrugged, but it worked. He smiled – just barely. Like most of his smiles. “My office is just up there." He pointed to the Wayne Enterprises building towering over the northern stretch of the park. "I see you down here sometimes. Just like I saw that the Batman threads have all been taken down. And that Clark Kent lost his source. And that someone solved the Kyminsky murder.”

This time, it was her turn to shrug.

“I just figured it out. Batman brought the guy in. I don’t deserve any credit.”

“Maybe not,” he said. “But you might deserve dinner.”

Against her better judgment, her heart fluttered. A traitorous hummingbird trying to get free and fly straight for him. “Really?”

“Really. But at eight. Not eleven-fifty. I have a lot to show you and I can’t do it in an all-night diner.”

Intriguing. She probably should have said no. It was undoubtedly better to keep her distance from Bruce Wayne, especially after all that had transpired between them. But he had to know she couldn’t resist a good mystery. “Where, then?”

“Wayne Manor.”

APARTMENT 1319B RECENT SEARCH HISTORY:

What to do if you have weird feelings for a vigilante?

What to do if a billionaire invites you to his house?

What to wear if a billionaire invites you to his house?

Do billionaires brick their enemies up in amontillado cellars anymore?

How to escape bricked-over amontillado cellar

What do rich people serve at dinner?

How to eat lobster without looking like a poor person

Wayne Manor was everything she’d expected. A gothic mansion set out past the edges of the city, it filled in the picture of what she believed about Bruce Wayne. It was sort of a reflection of him. Locked up, crumbling, defiantly enduring, and impossibly beautiful.

The place was so grand that the second she stepped up on the grand marble steps, she felt underdressed. A feeling that only intensified when Mr. Pennyworth opened the door and snarked at her.

“Welcome to Wayne Manor, Miss. I see you’ve dressed for the occasion.”

Behind Alfred’s tuxedo-ed back, she could hear the tinkling of fine music and the pop of a champagne bottle. They’d been originally supposed to go to a diner . How was she supposed to know that Bruce wanted her to dress formally ? She flushed. “He didn’t tell me what to wear, and wouldn't you know it? All of my gowns are at the cleaner’s.”

Alfred scoffed. “You’re–”

But the arrival of his master cut him off. Bruce Wayne stepped into view, looking like an evening star wrapped up in a ten-thousand dollar suit. He still hadn’t gotten the hang of styling his hair like a normal human being, she noticed, and there were several bruises beginning to surface just beneath his collar and at the skin near his shirt cuffs, but even so –

He was so handsome. Especially when he assessed her like he did now.

“You’re perfect,” he said simply, finishing Alfred's sentence.

Having handed her coat to Alfred when he waved for it, she gestured down to her jeans and flannel combination. He was in a goddamn tux and she was in jeans . “I don’t feel very perfect.”

“You are exactly who I’ve been looking for.”

That sounds like something a murderer or Batman or a guy in love would say – dear God, please be the second one.

“I hope you’re hungry,” Alfred said. “Master Wayne doesn’t eat much, but–”

The tops of Bruce’s cheeks flushed. “– Alfred –”

“But he insisted on only the best. I’ll just be in the kitchen, preparing.”

Without another word, the man was gone. She’d done so much research into Alfred and Bruce, but none of her documents ever could have taught her this: they cared about each other. Almost like father and son. It was cute, the way Bruce ducked his head, embarrassed, and apologized for Alfred. Domestic in a way she hadn’t expected.

There was a lot she hadn’t expected, it turned out. The living room of Wayne Manor was well-appointed, but clearly weathered from lack of use. The floorboards creaked beneath her feet and despite the obvious attempts to spruce the place up, she couldn’t help but notice that the entire room, while it glittered from golden candle light and smelled like the fresh, home-cooking wafting from the nearby kitchen, carried with it the oppressive weight of grief.

Suddenly, so much of Bruce made sense. He was not some playboy who masqueraded as Batman to make meaning out of his useless life. He was not doing it for the attention. He was not a man with a death wish.

He was just…so, so sad. And so very lonely. And trying to right a wrong for the universe that had never been righted for him. Saving other people so they’d never have to know what he’d been through.

As she leaned against a nearby window and watched him pour champagne for them both, she blinked away tears at that revelation. She’d always been on Bruce’s side. But now? Now she actually understood him. And that broke her heart a little.

“I really am sorry about my clothes,” she said, trying to keep the emotion out of her voice. “I thought this would be, like, a casual thing, not a–”

“A date?”

A date. Even after the tuxedos and champagne, it hadn’t even occurred to her that this was a date.

She’d thought….

Well…

She’d thought…it was, like, a detente. A cessation of hostilities. A friendly armistice.

But a date…?

Once more, she swept the room. Champagne. Music. Lights. A home-cooked meal. Bruce doing that almost-smile thing he did whenever she was around. Color and life back in his face, something that had been sorely missing the last time she’d seen him.

Yeah. A date. That checked out. Heat flooded her cheeks. She stared down at her shoes.

“Yeah.”

“I understand,” he said, handing her a champagne flute.

“You do?”

“Yeah.” He clinked their glasses together. Sardonic and self-deprecating. “I wouldn’t want to go out with the Batman either.”

Her eyes widened. This was not a mistake. This was not a slip-up. It was purposeful. He’d invited her on a date, invited her to dinner, and was telling her the one secret he’d been trying so hard to keep. Retiring her glass to a nearby table, she repeated the word, “...Batman.”

He nodded once. At last, a confirmation. “ Batman .”

Before she could think better of it, she charged towards him, to ask him more questions, to probe him for answers – only for the aggressive action to tug at her stitches, causing her to painfully twist and stumble…

“ Shit –”

“Careful there–”

…right into his arms.

Suddenly, the pain in her side was the furthest thing from her mind.

Even if he hadn’t just confessed the truth to her, she would have known it was him just from this embrace. It was the same one she’d experienced in the alley that night – the one where he saved her life. It was an awkward hold. Soft in some places and stiff in others. Close but not close enough for her liking. Unpracticed. As if he hadn’t known the non-violent touch of someone in too, too long.

It washed her in peace from the flushed crown of her head all the way down to her untied shoelaces.

For a breathless moment, neither of them moved. But the music from the old stereo played something soft and lovely…and before they knew that they were even doing it, as if twisted in some magical spell cast by the speakers, they were swaying.

“Do you like to dance?” Bruce asked, his breath tickling her neck.

“No.”

“Me either,” he agreed.

And yet…there they were. Dancing. Each of them equally unwilling to let the other one go.

She didn’t know what that meant. Only that it felt right, being there in his touch.

What a miracle – that her life would bring her to this place, this time, this man. All because she nearly died one night six months ago - not that he knew about that yet.

“Why did you do it?” He asked, melting into her touch.

“Do what?”

“Try to expose me. And then stop.”

She tilted her head until their eyes met, giving him full, silent permission to survey her. When nothing sparked in him, she asked: “You really don’t remember me, do you?”

No answer. She tucked herself back into the crook of her body, enjoying his touch while she still could.

“I had my suspicions about you before the flood. But it seemed so impossible. Bruce Wayne, the Batman? Of course not. But then…I was in that stadium. And those things you put in your eyes when you wear that mask, the things that keep people from seeing your eyes? They shorted in the water. After all that research I’d done about you…when you pulled me out of that water, I recognized them. You have very distinctive eyes, Mr. Wayne.”

Did he notice that he’d tightened his grip around her waist? As though he were now the one drowning and she was the only thing holding him above the swells?

“I know you think I wanted this city to destroy you. But I don’t. I think you’re a hero.” She was digging her fingers into the soft fabric of his suit jacket now. Hopefully, he thought she was just holding onto him for support because of her injury – not for the reason that being this close to him made her knees weak and her heartbeat at a rate she considered medically unsafe. “And for awhile, I believed that if the world knew that Bruce Wayne and Batman were the same guy…you could be even more of an inspiration. Someone with everything trying to do something for those who have nothing . The man everyone knows, fighting for the forgotten. The Crown Prince of Gotham saving us peasants down below.”

She teased him with that last bit. But he was as serious as he had been the moment before.

“And now?” He prompted, pulling away so she could no longer hide in the crook of his neck. Under his stare, she knew she couldn’t falter.

“Now, I just want you to keep fighting - even if you have to do it in the shadows.”

Their breath intermingled. It felt like the start of something. His attention flickered down to her lips –

“Master Wayne.”

The sound of Alfred’s voice made her twitch. She moved to step away, but Bruce held her fast, even as Alfred raised a judgmental eyebrow at their romantic clinch.

“Dinner is served,” he said, lingering in the doorway.

Through it all, she realized that Bruce had never looked away from her. And he didn’t when he spoke again.

“I’m sorry, Alfred. I think we have something else to do first.”

BRUCE WAYNE RECENT SEARCH HISTORY, SCRUBBED at 7:58 PM:

Ethics of hiring woman you’re attracted to

Can you kiss someone at a first date/job interview?

How to confirm a secret identity?

How to hide bruises from a fistfight you got into the night before a date?

Romantic Covers of Nirvana Songs

How to reveal secret location without seeming like a kid showing a girl your treehouse?

There wasn’t much Bruce Wayne cared to examine in himself. He knew, in vague strokes, that he was obsessive and driven by pain, and desperate for justice in any form it could take. He knew he didn’t want to be the monster that stalked the shadows anymore, but a hero who actually helped people.

And he knew that from the moment he met this strange woman in the park, something within him shifted. She was a threat to him, an existential one he should have done everything in his power to destroy. He was a billionaire, after all. It should have been easy to tie her up in legal battles for the rest of her life, to pay for bots to drown out her posts, to keep upping the ante of Alfred’s bribery until she had no choice but to accept.

Still. He didn’t. She was brilliant and infuriating and matched him turn-for-turn. Every time he thought he had her figured out, she dodged in the exact opposite direction. Whether she was relentlessly taunting him about his secret identity or flirting or asking him to dinner or sneaking pictures of his boot prints or crumbling under his hands as he healed her or giving up the story with Clark Kent or doing that scrunching thing with her nose she did when she was thinking too hard or fiddling with the handle of her umbrella she uselessly kept nearby for protection or flashing those intelligent, sharp eyes of hers…

He was fascinated. He couldn’t remember the last time something other than the underworld of Gotham had fascinated him. Maybe it was this new change in him, the one that had been brewing ever since The Flood. Maybe, as he returned slowly from Vengeance back to his humanity, maybe his heart was slowly awakening, too. Maybe all of those feelings he’d chained away for so long were resurfacing.

In any case…something shot straight through his heart when she stepped down the stairs into The Cave and her lips parted in a wondrous smile. Only, for the first time in his life, a sudden bolt to his chest didn’t hurt. It blossomed into something warm and unfamiliar.

“What is this?” She breathed, eyes wide and uncertain. “Why have you brought me here?”

“It’s my headquarters,” he said, leading her down the rickety steps until he reached the floor of the spotlight-illuminated tunnel. He suddenly found it impossible to look at her. As if he were afraid she would suddenly pass judgment and he would be found wanting. He steeled himself for what was to come. From the start, she’d known the truth. He knew she knew the truth. And she knew that he knew the truth. But this was a final confirmation. An admission of guilt, undeniable, that could not be retracted once made. “And I’m showing you because… Because I’m Batman.”

Miracle of miracles, she didn’t run out of the door. She didn’t scream and throw things at him. She didn’t even feign surprise. Instead, she chuckled. Bruce felt his own lips twitch. When was the last time anyone had laughed in this house? “Yeah, no shit. I already knew that. I mean why are you showing this to me?”

That was the question Alfred had asked about a half-dozen times since Bruce had decided to bring her here – a decision he’d made the moment he found out she’d scuttled Clark Kent’s Batman story. And the answer he’d given Alfred was the same answer he’d give her now.

But it wasn’t the whole answer, not really. The whole truth would have been you’re a damn good detective and I want an excuse to get close to you – to stay close to you . Instead, he edited the truth, tailoring it for this moment:

“Because you’re a damn good detective. And I don’t think I can do this alone anymore.” He paused. “Or maybe I don’t want to.”

Her skepticism was immediate and apparent. “You want me to help you?”

A wash of insecurity snuck up on him all at once. “It would be a good job. I’d pay for law school. You’d have a generous salary. Benefits. The hours aren’t great, but–”

She spun around, and suddenly they were very close. He had her pinned between his desk and his body, but she didn’t seem to notice–not in the way he did, anyway. Her eyes shone. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“I’ll take the job.”

“You will?”

“But first –” A hint of exasperation and delight mingled in her tone. “I need you to tell me why the hell you thought it was a good idea to put your paramilitary headquarters under your own damn house , Bruce.”

Oh, she was so smug. She’d finally won, hadn’t she? She’d confirmed that Bruce Wayne was, indeed, Batman, and now she got to lord it over his head.

Bruce didn’t mind. Not if she kept smiling like that.

“I see. So, you’re not going to stop bullying me now that we’re working together?”

“Stop? Oh, no. It’s going to get worse. So much worse.”

He liked the sound of that.

“Are you ready to start, then?”

“I am,” she said, as confident and sure as she had been from the moment he met her. Despite the blistering lights he set up all around the cave, the work lights that broke through the oppressive darkness here, she outshone them all. “And I know exactly where I want to start.”

“And where is that?” he asked.

She smirked mischievously, and he knew in that moment that this was the beginning of something new. Something exciting. Something like a sunrise over his long, lonely, dark night.

“...I think I know Superman’s secret identity.”

#battinson imagine #bruce wayne #bruce wayne fanfiction #bruce x reader #battinson/reader #bruce wayne/reader #batman/reader #batman x reader #battinson fic #bruce wayne x oc #not y/n but blank for projection self-insert purposes!

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welcometohellweofferimagines · 2 years

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BRUCE WAYNE x READER ❥ there is a thin line between love and hate ❥ ⌜ ❁ ⌟ ✧ ⌞ ❀ ⌝ based off of the original (cringe-fest) imagine: x

children, i’ve brought you a garbage fic and a billionaire to eat. dig in. x ⌜ ❁ ⌟ ✧ ⌞ ❀ ⌝ ⌌ ✍︎ re-written version of “ and i would like nothing more than that ”. unedited. 18 • 09 • 22 ⌍

You don’t drink. Well, much. No, that really was the truth.

All right, you might indulge in one or two alcoholic beverages here and there — but it really wasn’t a problem; and you rarely got drunk. Especially not on the job.

“Okay,” said the bespectacled man — perhaps the politest of your conversational partners this evening — before he tapped his empty champagne flute, stood, excused himself, and left.

Ah. Perhaps insisting to these blue-bloods that you were a professional, and a well-behaved one at that, was not the best topic of choice. You’d lost four, no, five... no, maybe nine people since you picked up your first flute and begrudgingly agreed to mingle.

“It’s networking, baby,” Luca had finger-gunned in your direction. “Just as important as the job.”

What job, you mused to yourself, grumbling over the glass rim. “I don’t give a fuck about this back-scratching shit.”

The last of the bubbly disappeared down your throat, the thirst for more immediate as soon as you lowered the champagne flute from your lips.

Jewels glittered in all directions, the comically elegant laughter around you like headache-inducing sirens. Your own attire felt cheap in comparison, although you’d dragged your feet into an expensive shop to purchase it just a few weeks ago.

You trudged past them all tonight much like you’d entered the store then, a little more drunk and loose now to care that you looked like a sullen child instead of [Y/N] from Accounting.

It didn’t matter anyway. You’d handed in your resignation a week ago. Soon, you’d be gone with the wind, baby. Networking be damned.

You wandered. Wandered, stopped to admire the chocolate éclairs on a server’s silver platter, and wandered some more. Yet, no champagne flutes were in your sight, save for those held already by attendees. You scratched your head — increasingly fuzzy, with the umpteenth drink coursing through you; there must be a logical explanation, you decided; but you sure as hell weren’t going to be able to discover what it was tonight, so you might as well just go sit down.

Unbeknownst to you, you were among the few guests to whom a certain British butler had long since forbidden the servers from offering more drinks. If he hadn’t been Mr Wayne’s own personal staff, one or two might not have cared to listen. But because he himself had an air of authority, none dared approach you after dispersing; except for those serving food.

A quiet corner near the French windows pulled you from the chattering crowd, a sole man occupying it. He smiled at you when you plopped down across from him, but, until he spoke, he was a little too hazy to recognise.

“[Miss/Mr/Mx] [Y/L/N]. What a pleasure.”

“Mr Fox,” you greeted, perking up for the first time that night. “I didn’t know you were coming.”

“Couldn’t miss one of Mr Wayne’s parties, now, could I?” There was a trace of humour in his voice. Enough for you to throw all caution to the wind and snort in a drunken response.

“So much for charity event, huh.” You rested your cheek on your palm as you glanced over your shoulder at the others. “You know, I tried to donate five hundred dollars. The lady there laughed at me,” you gestured with your chin to the tall foundation hostess in her custom red Versace gown, greying golden hair swept up in a trés chic updo. “Thought it was a joke.”

“Nobody likes a cheapskate, [Mx/Miss/Mr] [Y/L/N].” Lucius Fox shook his head. “That’s why I donated five hundred and one dollars.”

You were caught in a mid-snort when another figure approached, claiming the chair beside Mr Fox with a languid air. The newcomer unbuttoned his suit jacket as he sat, turning to his adjacent partner with a smile.

“Lucius. A word?”

“Of course, Mr Wayne.” He then nodded in your direction, “We have another guest, however. Polite manners require you greet [them/her/him] as well.”

It wasn’t meant as a chastisement; rather, Lucius Fox sounded very much like he was teasing the man. The alcohol in you wasn’t helping much at the moment, but you just about managed to catch Mr Wayne smiling, an indulging expression that reeked of an arrogant nonchalance. Your nose scrunched up.

God, you disliked this man.

In the revolution, you hoped to eat him first.

“Good evening. [Mx/Miss/Mr] ...?”

His gaze found yours. Or, at least, you thought it did.

You didn’t answer. The silence that stretched between the three of you grew uncomfortable, until, when Fox began to shift in his seat, it turned unbearable.

Now was your cue to exit.

Mr Fox began, “This is [Y/N]—”

Without a word, you stood from your seat, and walked — perhaps, more accurately, stumbled — to the French windows and flung them open, out into the cool night air.

Gotham sprawled out before you: glittering lights. Much like the ornaments the elite donned inside, the spectacle overwhelmed, much too fine for an especially topsy-turvy mind such as the one you were struggling with now. But, oh, was this a pretty sight. Prettier than the one indoors.

Another outcast stood further down the balcony, the warm orange light of a cigarette cutting through the dark; he exhaled, leaning his head back, missing you as you stormed up to him with balled fists and a furious frown.

“Luca!” You punched his arm. Lightly. He yelped. (Maybe it wasn’t that light actually.)

“[Y/N], what the fu—”

“What happened to networking, baby?” you demanded, seizing his cigarette and flinging it beneath your shoe. He cried out as you crushed it into ash.

“Huh?”

“The fuck are you doing out here? I haven’t seen you inside since Lady Gaga sang.”

“She was amazing, wasn’t sh—” Your palm struck his shoulder. “Ow!”

“You said it was important. I’ve been rubbing elbows this whole time and I’ve hated every single second of it. Why aren’t you doing the same thing?”

“I said it was important, I didn’t say I liked it.” Luca huffed out a breath, inhaling as if it were cigarette smoke. He leaned his head back again and blinked up at the starless sky.

You glared at him. “How many people — and not from work — have you talked to tonight?”

Luca seemed to consider a moment. Yet, when he answered, it was a pathetic one. “I talked to Alfred.”

“Who’s Alfred?”

“Pennyworth.”

“From?”

Luca paused. He hesitated, fidgeting. “From Wayne... Manor.”

“Wayne Manor? What is he? Wayne’s lover or something?”

Luca relaxed into a grin. “Butler.”

“So he makes the bed after he wakes up from it. Okay. I get it. Good job, Luca.” His other hand, the elbow resting against the parapet, held a crystal whiskey glass, amber liquid inside. You swiped it — much to his displeasure.

“I spoke to a lot of people,” you brushed his protests aside, “I deserve this,” slowly sipping the burning liquid until none was left.

“[Y/N], I’m broke,” Luca pouted after a few peaceful minutes. “I bought this stupid watch for, like, almost a grand. Harrington saw it and did his backhanded compliment thing. He was all like, oh, I love it! So vintage. That’s their old model released three years ago. Very affordable.”

“Hate that guy”

“Me too.”

“Is that why you’re out here? Not in there?”

Luca nodded.

“Okay. Mood.” You regarded the crystal in your hand with interest. “That’s why I’m outta here.”

“Home?”

That caught his attention. Now it was undivided — you didn’t actually want, nor need, him to focus on you so much.

“No. I handed in my notice—”

He spoke as you spoke, “You can’t leave, you bitch. Who else is going to be broke with me? Even Samara in accounting has a millionaire stepdad, and Hwa has—”

“—and I’m gonna leave this conversation now, bye.”

“[Y/N]!” he shouted after you.

“It’s mingle time, baby,” you called back to him.

It was not mingle time. You lied. You were going home.

But the night hadn’t finished its fun with you yet. You hadn’t stepped within a metre of the floor when Lucius Fox waved you over to his corner again. He had with him a whole party of individuals now: a Wayne Enterprises board member, one tech CEO from someplace-or-other, two board members from another company (one of whom you were about 80 to 85% sure was Roman Sionis), and a corporate lawyer you’d seen around the tower; and last, but certainly not least, Bruce Wayne himself.

You could ignore him, pretend you didn’t see.

Ah, yes, because making direct eye contact and then walking off is a totally valid explanation behind you somehow not noticing his invitation to his table. I am drunk though, you realised. That was a good excuse.

But this was Mr Fox... Soon enough you wouldn’t be around him anymore — not that you could tag alongside him much already when you were stuck in the accounting department — and what moments you could steal of witnessing his dry wit would be lost forever. That, and he was much too nice to purposely slight.

Surprisingly, there was a seat free beside Bruce Wayne. As you sat, though, you could tell that the woman to your right — the gorgeous lawyer, a Harvard graduate, you’d heard — had been eyeing that chair up for a while, too cautious to take it for herself, hoping instead that he might scoot over, even if only to get a better look at her slender legs.

Alas, you were now in between them.

“[Y/N] is leaving our company soon,” said Mr Fox, raising his glass of whiskey — where and when did the whiskey come out?! — to you in a toast. “If either of you gentlemen have an opening for a new chartered accountant, I’d highly recommend you hire [them/her/him].”

He took a sip from the glass as he added, “So [they/she/he]’ll come back to us soon.”

The other company’s board members chuckled, their interest in you sparked for a moment, before flickering; fleeting, much as you’d expected it to be. You busied yourself with the champagne that a server came to set before you — their hand trembling in uncertainty (considering retracting the flute as soon as their gaze locked with Mr Pennyworth’s) — content at last to have more numbing juice.

“Did Bruce not pay you enough?”

It took longer than you would have liked for you to realise that the one who spoke — Mr Hotshot-Twenty-Something-Year-Old-Tech-Savvy-Small-Loan-of-a-Million-Dollars-Guy — was in fact speaking to you.

A brush against your knee startled you. You almost jumped in your seat, managing to just flinch a little, glancing down in slow realisation that your adjacent acquaintance — unfortunately not the pretty lawyer lady — had accidentally brushed his knee against yours. He’d turned just a bit to look at you. His face was a tad blurry. You drank more champagne.

Hoping it to be a rhetorical question, you just answered with what you hoped was a humorous smile. But then Wayne himself joined in; his arm came to rest atop the back of your seat.

“Didn’t I?” he asked.

Could you up and leave for a second time in the face of his questioning? I mean, yes, of course you could, there was no law stopping you from doing that. The lawyer beside you could surely confirm that. But, would it be embarrassing? Witnessed by too many eyes?

Yes. Very much so.

“My salary was sufficient, thank you.” Damn, you hoped you didn’t slur. Or maybe you shouldn’t care... right?

“Then why leave?”

Fucking damn it. Just fuck off, you wanted to snap. His face swam beside you, the smile that graced his lips a fleeting sight as you narrowed your eyes at him for a quick moment. You must have looked far too contemptuous for an employee. Good thing you’d quit already.

Thankfully, it was the tech CEO who answered for you (the one time you’d excuse it). “Sufficient, Bruce. Sufficient. Not great.”

“Sufficient is great in this economy,” offered the lawyer, twirling her finger around the toothpick in her martini, staring at the green olives within. Darn it, how come she got a martini, and you didn’t?

“Yeah?” countered the CEO.

The woman frowned. “Not everyone’s as comfortable as you are, Nathaniel.”

The subject of her frown also frowned. “Don’t call me Nathaniel.” He took a swig of his own drink. “Reminds me of my dad.”

Why not just pay what we’re owed, you might have suggested. If someone had also given you a martini, you would have said it.

Sufficient is just not good enough. To put up with their lot.

Mr Wayne’s knuckles brushed your fingers when he lowered his whiskey glass to the table; too close to where you held your flute to not be suspect. You looked at him through a narrowed gaze again. His brown hair fell over his forehead, catching the light. It looked like melted chocolate, dark; but there were hints of a golden hue in each wave.

You then couldn’t help but notice that he’d undone his tie. A few buttons on his pristine white shirt were open. Holy shit if you’d ever dared show up to an event like this, unkempt as he’d allowed himself to become, you’d be blacklisted from employment interviews for life — unless you changed your name as well as your face.

Damn this man.

“You should’ve asked for a raise, [Y/N].”

[Y/N]. Sure, he was your boss, he could address you by your name rather than be formal, but also, what the fuck. In the few years you’d worked at Wayne Enterprises, you’d seldom met the man behind the name (although... there was that one time you’d spent almost a whole afternoon following him around the tower, close to begging him to just sign off on his personal expenditures, long ago giving up on explaining to the company owner that wining and dining the hot new Swedish shareholder couldn’t be accepted as a valid use of his company card). You sure as hell weren’t suddenly friends now. Besides, the way he just said it... that’s not how bosses usually utter any employee’s name.

The lawyer beside you noticed, too. Or at least you think she did. Her posture became rigid, her gaze shifting to you. Her plump lips formed a smile, but it seemed self-deprecating, as well as accepting.

You took a moment to admire her smooth dark skin as she lamented over not moving seats as soon as yours had first become available.

She was who Bruce Wayne should be rubbing his knuckles against. Not you.

You’d rather punch him than brush your own knuckles against his skin.

Fine, yes, it was true that he was very pretty. Women weren’t as vapid as these assholes liked to accuse them of being; it wasn’t just money, and you know what, it wasn’t even only his looks that trapped women or other partners. You’d seen him shed some of his ignorance before. Sometimes, he really could be charming.

If you liked that sort of thing.

Which you didn’t.

Ugh.

“I think,” you drew a breath, “I’m done with the corporate world for a while.”

“What will you do once you’re free?” Again, it was Mr Wayne who asked.

Wasn’t he completely uninterested in even saying hello to you a few moments ago? When was he going to go back to not caring — because you really needed an opening to say your goodbyes and book it home.

“Travel. Take a vacation, I guess.” Why did your accent change? Fuck, you needed to leave.

“Good choice,” Mr Fox nodded in approval.

You raised your almost empty champagne flute to him.

“In this economy?” joked the woman beside you.

She was rich, you could tell. But self-made. Her dress was a gorgeous black silk. The gold around her neck and wrists weren’t there to brag. She had on an old, sentimental wristwatch. There was something about her, that you could tell she knew well the struggles of gaining success. If anyone else understood the value of money at this table, it was her.

You liked her. You should get up and give her your seat. Even if it meant that someone as undeserving as Bruce Wayne could shoot his shot with her. After all, she wanted him to, didn’t she.

Or maybe you should shoot your shot.

She laughed, throwing her head back at something Bruce Wayne said from your other side, showing for a moment the graceful curve of her neck. Her laughter sounded like divine song.

Nope, never mind. She was way out of your league.

“Excuse me,” you murmured, rising — frustratingly with a bit of difficulty — to your feet. Much to your distaste, your chair legs scraped across the floor, loud. Using the table’s edge for balance, you guided yourself around your chair, pausing to push it in with a keen concentration that your closest table partners didn’t fail to notice.

“I’ll come with you, [Y/N],” Lucius Fox offered, standing as well.

But before he could move, Mr Wayne also rose, the fog of his own drunken mirth disappearing for a second, noticed solely by Lucius. “You promised Mr Sionis a sneak peek of our new tech, didn’t you? It’s okay. I’ll help [Y/N].”

The two men shared a nod, even as Bruce Wayne’s gaze followed your abruptly retreating form. Fists balled at your sides, arms pendulating, you focused all your will on remaining upright and fast, all the while fleeing to the exit unaware of how cartoonish you looked.

Almost there, you triumphed, catching sight of the coat check attendant. Almost. There.

The attendant noticed your approach and offered a smile. He stepped forward to serve you, just as another woman called for him, the apologetic expression on his face too genuine to hold a grudge against him as he rushed off to get her fur coat. Foiled again! How many times did you have to be reminded of how unimportant you were compared to these blue-bloods?

You tapped your foot once you reached the door to the cloakroom. Soon, you were leaning against the wall in a vain effort to not fall. It wasn’t long before someone joined you, their amiable smile gaining from you only a disappointed grimace. If he noticed, Bruce Wayne didn’t comment on it. He simply came to stand beside you, hands in the pockets of his tuxedo pants, his gaze sweeping over the party crowd with you.

“Leaving so soon, [Mx/Miss/Mr] [Y/L/N].” His tone didn’t make it sound like a question, not even a rhetorical one; this seemed more like a remark.

“It’s almost eleven,” you mumbled, checking your wristwatch to confirm. “Not so soon, actually.”

“This event’s unlikely to end till midnight,” he told you, flashing you a small smile before returning to people-watching.

“Uh, ha, too late for me.”

Away from people, from being among conversations, you could no longer deny the fact that you were, like the embarrassment you could be, slurring. But beside him, you didn’t feel too bad about it; you’d heard about the times he’d shown up to board meetings hungover. More often than not, he even fell asleep during them. Let him hear your slurred speech, his opinion didn’t matter to you anyway.

“Sounds like we’re losing a good employee,” mused Mr Wayne, but he spoke with a certain detachment, although he smiled. He didn’t care about the company as much as Mr Fox did, you were aware; he’d left most matters in the latter’s capable hands, after all.

“Don’t worry,” you found yourself saying, “I’ll make sure my replacement ch—chases you around to get your—” you imitated signing, “—on expenses even better than I do.”

His look of surprise met only the sight of your turned back, your additional muttered, “Not that you ever made it easy, though,” hopefully going unheard as you waved the coat attendant over again.

(You'd only really done it once.)

(Not that it mattered.)

(Once was hard enough.)

To your astonishment, his laugh rang out behind you. You faced the direction of the deep sound, seeing that he was now eyeing you with a certain curiosity — all traces of alcoholic influence oddly gone. A sudden uneasiness pooled in the pit of your stomach.

Why, you couldn’t tell. Maybe it was because you’d never seen him this way. Bruce Wayne was always the worst spoiled, unconcerned snob around Gotham; yeah, he was an Ivy League graduate, but you sure as hell doubted that he got in on merit (all right, that was harsh... he was smart, you had to admit that — but he was just as careless); and what immense power he had, he used for his stupid exploits.

This man before you didn’t seem like that Bruce Wayne.

The attendant came to take your card and disappeared once more into the cloakroom. You took his arrival and departure as an excuse to turn your back on Wayne again, for some strange reason trembling. You were drunk. You were seeing things, thinking things, making things up.

Yes, that made sense.

“Do you need a ride home, [Y/N]?” he asked, breaking the silence.

“Hm? Oh, no, thank you,” you answered, without evening meeting his gaze. “I’ll take the train. Besides...” No, don’t say it. You didn’t need to, just leave it at that, what use was it to make another jab at this dude? “Didn’t you drink?”

He chuckled, stepping around to look into your face with a smile, “I’d ask my butler to drive.”

His smile waned, just a bit (such a miniscule shift, you almost thought you imagined it; because, otherwise, that might have been the most genuine reaction you’d ever seen him have). “It’s not that safe on the trains this late at night.”

“It’s okay,” you fought to keep a frown off your face, “I use them all the time.”

Who was he to speak? His family might have built them, but you doubted he’d ever taken a train in his life.

Okay, he had a point. But you weren’t going to listen to one of the wealthiest people in the world tell you your public transport was inadequate.

And yes, of course you knew he himself had suffered an enormous loss in his youth... but perhaps that’s what frustrated you the most: that, despite what horror he faced on the night of his parents’ murder, he still turned out to be this selfish brat.

Your coat appeared, along with the attendant. He came up to you whilst someone else vied for his attention; you hurriedly handed him a tip, then left the ballroom, heading towards the elevator. A pair of feet followed behind.

“Wait, [Y/N].”

You didn’t wait. You all but smacked the elevator button with the heel of your palm.

Darn skyscrapers... Waiting for the elevator to rise to the top floor proved the worst of your experiences that night, because now Bruce Wayne was standing with you, alone, out in the glossy lobby where you just wanted to be left in peace.

“At least call a cab,” he said. Was his voice soft right now? Were you losing your hearing? How drunk were you, really?

All you responded with was a rub of your thumb over the tips of your middle and index fingers.

The lift continued to ascend.

“Let me pay fo—”

Before he could finish his offer, you shot him a dismissive look, quelling the little bud of guilt that grew in your chest from your own rude reaction.

“Goodnight, Mr Wayne,” you gave a nod, and returned to staring at the floor numbers above the sleek black doors.

He paused, for just a moment. Then, he said, “Well, [Y/N], thank you for your donation.” He turned to leave.

You shot him a smile this time, unable to keep the sarcasm off your face. “I could only offer some spare change though. Sorry.”

Silence. Then—

“I’m sorry if I’ve offended you somehow.”

The doors finally dinged open.

That stupid smile was back: the saccharine one, aloof and false. He never went without this particular expression, and he was damn good at it. Somehow, it could please its recipients, even though he didn’t even bother to properly conceal the apathy in his tone of voice.

But you couldn’t stand it. You had nothing to gain from the Great Bruce Wayne; except perhaps a headache. As pleasant as his smile was to look at, all it achieved in its use with you was furthering your irritation. If it were actually possible to see red when enraged, you’d have been overcome by it now.

“You know what, Mr Wayne, no.” You whirled towards him (staggering just a bit). “You’re not sorry.”

Still glaring at him, you marched inside the elevator. He took that as a cue to follow. Inside the closed — albeit ample — space, it felt almost as if your anger was radiating off of you, filling up between those four walls, pressing, and vengeful.

If it became tangible, Bruce Wayne would be crushed dead. You too, probably; but that was a sacrifice, in this moment, you’d be willing to make.

A short laugh escaped your lips, “You’re just not.”

Serious again, you continued your attack (as well as you could). “Just like— Just like you don’t actually care about this city. No, actually, I don’t think you e—even care about other people. What is this event... Honestly? It just feels like a, uh... a sham. A chance to stroke your egos, get drunk, and fuck around. You want to raise money for the public library? Okay. Where are the kids? Where’re the... library... people? Um. Fuck. Uh, right, librarians. Where are they? Lady Gaga is cool and all, but how is her singing Shallow really a part of this cause? Did you just pick a random charity out of a hat? Because it sure as hell seems like you did.”

You took a moment to gather your breath.

“Do you even know how to read, Mr Wayne? Well then read this — you are a pompous... pompous jerk. Who cares for little else but his money. You’re a fake.”

Everything was tilting. Was the world being pushed to its side? You stumbled back against the golden rail.

Some time passed.

When you next spoke, you almost didn’t recognise your own voice; this was someone else, surely; they sounded tired; they sounded almost sad. You weren’t sad. You were angry.

“You’re the fakest person I’ve ever met.”

The elevator announced your arrival on the ground floor. The doors slid open, but you didn’t move. He didn’t either.

Gone was his façade. Not even intoxication altered his features. He didn’t even seem offended.

Now, he was nothing... And fuck, this was so, so, so much worse. Whoever was standing in the other corner of the elevator was just an empty man...

An empty man with hollow eyes.

You couldn’t hold his gaze much longer. Glancing down at your shoes, you mumbled, “You know. You know what it’s like. This place is a shit show. Money couldn’t even save your...” No, you’d better not.

Inhaling deeply, you diverted. “Imagine what it’s like for everyone else. Hon—hon—” you gave a short chuckle at your stuttering, “—honestly, even I’m luckier than most. So... just... imagine.”

Exiting the elevator, you glanced toward him one last time, parting with an “Imagine dying on these streets with nothing. Then you can understand why watching you throw —you gesticulated— “your money around like it’s nothing makes people hate you.”

Cold wind greeted you past the revolving doors, the autumn night worsening by the minute. Rain was promised, and there was no denying it would fall soon enough. You should’ve brought an umbrella, but you’d honestly expected to run off much earlier.

The way home was far; you lived in a decent enough city block, but that’s what it was: decent — far, far, far from these opulent parts of Gotham. Trekking to the train station was going to be a bitch. But the temptation of calling a taxi from here to there... Financial ruin in disguise.

You drew your coat tighter around you and began walking. It is what it is.

An arm abruptly blocked your path. Following its length up to the face of its owner, a string of curse words erupted on your tongue, luckily silenced, too caught up in the realisation that he was flagging down a valet with his other hand before you could let him have it.

“What are you doing?” you demanded.

“Taking you home.” His gaze remained on the valet, a small, young woman who rushed off to retrieve his vehicle.

“Huh? I said I—”

“On most nights do you walk and take the train home drunk?”

There was a finality to his tone, taking from you any opportunity to argue. You could try; but you had a feeling that he would just shrug it all off. It would be useless, wouldn’t it.

But you were drunk. He frustrated you.

So, eventually, you tried.

“You can’t drive.” You watched with him as the valet pulled up to the curb, the lights from the building reflecting off the sleek golden body of his Bentley. “If I have to choose between getting stabbed going home or ending up in a car crash with you, I’d rather get stabbed to be honest.”

You were looking downward as you finished, miming a stabbing. When you glanced up, his smile came into focus; you were standing close, close enough that the sarcastic pull of his lips was completely unmistakeable. You should have been angry. Yet instead, you fell silent.

He was too real here, now.

Much like when he’d looked at you with his hollow eyes, you found yourself unable to meet his gaze. You focused on the pavement where you scuffed a limp leaf onto its surface.

“I’m not drunk,” he said, taking the keys from the valet. “I faked it. I’m good at that, remember?”

Several minutes more (no one willing to come tell off the man parked right outside the hotel entrance when it was clearly a disgruntled Bruce Wayne), and you were finally seated on the passenger side. When he got inside, droplets of light rain that had begun to fall were scattered in his hair, his piqued expression disappearing behind his sleeve as he tried to rub some of the rain off. He glanced in your direction for a second while he pointed at the dashboard system.

“Type in your address, please.”

The car rumbled to life and he pulled his seatbelt into place. As you sat digesting his words, he reached over to buckle you up, throwing you a peeved squint of his eyes when you barked out a protest.

This was the final form of rich spoiled brat Bruce Wayne — the last boss, worst of the worst — you decided.

Though, his manner felt more grounded than you’d expected from him during a disagreement. You’d expected more snobbish behaviour in the face of your blatant disrespect. More of “how dare [they/she/he] not like me — I’m Bruce fucking Wayne!” than this — whatever this was.

After a stretch of awkward silence, he gestured towards the screen again, “Well?”

Biting back some ugly grumbles, you did as he asked. Wondering for a moment whether your fingers were clean enough to be touching this expensive tech, hoping Wayne wouldn’t come to find the stickiness of dried champagne on his precious Bentley tomorrow morning.

With a nod in thanks, he put the gear into drive, and sped off down the street. He immediately swerved to take over a car ahead. Your stomach lurched, and for a moment you were terrified you might throw up all the alcohol still in your tummy. Also, what did you even eat tonight? Mozzarella sticks?

Oh yeah, that’s right, Luca, Hwa and you got waffle fries after work.

Bad choice...

You muffled past your palm, “Could you—”

The car immediately slowed to a decent speed. You might have thought he looked a little concerned when he faced you, but that was impossible considering the man in question.

“Do you need me to pull over?” he asked.

“No,” you assured, shaking your head. Your hand slipped down your face, falling to your lap. “I’ll be fine I think.”

A gentle hum filled what would have otherwise been silence, the engine so soothing that you felt you’d soon be asleep. The rain outside had grown heavier. Windscreen wipers swept across the windshield, the noise a welcome addition to your increasing repose.

You fell asleep in just a few minutes, waking long after you’d set off from the hotel. You started in your seat, a sharp gasp alerting Wayne of your awakening, his eyes narrowing to where you had managed to slump down in your sleep. Quickly, you straightened, stretching out the double-chin you’d slept with, crying on the inside with every painful stretch of your neck muscles.

“We’re almost there,” he said from beside you, tapping something on the tech screen. It wasn’t until a symphony stopped that you realised he’d been listening to music. Quiet followed.

“Oh.” You rubbed at your right eye. “You can keep playing it.”

“Tchaikovsky?” He smiled a little.

You looked at him. “You were listening to Tchaikovsky?”

He shook his head suddenly, “Who’s that?”

Confused, you said no more. Your head lolled back against the leather seat, staring through the window where buildings and lights and people blurred by. Your head was still spinning a little bit. You almost enjoyed the way everything blended into obscure colours. If it hadn’t been for the somersaults in your stomach, you’d enjoy it more.

“How far away are we now?” your question came out just above a whisper.

“Fourteen minutes.” After a long pause, he mused, “I didn’t actually realise how far you live, [Y/N].”

You curled in on yourself.

“Did you take the train all the way to the event?”

It took you a while to reply. He thought it was because of his question, unaware that he had made you uncomfortable elsehow. Several seconds later, you mumbled, “No, I stayed around after work. I walked over with some colleagues.”

He thought, then began, “You—”

But your voice held his tongue.

“Why do you... keep saying my name?” Abrupt; though it came out in a bashful murmur.

“Why?” He began to chuckle. “Why, because it’s your name.”

“No,” you shook your head. The space pressed in. There was so little of it, really. So little between you and him.

“No, like... It’s so... Like...” Intimate. “Weird. See, I haven’t said your name. Not once.”

“You’ve called me Mr Wayne a couple times tonight.”

“Yeah. It— That’s, you know, formal. Like, like, if you, like, call me [Mx/Miss/Mr] [Y/L/N], that’s not weird. Even in my head you’re just, like, always Bruce Wayne.”

“Say Bruce.”

You froze.

“Huh?”

“Say Bruce right now.”

Quiet, you tried to curl in on yourself further; but could manage no more than you already had. You trained your gaze out the window at the passing streetlights.

You murmured out a “No...”

He grinned at you, and you couldn’t help but glance fleetingly in his direction to gauge his reaction, shocked to find his countenance genuinely amused for the first time tonight. You looked back outside, folding your arms as your body slumped down the leather.

“Do you not want me to say your name then, [Y/N]?”

You shrugged.

“Okay.”

A muted beep, and Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake filled the space. Moments passed. But after a while, you couldn’t help it: you turned to him with an incredulous expression. He regarded your wide eyes, tutting in response.

“Is this not Taylor Swift?”

You simply stared.

“Hang on, I think you’ll like this.”

He pressed a few things on his screen, Swan Lake disappearing. A modern beat played from the speakers.

“Wait, what?”

“You like Big Shaq, right? Two plus two is four, minus one is—” He swatted lightly at your shoulder with the back of his hand, “You’re good with numbers.”

Gunshots struck the air. Pah, pah, pah, pah, pah.

As if this night couldn’t get any weirder, Bruce Wayne randomly pointed out of his side of the window, announcing gravely, “There’s a drug dealer who sells crack down that alley. You’re only a few minutes' drive away. Don’t walk past there. I’ve heard he’s a horribly good salesman.”

You willed yourself to go back to sleep.

Morning came without mercy.

You awoke earlier than you’d have liked to a pounding headache. Too weak to rise, you peeked over the covers — gathered tightly around your head — at the blinds, confirming from the golden sunlight sneaking through that it was day. You stubbornly fell back asleep soon after.

At around noon, your roommate was no longer indulgent of your behaviour, barrelling into your room to haul you out of bed. They shoved a glass of water in your hand, pointed at a box on the nightstand, and said something about coffee and lunch and brushing your teeth whilst storming out into the corridor as passionately as they’d come in.

You grumbled about not getting even a second of peace as you did what you were told. But you supposed this was revenge for the last time they’d come home drunk. You’d done almost the exact same thing.

The box yielded to be Tylenol. As you popped two tablets down, you grew aware of your surroundings. The floor was not littered with the clothes you’d worn out — a usual sight on the morning of a hangover. You glanced down to find last night’s attire still on.

Fabric creased, it looked cheap now, not just what you’d felt it to be among the evening’s finery.

The prospect of laundering made you groan — it would take intensive ironing to get those creases out. A task you had no intention of completing this weekend.

Trudging out to the bathroom, you brushed your teeth then took a shower. Your roommate was sat in front of the TV reading this week’s horoscope when you tiptoed to the kitchenette area to steal your coffee and lunch. Their gaze followed you amusedly as you snuck back towards your bedroom.

“Hey!” they called, stopping you in your tracks. “Did you read the note on your nightstand?”

“Uh...” you glanced over your shoulder at their bright face. “No? What note?”

A flourish; with a wave of their hand in the direction of your room, you were dismissed. “Just go read it, genius.”

“Asshole,” you muttered under your breath (endearingly (maybe)), but obeyed.

Spiteful as you could sometimes be in the face of your roommate's demands, your curiosity was simply too much to ignore when you spotted the folded piece of paper. It stood propped against your lamp, a little flower (smiling, you should add) sketched on its visible side. You plucked it from the nightstand and jumped back into bed.

Cursive script flowed down the paper, equal parts elegant and equal parts chaotic — too grand for you to decipher without worsening your headache.

And much too grand to be your roommate’s.

You squinted, reading slowly. Taking little in; until memories of last night returned to you.

Of course you hadn’t forgotten that the event was a disaster, nor could you forget that Bruce goddamn Wayne had driven you home after it. But the part at the end felt blurred; you recalled bits and pieces of waking up, falling back asleep, feeling as if you were floating, telling someone to fuck off, an intercom buzzing, elevator music, hysterical laughter waking you up for a moment and... and— Wait!

God fucking damn, did Bruce Wayne carry you up the elevator and to your apartment, or was that just a very vivid, very bizzare, utterly ridiculous dream?

It had to be. In what world could that be real. Any of it? The note in your hand was a figment of your imagination, too. And Mr Wayne. The logical explanation was that none of it happened and you’d dreamed a drunken nightmare. No, you still were — dreaming. You had to be passed out on the balcony with Luca or something, alcohol poisoning finally taking its toll.

That had to be it.

It just had to be.

[Y/N] —

You’re lucky you’ve already quit, otherwise I might have had to fire you after last night.

There’s some water and medicine on your nightstand for the headache I’m sure you now have. If you’re managing to read this despite it, I truly am sorry to see you go. You must be a great accountant. Lucius seems to have noticed sooner. What a shame he did nothing to stop you from resigning.

You said some interesting things at the event. Or, at least, I’m sure it was all interesting. Please don’t fault me for not understanding a word of it. You see, I’m very stupid. It’s true that I bought my way into college. In fact, you’re right: I never did learn how to read. I’m going to go home and ask my butler what a librarian is.

You must be wondering how I’m writing this then. The thing is, I’m rich. I can do whatever I want. The pen has to move because I’m telling it to. It can’t afford being sued. My lawyers are really, really good.

I’m sure you have much more to say to me, [Y/N]. I may even begin to understand if you give me enough time to learn from you.

Tomorrow is Saturday. The office is closed. I’ll wake up at 7, Alfred will make me a smoothie, I’ll meditate, work out a bit. Then I’ll drink and fuck around. Not very interesting.

Certainly not as interesting as being shouted at by you.

There’s a nice little souvlaki place around the corner from your place. I saw the owner throw a piece of lettuce at a customer when we were driving by. I think he actually meant it as a friendly gesture. They were both laughing. Come with me on Saturday night? Maybe we can get a free piece of lettuce too. Or two, since it’ll be you and me.

I promise I’ll make it worth your while. You can continue to admonish me all you like. For hours and hours. Teach me what I can and can’t use my company credit card for, so the next poor accountant who deals with me after you doesn’t have to cry over it ever again. That was you, wasn’t it? I remember you now. I'm sorry about that... truly.

You know, now that I’m thinking about it, your shouting actually reminded me of my nanny when I was six years old. Not that she was ever drunk around me or anything. She just shouted a lot. She used to show that she loved me by calling me a vexing child. I think it was German for lovely, or something like that. Maybe cute?

Anyway, rest up, drink plenty of fluids. I can’t have you throwing up in the souvlaki shop, the owner might not like us then.

Respond using my business email. Don’t worry. I only give my number to people I’m looking to hook up with. Lucky for you, I just want to have souvlaki and learn how to read from you. So, no phone number for you.

Bring your best insults. I’ll enjoy them. You’ll enjoy them. Win-win.

So, come. Please.

Yours,

Bruce.

And it was your imagination, too, that you sent him that requested email.

In your imagination, you had to thank him for last night, after all.

It began with:

Dear Bruce, —

164 notes · View notes

dearest-dirt · 2 years

Text

It Gets Cooler Much Faster (Bruce Wayne x Reader)

Warning: pure angst

Word Count: 2K

Reader is gender neutral.

Masterlist

Author’s Note: Hi! The idea of this fic is heavily inspired from the book “Before the Coffee Gets Cold” by Toshikazu Kawaguchi and, also, a tiny bit is inspired by the song “Nobody’s Baby Now” by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. I hope you like it! Bestie, please reblog! Also, thanks to my beta! <3

Summary: Bruce Wayne couldn't move on from the breakup or from you. A cafe that allows someone to travel back in time becomes his only way of connecting with someone and something that he so desperately needs.

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Bruce made his way to the familiar cafe for the umpteenth time. When you first brought him here on a date, he didn’t necessarily believe in what you were telling him. A cafe that lets you travel back in time without altering the present; how could that be possible? There had to be some consequence, some sort of repercussion for time traveling. But here he was years later, doing something he once believed was entirely too good to be true.

The rules were simple: you had to sit at a specific table that was partly obscure from view, and was in the farthest corner of the cafe; you could only meet the people that had been to the cafe before; you couldn’t get out of your chair while in the past; and most importantly, you had to finish your coffee before it got cold, otherwise you would simply vanish into thin air. Once, while waiting for someone to finish their trip to the past, he saw them vanish from their seats. The air became colder than it was and despite being a well lit small cafe, it had become dark. The most notable thing about traveling to the past was that nothing you did or said would change the present in any way, shape, or form. Nothing about the cafe made sense, it just seemed to always have existed in this little undisturbed corner of Gotham. It didn’t make sense and he didn’t care.

“The usual Mr. Wayne?” asked the girl behind the register as Bruce walked into the place.

“Yes, thank you,” he said, making his way to that table. The cafe was usually empty this time of the day. He learned this from his frequent visits. What time the cafe would be least crowded and when was the best time to get in and out the fastest, he had it memorized.

He sat down and thought about you. The way you use to look at him, the sound of your laugh, the feel of your hands in his. He let out a sigh, it had been a rough few weeks. He came to “see” you when his life got more chaotic than usual. You had met in college, both having many of the same classes. At first you were just friends, the billionaire playboy reputation wasn’t exactly giving “boyfriend material” vibes. Over time, you started to develop feelings for him. He made you laugh, he was kind and compassionate, and just an overall wonderful person to be around. Bruce was head over heels for you from very early on in your friendship but he didn’t want to risk it by telling you or making it too obvious that he liked you.

“I’m going to kiss you, is that okay?” You were centimeters away from his face, and your stomach was doing somersaults. Bruce nodded with a smile and leaned forward to crash his lips onto yours. It was electric. It seemed like the whole world was conspiring just so this moment could happen. Alfred couldn’t have been happier when you guys started dating. From the way Bruce would look at you, Alfred knew that he loved you more than anything and that, eventually, you would become Mrs. Wayne.

When Bruce first became Batman, he didn’t tell you. He wanted to keep you out of this, he didn’t want this to be your burden. He wouldn’t see you for days on end, and when he did, he looked like he’d been through hell. You would ask him—or even Alfred—if he was okay, they would say that there was a lot going on with Wayne Industries. You could tell that that was a lie, but you went along with it anyway. You trusted Bruce and you knew he would tell you in his own time. And about a year into being Batman he did. You didn’t know what to think at first, you thought he was joking.

“Oh that’s funny, Bruce,” you laughed while trying to swallow the bite of food in your mouth. He gave you his I’m-dead-serious stare. You stopped laughing, quick. He was serious, he was Batman. It explained all the bruises and, well, practically everything else that had been happening. After a while you came around to him being Batman, helping people like he always wanted to, making a difference. You could tell how much this whole thing meant to him. You didn’t necessarily agree with him, but you supported him. He loved you even more for that.

Ultimately, things started to change; he was starting to be affected by his vigilante activities. It started slow: more missed dates, less time spent together, the perpetual tiredness that had become his new normal. You saw less and less of Bruce and heard more and more of Batman. With that, your worrying and stress also gradually increased. Every night you started going to sleep with dread, that in the morning he might be dead. Constant worrying and stress has become your new normal. As soon as the sun would go down you would become a mess. Eventually, everything started to manifest physically: migraines, insomnia, frequent colds, aches, and tiredness.

You didn’t want this. You wanted your Bruce but not his Batman. You knew that you couldn’t ask him to stop being Batman; he wouldn’t, but you knew that if he did, he would resent you for the rest of his life. It meant too much to him, it was who he was meant to be—or so he would tell you in the rare moments you did get with him. Bruce was so caught up in being a vigilante, he didn’t notice that you were slowly drifting away from him, removing yourself from his life. You decided to get your PhD like you always wanted and got into the best graduate program in your field at one of the top universities, which was on the other side of the country. Your current job offered you a promotion and you could easily transfer there. You were excited and nervous about everything coming up. But Bruce wasn’t a part of your plan anymore and it hurt. You never saw your life without him. And it really hurt, all those years, all those plans, and all those promises—just left to be memories now.

“This isn’t what I wanted Bruce,” you said sniffling and holding back tears. He just looked at you like a deer caught in headlights. What were you talking about? Why were you saying that? When did you decide to move on? When did you decide to leave? Leave him? Why didn’t he see it? “I would never ask you to give up being Batman, but that’s not the life I want. I love you, but I can’t do this.” With that you gave him a peck on the cheek and got up. You stopped once you opened the door to look back at him, he sat there without moving a muscle. “I hope you find someone who’ll want the same thing as you, who’ll love you as much as I do and maybe even more. More enough to live with both Batman and Bruce,” with that you walked out. Bruce sat there for a long time unable to move, unable to process, just your words echoing through the room. When he finally came out of this paralysis that had taken over him, it was dark outside.

“Master Bruce,” Alfred said gently, touching his shoulder.

“Here, Alfred,” Bruce said, getting up and reaching into his pocket, “you can take mom’s ring back to the safe. I won't be needing it anymore.” Alfred took the box with a sad expression on his face, he wanted Bruce to be happy and he knew Bruce was happiest with you.

Your name was never uttered in Wayne Manor again.

But Bruce never moved on, he wasn’t good at moving on, he didn’t know how. A part of him always believed that you would come back to Gotham, to him, but you never did. You got married and started a family with someone that wasn’t him and that hurt like hell. But a part of him still had hope. So he came to the cafe to be with you in his own way.

“Here you go Mr. Wayne, anything else I can get you?”

“No, thank you,” Bruce smiled at the server, “this will be all.”

“No problem, let me know if you need anything else.” The server left with the silent understanding that had developed between the servers of the cafe and Bruce.

Bruce took a sip of the hot drink and thought of you, the room slowly started to dissipate into fog. He closed his eyes and relaxed into his chair, this was ritualistic to him now. Slowly, the fog dissipated. He opened his eyes just as you walked through the door. You made your way to him with a smile on your face. Sometimes he would go to the times before he told you he was Batman, and sometimes after. This was after. He could tell from your hair and the slightly worried look in your eyes that had come to inhibit them.

“You really like this place, don’t you?” you stated more than questioned, while placing a kiss on his lips. He just smiled in response. “And you look more tired than usual.” He rubbed his face with his hands, before looking at you. “Maybe a certain caped crusader needs a weekend away?” you whispered with a laugh. You knew that wasn’t going to happen, not anymore.

He smiled at you, “Soon.” A comfortable silence had settled in, you were looking at the menu and deciding what to get.

“You’re staring, Bruce,” you said without looking up, “kind of like you can’t believe I’m sitting here.”

He just stared at you for a while before finally saying, “I can’t.”

You looked up at him, something was off. “What's wrong, Bruce?” He just smiled in response and took a sip of his coffee, it was starting to get cold; he didn’t have much time left. Coffee cooled much faster when he was in the past.

“I love you. You make me feel okay, in a way that I don’t think I’ll ever recover from. Every waking minute you consume me. Your phantom fingers graze mine like a whisper of affirmation that you were real. You were mine. When I wake up in the morning, I can almost feel you next to me. You're haunting me and I never want you to stop. Because if you stop, I'll never recover. I can take on almost everyone and everything but I can’t take on losing your ghost.” He drowned the cup of coffee in front of him.

You look at him in confusion. Bruce Wayne didn’t say things like that. This was majorly out of character. Also, why was he talking about you in the past tense? Calling you a ghost? Then it dawned on you, the cafe, the rumors of traveling back in time. He was from the future. You didn’t know what to say, your thoughts were a scattered mess but you felt a sense of urgency. You reached out and took his hand, “I love you, Bruce, and I will always love you.” You leaned forward to kiss him. The fog had already started to make him fade away. The last thing he left was your lips on his and him kissing you back. He hands instinctively reaching to touch your face and your hair. It was all over in an instant.

He was back in the present, sitting alone in the small cafe with an empty coffee cup in front of him. He let out a sigh, pulling out his wallet to leave the money and a generous tip. He smiled at the server on the way out. She knew he would be back in a few weeks.

He stepped outside to the cold and desolation of the city, but he felt better. He smiled looking at some kids playing down the street. He had seen you and you loved him. In that short time span, you were his again and he was okay again, like he used to be.

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manduse · 1 year

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The Dark Muse

Batman (Robert Pattinson) x AFAB reader

CHAPTER ONE

she/her pronouns used

word count: 814

no warnings for this chapter! enjoy!

The extensive room was full of the scent of chemicals. Walls - which were once white - had splotches of colour spread throughout. The hardwood floorboards also had their fair share of dents and flaws. Ivory cloth draped over objects: the room scattered with varying shapes. A single chair, angled so that it allowed a clear view of the city skyline, stood alone. A mug on top of a small walnut table sat waiting; its contents growing colder by the minute. An orange hue washed over the room and the person in it, the day becoming late. Her nose scrunched in concentration as she placed an abnormal block of shape on the canvas. Switching to a different paintbrush, she doused it in a pre-diluted colour and smeared it onto the blank spaces. Small goosebumps littered her arms as she lightly shivered. A sigh escaped her bright lips. She started washing off her brushes in the small sink next to her synthetic plants and a forgotten mug. The once-orange sky had now faded into a symphony of blues and purples bringing with it the cold of the night. The cold caressed her bare limbs so she hurried to grab something to cover up. She stepped out of the room to return with fresh clothes - which were toastier - and a fresh cup of coffee. Her feet grew closer to the still-damp canvas that she was working on. The pied shapes looked aberrant, yet she knew exactly what each brush stroke's purpose was. Of course, she knew; she was the one who put them there. Her brow furrowed and she scrunched her nose again. She thought deeply as she took a slow sip of her coffee.

She had to have stood there for a while since the moonlight shone and illuminated the studio. Defeated, she sighed and slouched over onto the nearest chair. The large window reached from the floor to far above her, the light from the city seeping into her studio. Wayne Enterprises alone could lighten the room enough to see clearly. One section of the window was open wide to air out the room. Looking out the window, she observed the myriad of offices and their workers as they went about their jobs. On occasions like these, she envied the stability of their jobs. She glanced back at the unfinished painting and slumped further into the chair. As if someone had strapped a weight to her wrists and told her to paint: she couldn't do it. Her calloused hands gripped her mug as she thought about how to depart from this predicament. Every day she pushed herself further: she tried different styles and different approaches. She even brought the painting to a friend's house to try painting in a different environment. Alas, nothing worked. She was stumped. Clouds covered the moon and veiled her in partial darkness.

She sat up straight, the empty mug crashing to the floor. However, she had no time to worry about the discarded mug. A large creature, a shadow of the night, kneeled in her room. Shards of glass littered the floor, evidence of its uninvited entrance. It was like staring into an abyss; its raven-black mask shrouded its sharp features. When you stare at the abyss, the abyss stares back. At that moment, she felt an assault of apprehension and terror as the being locked eyes with her wide eyes.

The dark mass stood up and loomed over her own seated figure. A cold gust of wind filled the room, the being's own cape wavering behind it. It dissolved into the shadows of the studio as if it fed on the vast darkness. The moonlight - no longer obscured by the clouds - shone into the studio. The soft light kissed his features, melting into his dark armoured suit that accentuated his build. The sharp angles of his suit created a plethora of sharp shadows and shapes. Clenched, his clean-cut jaw noticeably bare - smooth. The mask that shrouded the upper half of his face was cracked, exposing part of his left eye. Those impossible eyes which noone can explain the true nature of. His gaze was beguiling as her eyes racked over his figure. There was something about how his porcelain skin peeked through his jagged black suit that made her breath hitch ever so slightly. A dark phantasm of a man. His abyssal eyes never left hers even as her gaze scoured his body. Her eyes flickered back into his; her chameleonic cheeks rouged. She broke eye contact and acted interested in anything but his looming figure. Then, he started walking. Towards the window. A sudden urge came over her as if every choice in her life had led her to this very moment; the wave of want sweeping her off her feet.

He halted. Her small calloused hand clutched his forearm.

"Be my model,"

#batman #robbert pattinson #the batman #the batman 2022 #bruce wayne #batman x reader #bruce wayne x reader #batman x y/n #batman x you #batman/reader #dc #bruce x reader #bruce wayne/reader #batman movies #dc x reader

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kurogxrix · 5 months

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me when the READER in the X READER has a name:

like babe the fic ate but i do NOT look like an Aurora🙁

#bucky barnes x reader #peter parker x reader #bruce wayne x reader #din djarin x reader #steve harrington x reader #john price x reader #simon riley x reader #joel miller x reader #writing #fan fiction #fanfic #authors of tumblr #kurogxrix talks

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k4marina · 3 months

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bruce wayne x fem!reader || smau

pt. 2 of this :)

pt. 1

pt. 3

———

brucewayne

liked by yourusername and 21,304,272 others

brucewayne just going to leave this here

yourusername bruce- 😭😭😭😭

brucewayne what? 🤷‍♂️

user PLS WHAT IS THIS

user is that y/n’s face on his mug??? 😭😭

brucewayne custom made

user plsss 😭😭

user this man is WHIPPED

liked by yourusername and brucewayne

yourusername

liked by brucewayne and 20,364,208 others

yourusername ENGAGEMENT PARTYYYY 🥂🍾

tagged: brucewayne, racheldawes, & harveydent

racheldawes had such a blast you and bruce!!

harveydent thank you for gracing our engagement party with your presence 🙇‍♂️

yourusername ofc anything for the common people 💁‍��️

brucewayne the prettiest 🤍

yourusername mwa 💋

user look at her dresssss 😍😍😍

user ikr 😭

user man i wish i was rich and had rich friends like y/n 😭😭

yourusername posted a story 42 minutes ago

user1 replied PLS DONT RELL ME WHAT I THINK THIS MEANS 🙏😭😭

user2 replied girl say sike rn 😨

user3 DID U AND BRUCE BRAKE UP?????

user4 nononononknono u can’t do this. u can’t post smt like this and expect us to be calm U NEED TO EXPLAIN 😭😭

yourusername

liked by racheldawes and 22,293,108 others

yourusername life as of late 🙃

user WTF DOES “🙃” MEAN ???? 😭😭

user guys bruce didn’t like this post 😀

user maybe he’s busy 😭😭😭 (i’m delulu)

user noooo they broke up 😭😭

user it’s not confirmed, they still follow each other and have each others photos up

user but they also haven’t confirmed that they’re still together 😭😭

user if u and bruce brake up i’m going to be the next joker 😐

user frr 😭😭

user if they brake up then loves not real

brucewayne

liked by racheldawes and 23,193,028 others

brucewayne only thing that matters

user NO NONONONK WHY DIDNT SHE LIKE THIS POST

user bruce how could u fumble y/n???? 😭😭

user no fr she’s smart AND hot?? homie had it all 😭😭

user pls say sike if this is a prank then it’s not funny anymore 😭

user guys i think it’s time we admit the fact they’re not together anymore 😔

user SHUTTHEFUCKUP 😭

user nope not going to boooooooo

user no we’re not (i’m delulu)

yourusername

liked by brucewayne and 22,282,018 others

yourusername this place is like 18193819203x bigger than my last place

user IS THAT WAYNE MANOR ⁉️

user 🔊BRUCE WAYNE HAA LIKED THIS POST I REPEAT BRUCE WAYNE HAS LIKED THIS POST🔊

user what does this mean??? 😵‍💫😵‍💫

user pls tell me you’re still together otherwise i’ll kms 😭😭😭😭

brucewayne

liked by yourusername and 23,139,730 others

brucewayne you guys really thought i’d let her go?

ps. it was her idea to be dramatic about her moving in

yourusername 🙈🙈

yourusername sryyyy just wanted to have some fun

user U HEARTLESS WOMEN 😭😭

user WAR IS OVER 🙏🙏

user pls don’t ever do that again, i almost had a heart attack 😭

user ya’ll know damn well that these two were giggling and kicking their feet while we were out here dying 💀💀

yourusername posted a story 1 hr ago.

[caption: my forever 🤍]

___

thinking abt writing another brucewayne x reader fic 🤔

#bruce wayne x fem!reader #bruce wayne/you #bruce wayne social media au #bruce wayne x batmom #bruce wayne x you #bruce wayne/reader #bruce wayne x reader #bruce wayne fic #bruce wayne imagine #bruce wayne #dc social media au #dc x reader #dc x y/n #bruce wayne smau #k4marinafics

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youvebeenlivingfictional · 1 month

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The Other Half Part Twenty Six

Previous Part | Masterlist

Notes: Okay. After some very careful consideration and soul-searching, this is going to be the last official chapter of The Other Half. I'll still welcome asks, and writing prompt fills if I post/reblog them, but this is the end of the official series. I love Shop Girl and Bruce, and I think I'm leaving them in a good place; I hope you all feel the same.

Thank you as always for indulging my silly stories, and thank you for following me through this unexpected fic journey 💗💗

Warnings: Just smut and fluff.

Summary: You so rarely get to see Bruce this way—relaxed, calm, content…At least, you hope he’s content. Maybe his mind is racing with concern, with curiosity. You know that Bruce has a love and concern for Gotham. Sometimes you worry that you may never equal it.

But the city can’t love Bruce the way you do. It won’t take him into its arms, won’t bandage his wounds or lay awake worrying for him at night.

“Do I get a head start?”

Bruce chuckles at your question as he pulls the car up in front of the mansion.

“Depends. How far do you think you’ll be able to get?”

You hum as you consider, tipping your head from side to side.

“The first landing.” You realize as soon as you say it that there’s absolutely no way you’ll make it that far in your new shoes. Bruce seems to know it, too, his brows jumping as he nods.

“The first landing…And what do I get if I catch you?”

“Well, that’s up to you."

"Fine. Ten seconds—”

“Wait a minute.”

“What?”

“What if I make it without you catching me?”

Bruce tips his head a touch, a smug smile curling his lips and sending a thrill zipping through you.

“Ten seconds,” He reiterates without answering your question.

“Just ten?”

“...Nine—”

“Shit!” You scramble to undo your seat belt, hurrying out of the car as you hear Bruce turn it off. You fumble with your key, shoving the heavy door open and moving as quickly as you dare in your new heels, heading up the steps of the grand staircase. Your stomach flips as you hear the door close behind you, but you don’t dare turn to look. You make it up the first few steps, heart ticking up in your chest as you hear Bruce’s footsteps quick and gain on you. You’re three steps from your target—

You shriek as Bruce’s arms hook around your middle, easing you to a stop as your fingers just miss the first landing. Your giggling is marred by your heavy panting as Bruce presses more heavily against you, easing the two of you down against the steps.

“So fucking close,” You manage.

“With a head start.” Bruce’s reminder is chased by a kiss to your shoulder. His hands smooth over your hips as you gently twist in his arms to face him, scooching back onto the landing. Bruce’s lips are on yours in a second, slipping tenderly against them. You draw your knees up to cradle his hips, groaning as he presses closer. His hands slip under your dress, easing the skirt higher. You swallow thickly, sucking in a nervous breath as his kisses drift to your neck.

“Bruce—”

“Mm.”

“Alfred—?”

“He’s at the penthouse.”

You let yourself relax at that, relieved that you won’t have to worry about him wandering by or hearing you. You bite your lip as Bruce’s hands smooth up your inner thighs, tipping your hips up as his fingers hook in the seat of your panties, exposing your heated flesh to cool air. You shiver as he brushes his knuckle gently against your plumping lips, his eyes growing dark as his gaze sweeps up your front.

He leans back, pushing your thighs wide with his broad shoulders. He eases your panties more tightly to the side, the lace pushing almost harshly against the crease of your hip. He holds your gaze as he leans in, pressing a gentle kiss to your mound. His kisses drift lower, his tongue teasing at your slit. Each touch has a hint more pressure than the last.

Your eyelids flutter, and you let your head tip back, lowering yourself against the rug on the landing. Bruce draws one of your legs up over his shoulders, baring you to him more fully. His tongue strokes your clit for a few moments before he delves lower, groaning softly at the taste of you. Your toes curl in your shoes as Bruce laps broadly across your pussy. He never settles, tongue and fingers stretching and teasing you until you’re shaking, grinding down into his touch.

Your whimpers and moans echo in the cavernous front hall as curls and twists his fingers, pushing you closer to your release. You finally cum with a shout, back arching as your hips bound against him. Bruce only draws away when you gently push at his forehead, his sucking kisses against your clit turning to a gentle nuzzle against your inner thigh.

You sigh softly as he draws his hand away, standing. You reach up, palming his hard cock beneath his trousers. He groans, taking hold of your hand and tugging you up.

“Lemme—”

“Not here.”

“Bruce," You pout.

“Don’t worry,” He leads the way toward the stairs. “I’m not done with you yet.”

“I don’t get another head start?”

“Do you really think you can outrun me after that?” Bruce asked, throwing you a knowing glance over his shoulder. You smiled guiltily, giggling as he grins.

“...You still awake back there?” You mumble. It’s a few long moments before Bruce lets out a soft, hazy hum, his arms tightening around your middle as he cuddles closer, nuzzling between your shoulder blades. You smile, rolling over to face him. His eyes are closed, hair mussed from where you had grasped and tugged it. Your body feels almost syrupy as you move against him. You’d been certain that he’d get up and check on the news once the two of you were through, but he’d stayed true to his word, cuddling up in bed even after you had gotten cleaned up.

You raise a hand, gently stroking his cheek. He hums, face tipping up into the caress. You know that you’re going to need to savor this while you have it. You so rarely get to see Bruce this way—relaxed, calm, content…At least, you hope he’s content. Maybe his mind is racing with concern, with curiosity. You know that Bruce has a love and concern for Gotham. Sometimes you worry that you may never equal it.

But the city can’t love Bruce the way you do. It won’t take him into its arms, won’t bandage his wounds or lay awake worrying for him at night.

Your hand settles on his jaw, thumb sweeping across his cheekbone. You smile as he turns his head, pressing a kiss to your palm.

But the city isn’t held by Bruce the way you are, either.

“Thank you,” You murmur. Bruce’s eyes blink open slowly, fixing on you as he smiles sleepily.

“For what?”

“For today. For…Everything,” You shake your head a little. “Everything that you do, and are, I just…Thank you.”

Bruce leans in, pressing a tender kiss to your lips. His hands skim up your back, drawing you into his chest, legs tangling together as if you can fuse to one another.

“Today was good?” He mumble buzzes against your lips, and you grin.

“Today was amazing and you know it.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. Anything that could’ve made it better?”

You consider for a moment, gaze lowering to his chest. Michelle’s prediction rattles in your mind, and you can’t help but wonder…But—

“No—”

“What’s that face for?”

You can’t sneak anything by him.

“Nothing.”

“...Baby,” He plies softly. You sigh, shaking your head.

“It’s not—It’s just something Mish said.”

“What’d she say?”

“...She thought you were going to propose.”

Bruce doesn’t lean away like you expect him to. His hands just continue their gentle circles against your back.

“Did you think I was going to?” He asks.

“No.”

“Do you want me to?”

It’s a fair question; it’s something the two of you have neglected to discuss since your fight. And as happy as you are in this moment with Bruce, you know that it isn’t a true representation of your relationship. You’ve had as many lows as you’ve had highs, and the lows have been devastating.

“...I don’t know,” You admit. You hear Bruce draw a deep breath in through his nose, and you see him nod a little out of the corner of your eye.

“Okay.”

You don’t ask if he wants to. You don’t think you could handle the answer just now, either way.

“Well,” Bruce does let go of you then, reaching over and opening his bedside drawer, “There was one more thing I meant to give you today. Before you get jumpy, it isn’t a ring, but it is something special.” You push yourself to sit up as Bruce scooches back, holding out a velvet jewelry box. Your brow furrows as you take hold of it. You give him a guarded, nervous look before you open it. Your stomach flips, and tears prickle at your eyes when you catch sight of your discarded lariat necklace. You haven’t seen it since you ripped it off and called him a coward, and you’d been certain you would never see it again. But there’s something different about it than you remember.

You reach down, trailing your finger over the strand and coming to stop just above another jewel.

“...I thought—”

“It was a diamond,” Bruce nods, “But…” He reaches out, gingerly lifting the necklace out of the box and fastening it around your neck. “I wanted to give it a personal touch.”

“What do you mean?”

Bruce traces his finger along the silver, brushing against the dangling emerald before he gently slides his fingers beneath the new addition.

“This was one of my mother’s pearls.”

Your breath catches in your throat, and for a moment, you can’t move or breathe or think. Bruce’s gaze flits to your face, sweeping your no doubt stunned expression.

“I thought about proposing tonight,” He admits, “But I think we need more time. That doesn’t mean that I can’t make you a promise—a promise to be honest with you. A promise to love and cherish you for the rest of our lives. A promise to come home to you every night.” Bruce raises his hand, curling his fingers around your trembling jaw. “To keep my temper out of it, to push through the hard things with you instead of running from you—running from us. And to fight for this as hard as I fight for Gotham—and harder, when I need to.”

#Bruce Wayne x Reader #Bruce Wayne x You #Bruce Wayne/Reader #Bruce Wayne/You #Bruce Wayne fic #Bruce Wayne imagine #The Other Half

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c1nnam00n · 1 month

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me seeing that my fav character barely/doesn’t have any fanfics OR imagines

5K notes · View notes

holy-minseok · 6 months

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We need mean!reader, angry!reader, misunderstood!reader, creepy!reader, gross!reader, toxic!reader, nonforgiving!reader, selfish!reader, narcissistic!reader, dark!reader, FEDUP!reader. That bitch is way too nice, passive, and sensible. ✋🏾😂

#where my crazy writers at!!!!#please I need a break from a nice reader w the perfect relationship. I’m tired on pretending I’m not crazy #cillian murphy x reader #eddie munson x reader #mike schmidt x reader #bruce wayne x reader #stu macher x reader #top gun imagine #tommy shelby x reader #tlou imagine #imagine #Peter Parker x reader #rafe cameron x reader #john b x reader #aaron taylor johnson x reader #simon riley x reader #edward nashton x reader #bradley bradsaw x reader #rhett abbott x reader

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the-wintershade · 1 year

Text

withdrawals from imagined things | pattinson!batman

series: staring into the echo | 1 | 2 | 3 pairing: pattinson!batman x reader summary: bruce is supposed to be your partner. But now there's someone else. And now, every affection you've ever had dissolves in front of your eyes. That is, until Bruce has something to say about it. wc: 2.3k+ genre: angsty, reader has doubts about feelings, sad, but has a happy ending (in part 3 <3) a/n: know your worth people. know your worth.

There were many times you and Bruce narrowly escaped battles. Many times having all your limbs and a working heartbeat was a miracle.

None of those times included Bruce staring at another woman. Such transfixed care and concern in his eyes.

Maybe it shouldn’t have bothered you. Partners didn’t typically care if their partners had other people in their lives.

But you and Bruce worked together often. Like any good professionals, you made a good team. You cared about each other, looked out for each other, and protected each other.

You had come to depend on him. Seeing him with someone else sent a warning through your head, sent an ache through your heart.

Bruce was starting to slip away from you. It’s as if now he drifts somewhere out of your reach, even though in a few steps you could be standing right next to him. You don’t understand what was happening between him and that woman, but you know it has nothing to do with you. It will never have anything to do with you.

A wall that you didn’t see before now appeared between you two. It wasn’t a wall you knew was there either. You didn’t come to realize the depth of your affection for Bruce until now. Until it was already too late.

Your hand itches. Only minutes ago, your clawed your way out of the debris of the collapsed building you and Bruce were in. You reach up to flick pieces of brick off your face.

You can’t help but compare it to how images of you and Bruce. Light scoffs and tenderly sealing up wounds after missions. Warm smiles. Hesitant touches on arms and hands. Breaths stopping and restarting, either from laughing or proximity.

All of it dissolves in the grey sunlight.

You know there wouldn’t be more moments like those. The realization coils around your chest, your throat, your tongue. Hot. Unyielding.

Saying anything to Bruce would just make everything worse. You aren’t sure you’d be able to say anything at all. Your feelings of betrayal hang heavy on your face. It pools around your eyes. It distorts your vision.

You understand it now. It’s not that you’re partners. It’s not that you felt something for him. You’re comfortable with him. You feel safe with him.

Felt. Felt safe. The instability in your core won’t let you feel that way now.

You turn your palms up and carefully fleck the tiny pieces of brick and dirt and pebbles off your hand. They leave small, deep impressions all over your skin; all are tiny reminders of barely making it out. It feels like a part of you had collapsed too.

Lieutenant Gordon appears in front of you. So enraptured by your hand, you don’t notice two new police cars. A blur of crimson and cobalt washes the rising ashen dust in color.

Gordon’s voice is clear and focused. It’s nice to hear, to get some organization in the rambling starting in your brain. A visualization of Bruce and the red-haired woman laughing and bumping into each other flashes across your mind. You flinch.

“You alright, officer?” Gordon’s eyes work across your dirtied uniform and messy hair. You’re positive dust and cuts cover your cheeks.

You manage a nod and studiously avoid his gaze. Gordon would see right through you. Instead, you fixate your attention on another officer helping a man to an ambulance.

You think you catch Bruce looking over at you out of the corner of your eye. It’s likely wishful thinking.

“Fine,” you sigh. “All the wounded are cleared. The building is one cough away from caving, but there should be some people working on it.”

You feel Gordon’s quizzical eyes on the side of your face. You blink, knowing you would have to look him in the eye before he would move on. He has to really see if you’re just as fine as you claim to be.

It’s endearing and frustrating how he knew your tone could say one thing but your eyes could say another.

You lick your lips and turn toward Gordon. “How is the inner city? Did our favorite villain get that far?”

It’s Gordon’s turn to look away, eyes scanning the scene briefly. “It went about as well as it could. The bastard’s fast. But the Riddler can’t run forever.” His eyes return to your face, a gently smug look on his face. “Only so many sewers to hide in.”

You chuckle and feel some of Gordon’s scrutiny waver. You finally look toward him. Bright splotches of dust and debris cling to his jacket. “Buildings fell near you too?” You mutter, reaching out to swipe some of the powder off his clothing.

Gordon shrugs and sighs. A new smudge lingers where your fingers had been. You rub your hands across each other as he defeatedly answered. “Just one. Unlike you and the Bat here, we were a little late.”

A little late is code for casualties. Gordon’s jaw tenses and his eyes lose a bit of their sharp focus. He’s disappointed in himself.

You knew isn’t his fault just like it isn’t the people’s fault either. They were victims of crime and chaos. Nobody could be everywhere at once.

You’re used to checking in on each other, but this is one of the first times that Gordon vocalized his deeper thoughts. Sharing in sadness with your lieutenant was the last thing you were expecting. It makes you feel less alone, even if your melancholy came from different places.

You press your lips in a sympathetic line. “I’m sorry, Gordon.”

“Yeah,” his voice gravels. “There was a little boy this time.” He swallows and places shaky hands on his hips. “There won’t be a next time.”

You reach out to place a hand on his shoulder and squeeze. “No, there won’t.”

His smile tinges with sorrow but gratitude floats behind it. That’s good enough for you. You let your hand fall away.

Gordon’s gloomy slouch reminds you of your own. You spare another look toward Bruce.

His eyes flutter over to yours. Then, he’s looking back at the beautiful, small woman in front of him. Before she could turn to see who Bruce was looking at, you duck and angle yourself toward Gordon.

A weak sigh blows through your nostrils. You hate feeling this way.

Everything is tight and tense. Your words are becoming squeezed and painful. Talking is nearly out of the question.

You need to do some quiet work, take a shower, and go to bed early. You don’t have the energy for much else.

You watch embers and soot float down in front of you. Gordon does the same. A comfortable silence of shared blues and dissociation stretches between you.

Gordon is the first to break it. “You going back with him?”

You look at Gordon with unfocused eyes before you notice him tilting his head in Bruce’s direction. You couldn’t hide the bittersweet expression on your face even as you attempt a smirk. “Not today. Think I’m going to head to the station to write my statement. Maybe take a shower.”

Gordon nods and hums. His quiet response only further confirms that he senses something is up between his partner-in-justice and you.

Normally, you and Bruce would leave together. You would trade information and conclusions, swap theories and leads to follow. Alfred would help too. Tea would be made, biscuits nibbled on, and when you were ready, you and Bruce would work on smoothing over cuts with bandages and emotions with comforting words.

Not tonight. Maybe no longer. You aren’t quite ready to process what that means. What that would do to you.

“Well,” Gordon muses, “take it easy. I’m having breakfast tomorrow at the diner just off of 26th if you want to stop by.”

Your heart warms at his invitation.

You know he invited you because he could tell something was wrong. Gordon always tries to support you. It felt nice that he wants to be there while you sort through it all.

At the same time, you register that he might have asked because he wanted company too. He desires what you refuse to acknowledge right now. An opportunity to process what happened with someone who understood.

Smirking, you respond, “I might just take you up on that offer. See you soon, Gordon.”

You look over your shoulder once.

You and Bruce lock eyes. You watch as he angles his body toward you. He starts to take a step in your direction.

Then, you looked away. Walking to a squad car, you hail a ride back to the station.

…

Filing the papers is easy. Keeping your mind focused on the work instead of Bruce’s actions is not.

Instead of the usual hour, it takes you nearly three hours to finish your report. Every so often your eyes would drift away, focusing on some random object. In the haze, you could replay the way Bruce leaned into the woman.

Woman. That’s how Bruce must have seen her.

As a woman, as a beautiful, tough, and delicate person that should be cared for, should be loved.

You’re just the partner. A person who helps sort out his life and nothing more. Sure, you two probably like each other’s company. Good partnerships require it.

But that’s all.

When you got home, you quickly got in the shower. While the water washes away the dirt, your mind is finally able to quiet for a few moments. You take your time washing your hair. The suds collect all over your hands and up your arms before you rinse them away.

For a time, you’re able to start sorting through how what happened in that building. As you brush your teeth, you string together explanations for how the explosions were placed, why they denoted they did, and the chaos used to overshadow the governor’s press conference.

You couldn’t figure out why certain buildings were targeted the way they were. Hopefully, Gordon would have more information in the morning.

You throw on your pajamas and exit the steam-filled room. The towel wrapped around your head sways as you walk to the fridge to eat something. Your limbs and brain are too tired to make anything, so you decide on some cubed cheese and already washed and separated grapes.

As you eat, you looked down at your hands, finding a few scrapes.

A few weeks ago, Bruce cradled your hand so preciously as he had applied anointment and gently pressed a bandage against a deep cut. You just narrowly avoided a knife to the face, instead catching the blade with your hands and wrestling it out of your assailant’s grasp.

Bruce tensed the entire time you told him what happened. He looked almost furious but still, he managed to be so tender with you as he cleaned and patched your injuries. It made you feel cared for and seen in a way that you hadn’t in a long time.

It made you think you actually deserved care. You could receive care from those who actually care about you. And somehow, they would want to volunteer this care without obligation.

That’s what you used to think. Now you couldn’t be certain Bruce’s actions don’t come without a sense of obligation.

If you were gone, Bruce would have no one who would listen to him ramble on and on about what he thought. No one would be as careful as you were while you iced bruises and placed tape over stitches. He wouldn’t have a partner anymore. That was enough for anyone to feel obligated to keep their partners safe.

The dull scar on your palm glints in the kitchen light you left on. It’s the only light on in the room.

You sigh. Even the darkness reminded you of him.

You want to stop thinking about it all, about how your heart hurt, about how the cheese and grapes don’t taste like anything because the grief over a relationship you realized you don’t have made it taste like flavorless mush, about how the disappointment was conjuring tears to your eyes.

You need it to stop. It’s all becoming too much.

After only two handfuls of cheese and three of the grapes, you place their respective bowls back into the fridge and walk to your room, keeping the lights off.

The click of the fridge closing mixed with the click of your bedside lamp switch. This would be the only light you’d leave on. You have to. The darkness would just bring back things you don’t want to think about.

As you burrow under your bed covers, you turn on your tv to let its mindless drawl keep you from retreating too far into your memories of Bruce.

The recollections of patch-up jobs start to take on a different color now. Instead of the soft warm hues you remember in them, they’re fizzling into deep grays and sharp whites. It’s like your brain is removing your emotional connection to them. Dulling them to protect yourself.

It isn’t working. The gold is always still there, still lingering behind the silvery clouds, fighting through their clumps in strands of warm light.

You give up, smothering your head with a pillow and adjusting till you faced your window with city lights peeking through the blinds. If you can’t get your little flicker of hope that you’re wrong about your new perspective on Bruce to go away, maybe you could distract yourself enough to go to sleep.

And you did. You watched cars peel up and down the now rain-covered streets. People huddle under umbrellas or streak through the rain.

It’s numbing. Your eyes unfocus and droop close. Just before sleep gives you relief from thoughts about Bruce, a white circle appears in the sky.

You try to close your eyes and ignore it; it will only give your brain more fuel to run on.

But you know what the circle is as quickly as your subconscious does. The bat signal colors the back of your eyelids. You scrunch your eyes firmly closed and work to count sheep to finally get to sleep.

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lingerasthesmokeoncedid · 4 months

Text

What Do the Lonely Do At Christmas?

A Battinson Holiday Fic

After years of not celebrating holidays, Bruce Wayne is trying to do something different. But when he hires a professional decorator to deck the halls of Wayne Manor, Bruce finds that it's not just his home and holiday that will be different - his heart just might change, too.

I. They’re Singing “Deck the Halls,” but it’s not like Christmas at All

On days when he went into the downtown highrise office that bore his name, Bruce Wayne didn’t take the executive elevator. Ever since the beginning of his New Gotham project, he tried to connect with the people on a human level. To not be their boss, but someone they could talk to, who could hear their grievances and worries, who could do something in his considerable power to help them, even without his mask.

Funny thing about that, though. As it turned out, no one wanted to ride the elevator with The Boss.

He would approach the elevator bank and people would scatter. A few would smile and wave uncomfortably when their eyes met, but none of them would brave even a few minutes with Bruce Wayne, the scion of the richest family in the city.

So, he rode the elevator alone. Always.

At least…until one day in December, when the wind was biting and the snow tasted like change.

“Hold the door, please!”

For a half-second, Bruce didn’t even realize the disembodied voice was addressing him. No one ever rode with him; now someone was calling after him, begging not to be left behind?

“Hold the door – thanks!”

But then she appeared. An unremarkable stranger, running for the doorway like her life depended on it, shuffling past her frozen colleagues as she jugged several ill-stacked boxes. Bruce didn’t recognize her, but all the same, he couldn’t help but stare.

Framed by the brass elevator frame and backlit by the strings of gold and silver lights on the lobby wall behind her, she beamed at him, beatific as an angel atop a tree.

Bruce awkwardly shuffled to the side as he held the doors open to allow her inside. Not enough, apparently, because as she jostled to manage her tower of packages, she pressed her back against his until she was safely inside and could maneuver better.

It was an accident, he told himself. And it only lasted a moment. Less than a moment. But he’d caught a breath of her scent, felt the shift of her body against his…and it now felt burned into his skin.

“Thanks again for that. Sorry I kept you waiting.”

He pressed the button for the top floor, his stop, and was surprised when she informed him she was going to the same place.

They rode in silence for awhile, Bruce in the corner of the elevator, shifting his weight across the balls of his feet, trying not to look at her slightly fuzzy reflection in the elevator mirror. She hummed along easily to the holiday elevator music playing above them, still carefully balancing her boxes.

It was like riding with someone who didn’t know he was Bruce Wayne - or someone who didn’t care. Either way, he decided to break their silence.

“You’re new here, aren’t you?” He asked, in that slightly stilted way of his. After so long in the shadows, it took time to adjust to normal human interaction.

“Just a temp,” she chirped. Then, she gestured to the boxes, which, upon further inspection, contained red ribbons and garland. “I’m a professional decorator. I’ve been doing the building here.”

“Oh, so you’re responsible for all of this?” Bruce asked. This time, it was his turn to gesture - to the tinsel hanging from the ceiling above them.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” she replied.

“No, no,” he said. Shit. He really was out of practice. He’d barely said a few sentences to this woman, and already he’d accidentally insulted her. “Your work is great. It’s just that all of this holiday cheer, it’s just not me.”

He expected the conversation to end there. He’d embarrassed himself, he’d screwed up already - no wonder no one wanted to ride the elevator with him, and her floor was fast approaching. But she surprised him.

“Really?” She asked.

It was obvious, wasn’t it? Bruce Wayne, tabloid badboy recluse with greasy hair and too-big clothes and too much money? Of course he didn’t immediately strike anyone as a Buddy the Elf type. But she seemed genuinely surprised, as if she saw something besides darkness when she looked at him.

Strange. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had seen the good in Bruce Wayne. Batman, yes. Bruce Wayne? No. It had been a long, long road since then.

“Now you say it like it’s a bad thing,” he lobbed back.

“It’s just…you just don’t really seem like a Grinch. Not even an Ebenezer Scrooge.”

Last year, he’d spent Christmas covered in someone else’s blood, standing over some nameless, faceless criminal who’d had the misfortune to try to rob someone at gunpoint near Batman. This year…he liked the idea of spending it at home. Giving out presents to kids in The Narrows. Doling out Christmas bonuses. Stuff like that.

Sure, he’d probably Batman on Christmas Eve. And probably Boxing Day, too. But for one night, maybe he could help people as a man instead.

“Call me a recovering Grinch. I just haven’t celebrated any holiday in a long time.”

She looked like she wanted to ask him why. He appreciated it more than he could say that she didn’t.

The doors opened on her floor then, and she smiled at Bruce before she left him.

“Well. Maybe you should try something different this year.”

II. It’s Beginning to Look a lot LIke Christmas

A few days later, Bruce Wayne was in the attic of the Manor, hauling things around like a man possessed, searching for something he hadn’t seen in many, many years.

But then, a crackle on his watch, and suddenly, Alfred’s voice filled the musty attic room.

“Sir, I’m sorry to disturb you, but we’ve just been buzzed on the gate intercom. I have eyes on a woman, and she claims to have been invited by you–”

Bruce could picture it. The butler at the bank of security cameras monitoring Wayne Manor at all times, suspiciously eyeing some strange car approaching.

His chest tightened. She was here. She was going to be here, in his house. A woman in Wayne Manor. Since his parents’ death, that was even less common than holiday celebrations.

Bruce checked the time. Damn. He hadn’t meant to be up here when she arrived. But finding the boxes took more time than expected, and –

There. There was the box he was looking for. Caked under a thick layer of dust, a box marked “CHRISTMAS/HANUKKAH” sat in the corner of the room.

He spoke into his watch, then reached for it. “I’ll take care of it, Alfred.”

A skeptical pause from the other end of the line.

“...Very good sir.”

But Bruce’s understanding of very good, sir in that context must have been quite different from Alfred’s, because when he found his way to the atrium some ten minutes later, his attention was drawn away from the front door, where he expected her to be waiting, to the nearby sitting room.

Despite the grand doors being shut, Bruce could still hear Alfred’s cool, modulated tones and a soft, female laugh. The clinking of fine porcelain. Soft Christmas music from a record player.

Bruce’s shoes squeaked on the marble by accident. In the sitting room, Alfred excused himself and materialized in the hallway with Bruce a moment later.

“You let her in?” Bruce asked, hating how he sounded like a petulant child, but not enough to let go of his frustration. He hadn’t wanted to explain all of this to Alfred. He’d hoped she would be able to decorate today, then leave before Alfred was any the wiser. He should have known the old man would find his way to interfere.

“I couldn’t very well leave her out in the cold, could I?” Alfred said, his smug tone telling Bruce everything he needed to know. I wanted to snoop and I wasn’t going to let this girl go without getting to know her. “She’d have frozen if I hadn’t gotten her a cup of tea and brought her in, that’s how long it took you.”

Bruce grit his teeth. Yeah, this was mostly his fault. Not that he was going to admit that. “I was busy.”

“Busy with what? And what’s that?” he asked, gesturing to the box Bruce carried. “Old junk for the cave? Sir, when you have a date come over –”

“We’re not dating,” Bruce said, quickly.

“Apologies, I’m sure you’re keeping it casual, right?”

Dammit. He was going to have to explain now. Couldn’t have Alfred hearing wedding bells – the old man was convinced that was the only way Bruce would ever fully give up being Batman. If some woman came into his life and he hung up his mantle for her. “She’s here to decorate the manor. The boxes are our old Christmas and Hanukkah stuff.”

Alfred blinked. Finally on the back foot. Finally surprised by something.

“She…what?”

“It’s the holidays, Alfred,” Bruce said, as if he hadn’t been avoiding them most of his life.

A scoff from the butler. “First time you’ve noticed in ten years.”

“I’m trying something different.”

Not good enough for Alfred. Bruce took a different tack, his lips quirking up in a slight smirk.

“Come on. You should be proud. I’m finally starting to act human again.”

III. Your Eyes are Like Starlight Now

A few days later (Christmas decorating a manor of this size couldn’t be done in an afternoon, apparently), Bruce was set up in his office, trying not to think about the strange woman currently in his house. He didn’t let people into the Manor very often. It was private, a sanctuary - no, more like a creaking, heaving monument to the past. To let people in this house was to let them into a life he’d left behind. To poke around at the ghosts and peer around corners for his secrets.

So, as she worked, he was very aware of every creak and groan of the house. And he was also very aware of her humming those festive songs - the tunes echoed through the halls and to his desk as though they were meant for his ears only.

The idea of someone else in his space, someone besides Alfred, unsettled him. But, as the days went on, he realized it was the disquiet of a man learning to dance for the first time. Awkward, then oddly comforting.

Their shared conversations in the hallway as they happened to pass each other, their laughter in the kitchen as she took her lunch break while he just so happened to be there making a cup of coffee, the wave they always shared – him looking down from the window, her looking back at the mansion as she went to her car – at the end of each day….they all added up to something, something Bruce couldn’t ever quite name for himself.

Even if he knew the word for this feeling – and he suspected that he did – he didn’t want to examine it too closely. Too complicated. Too confusing. Too risky.

That afternoon, her voice carried across the house. This time, it really was meant for him.

“Mr. Wayne? Mr. Wayne?”

Bruce left his desk and followed the sound, until they met together on the sweeping second-floor landing. He blinked as he approached. In the hours since they’d parted, she’d gotten busy. Christmas lights and dangling ornaments were everywhere. Had the house ever been this bright, this cheerful, before?

“There you are, Mr. Wayne,” she said. “I was just–”

“You can call me Bruce, you know.”

He hated being called Mr. Wayne. It felt like carrying his father’s tombstone around his neck.

“That’s allowed?” She asked.

An understandable question. This house didn’t radiate casual, cool, boss energy. But he also thought, when he impulsively hired her that day after their first meeting, that she hadn’t seen him as only a boss. But as a person.

A boss, you call Mr. Wayne. A person, you call Bruce. He wanted to be Bruce. God, how badly he wanted to be Bruce for her. What a peculiar feeling. “I’d like it if you did.”

Their eyes met. When he finally pulled away, he was convinced he’d looked at her for too long, but he wouldn’t have traded a moment of it. The Christmas lights twinkling in her eyes were hypnotic.

He cleared his throat. “Now, what can I do for you?”

“I’m decorating the tree,” she said, waving down towards the first floor. She’d had a tall fir delivered bright and early in a snowdrift that morning as Bruce watched her from the second story window. “I thought maybe you’d like to put up some of the more sentimental ornaments?”

Bruce remembered decorating the tree with his own parents, but that had been so long ago. He assumed professionals like herself would do everything; that’s part of the reason he hired her. So he wouldn’t have to live out those painful, happy memories of his parents again. But, still. He didn’t want to be labeled as weird. If this was the done thing, he would do it. “Is that something your clients like to do?”

“Not usually. But I always like to offer. It’s how my family and I used to get ready for Christmas.”

He wanted to ask her why she said that in the present tense; he then remembered the restraint she’d shown in the elevator.

He’d been avoiding the holidays for years because they reminded him of his parents; it seemed, at least to him, that she was holding onto them because she didn’t want to forget hers.

He’d been suffering for years. She seemed pretty happy. Maybe he could try her way. Just this once. See if it made him feel better.

“Well. I don’t usually do that,” he said. Her face fell for only a second before he picked it up just as quickly. “But I remember someone suggesting that I try things differently this year.”

Moments later, they were down in the grand atrium, where she and her team of delivery men had erected the fourteen-inch tree she’d spent the entire day decorating. The scent of fir and snow filled the air, immediately making him think of her. She’d smelled the same when they’d first met in the elevator that day, when she’d first shown him the kindness of treating him like a person instead of a name.

As he stepped deeper into the room, towards the box he’d brought down a few days ago, he examined the splendor she’d brought to this usually drab, forgotten place. Of course, the Christmas tree stood like an elaborate mountain in the corner near a big, snow-dappled window. Holly and garland had been strung, the photographs in this room had been dusted and lined amongst hand-me-down nutcrackers and tchotchkes. His mother’s Hanukkah decor and family relics had been arranged, too, given a place of prominence on a long side table running the length of the room.

It was…perfect. Like she’d borrowed a memory or a dream from the warmest, most sincere, deepest buried parts of him and brought it to staggering life.

She looked like she was made to stand near his fireplace. Like she belonged there, in his room, in the warmth of this holiday scene she’d created. He tried not to think about that when he began picking through the sentimental ornaments she’d left for him to hang.

“I haven’t looked at these in a long time,” Bruce muttered. He ran his chafed, scarred hands over some of the artifacts of Christmases past.

The woman beside him, so close they brushed when she breathed too deeply, brightened. “You’re in for such a treat. There are some great ones here. Like….” She dug around in the box and produced a scuffed, chipped ornament from almost thirty years ago. “Bryce’s first Christmas.”

Bruce chuckled. “My father gave that one to me. He’d been somewhere in Europe just before Christmas and apparently that country didn’t have have too many Bruces. This was the closest he could find. My mother said they probably had Bruce ornaments, but he brought this one home anyway. Always loved a joke, my dad.”

The words fell out before he could catch them. He stiffened when they stopped, then fully aware that he’d been soft, vulnerable, to this woman. Sensing the shift in mood, she offered:

“I’m sorry - would you want to do this alone? I don’t want to intrude - ”

Yes, please go, every fiber of his being wanted to say. But he overruled the feeling. He’d been masking himself in shadows and isolation for years; maybe if he wanted to be a different man, a different Batman, he had to once again return to the land of the living.

“You’ve still got some decorating to do, right?” He said. A small smile escaped him. Teasing people wasn’t really in his repertoire, but he gave it a try: “I wouldn’t want to keep you from your work.”

She rewarded him with a smile of her own. “Thanks.”

For awhile, they worked in silence. One by one, Bruce would take out the ornaments – paper stars he’d decorated in kindergarten, a wedding bell given to his parents on their fifth wedding anniversary, a Dick Tracy ornament given to him by Lucious Fox after watching the movie in the guy’s office every time Bruce would go to Wayne Tower after school…

Each one was a fresh papercut. A memory of someone or something he’d lost or forgotten. But at least he was feeling something besides rage. Something besides vengeance.

At least he remembered how deeply he’d loved people before. Even if he’d lost them.

Every few minutes, his focus shifted to the woman who’d accidentally brought a blizzard of change to his life. She hadn’t precipitated the change. He’d been looking for ways to make himself a better man outside of his suit ever since The Flood, and she’d just been there at the right time.

Exactly the right time. Looking exactly right. Talking to him exactly right. Making him feel exactly right, even in her small, subtle ways.

At that moment, she struggled on tiptoe to fill an ornament gap about halfway up the tree.

“Is everything okay over there?” Bruce asked.

She cursed softly under her breath, half-laughing to herself as she did. “It’s my own stupid fault. I wasn’t thinking and already brought my ladder back to the car. I’ll just have to run out and get it again.”

An instant war sparked inside Bruce. His natural instinct to help kicked in, but the darker parts of him, the ones that wanted to remain stoic and remote, kicked into defensive action. Don’t offer to help, Bruce. She has the ladder. You can carry that for her if you want to –

Bruce paid that voice inside him no heed. He’d decided that he was going to try acting like a normal person, rather than a bat vigilante who only occasionally donned a human suit and pretended to be one. This was another step in that process.

“Would you like - ” He cleared his throat and lightly flexed his hands in an awkward suggestion of lifting her up. “Could I help you with that?”

Her eyes sparked, then shrugged. “Sure. If you think you can handle it.”

Smothering a smile – if only she knew how strong he was, what damage his hands currently cupping her waist could do, how easily he threw over fully grown men three times her size, she wouldn’t have said anything – he lifted her up.

In his life of extrajudicial crime fighting, Bruce had endured many painful moments that stopped time. But he couldn’t remember any pleasant memory that managed to manipulate time for him. In his experience, torment lasted interminably; happiness was fleeting.

All that to say – holding her in his arms might only have taken a moment in reality. To him, though, the world tilted into slow motion, and it occurred to him how little kind touch he’d had. How nice it felt to touch someone else without wanting to hurt them. How perfect she felt in his arms.

When he finally returned her to the solid stability of the hardwood floor, the world snapped back into proper rhythm, but still, he couldn’t take his eyes off of her. She’d brought light and warmth to the manor again. She was mesmerizing.

So mesmerizing, in fact, that he hadn’t thought to release her.

A flush traveled across her collarbone, but there was a teasing note to her voice when she said, “You can let me go now.”

Bruce stepped away like she’d electrocuted him. “Oh. Right.” Then, he added, mumbling: “God, I’m a cliché.”

“You’re not. What’s a cliché at Christmas, anyway? We call that tradition.”

This time, he braved a joke. “So…it’s your tradition to spend Christmas in some guy’s arms?”

She smirked. “Only if he’s lucky.”

IV. Warm in December

On a bitterly cold December night, the Batman apprehended a series of criminals robbing an apartment building of its presents. At the scene, he lingered as the detectives and police officers investigated the aftermath.

One man, Romero, was bent over a series of spent bullet shells (the robbers had been well armed), when he looked over at the hulking figure looming nearby.

“Bats, what do you do this time of year? Hibernate?”

“Clearly not,” he said, gesturing to the fact that he was very obviously not sleeping off the winter somewhere.

Romero’s cocky bravado dripped from every word, taunting and pointed. “I mean, really. I’ve been thinking about it, and I just can’t picture you by the fire, wearing mittens and Santa hats on those ears of yours, Mrs. Batman waiting for you under the mistletoe…”

Something must have shifted in his expression - or maybe his fists had clenched - because in an instant, Gordon was in between the man and the bat.

“Cut it out, Romero.”

Romero protested, but Gordon snapped again. “Go back to GPDHQ. You’ve got paperwork.”

With one long, sharp look at Batman, Romero complied with the order, grumbling something like can’t believe I’m working Christmas Eve, should have worked Thanksgiving under his breath.

When he was gone, Gordon took over his cataloging duty. Batman again hovered.

“That wasn’t necessary.”

“No, it wasn’t. But consider that your Christmas gift. Romero’s got a smart mouth; it was time someone put him in his place.”

Batman silently nodded his thanks.

“He’s right, though,” the detective said. “Not natural for a man to be this way.”

Gordon didn’t have to explain what he meant by that. The Batman knew. It wasn’t natural for a man to be so alone.

But maybe he wouldn’t be alone this year. Maybe he would try something different.

V. Underneath the Mistletoe

Bruce didn’t sleep much that night. After stitching himself up, he usually passed out for at least an hour or two of rest before starting a new day. Instead, he found himself pacing the holly-lined hallways, taking in all the work she’d done to the manor, thinking about her and what he would do the next day when he saw her.

It was a big risk, this plan. He’d ever done anything like it before. He probably shouldn’t. What a terrible idea. But what if it wasn’t? What if it turned out alright? What if letting someone else into his life wasn’t the end of the world, but the start of a new one?

He wanted to inspire hope in Gotham now, not just fear. What if that started at home? What if he stopped being so afraid all of the time – of everything, of every one, of every feeling – and actually let hope grow where rot once had?

He didn’t know the answer to those questions. He only knew that when he finally found her the next morning, putting the finishing touches on a gingerbread display in the front hall, he spluttered:

“Do you have any plans for the holidays?”

If his sudden appearance and even more sudden question surprised her, she didn’t let it show. She was probably used to it by now, he figured. His strange behaviors, his unsocialized difficulty connecting. Where other people might have recoiled or flinched, she merely smiled as she dusted powdered sugar snow over a perfect 1/35 replica of Wayne Manor. “Black and white movies. A big glass of wine. A defrosted pumpkin pie and probably some Thai food.”

Bruce shuffled. The next question was the part he’d been dreading. He didn’t want to seem like some creepy guy fishing, but he needed to know before he asked…“Alone?”

“Yeah. Alone.” A flicker of pain crossed her face. Again, she didn’t offer, and he didn’t ask why. Her voice quiver gave her away, though. She may try to seem brave, but there was pain under the surface and excuses. “But it’s better, really. I mean, that way, I get to, you know, do what I want on Christmas. No one to tell me what to do or anything. I pick the menu, I pick the movies...My Christmas, My way.”

A twinge of melancholy echoed in those last words. Bruce might have shivered; he’d never seen her anything less than the chipper holiday angel before. But, he had a plan.

“Well. If you change your mind…” he said, as casually as he could manage. “It’s just going to be me and Alfred here this Christmas. It might be nice to have company.”

Their eyes met. She froze.

“We could have Thai food,” he offered, suddenly unsure. Shit. Had he misread this situation? Was he imagining feelings there that didn’t exist? Had he fucked up his first attempt at trying to open up to someone else?

She took a step forward. His heart jumped into his throat.

“Not exactly traditional Christmas fare, though, is it?” She asked.

Translation: You don’t have to do that for me.

He took another step forward too, braver than he felt. “We could try something different this year.”

Translation: There’s nothing I’d rather do.

They were impossibly close now, lingering beneath one of the countless arched doorways that made up this creaky old manor. For a moment, he thought she might reach up and kiss him.

Then, her eyes flickered upward. “You’d better watch out, Mr. Wayne.”

He followed her gaze. Ah. “Mistletoe.”

“I didn’t put it there,” she said, taking a step back, clearly afraid to give him the wrong impression.

“Don’t worry,” he replied. “I know you didn’t.”

Because he had. He’d hung up the mistletoe last night.

All the same, he took a polite step back. He might have hung the mistletoe as an excuse to kiss her – knowing his courage would probably fail him without it – but now, he knew better. She would kiss him. And when she did, he would be ready.

VI. Although it’s been said many times, many ways…

Being at Bruce Wayne’s house, as Bruce Wayne’s guest, was a very weird experience. He was the most famous man in all of Gotham city. She was a professional decorator, barely making ends meet. Totally anonymous and random. If not for a chance elevator meeting a few weeks ago, their paths would never have crossed.

But the circumstances around her invitation weren’t the only weird thing. Bruce himself was weird, too.

A nice kind of weird. An unsocialized kind of weird. She’d noticed it that first day in the elevator and chalked it up to him being an awkward first impression. Not great with people he didn’t know. But the more time she’d spent with him, the more she realized he just didn’t know how to be around other people.

Must be isolating, she thought. To be so alone. No parents. No friends. No girlfriends either, if the papers were to be believed. Just his money and his house and, (she imagined as he was the head of a major corporation and a huge power player in politics) many, many enemies.

It broke her heart. Because it seemed to her, through their days spent in this house together, that Bruce Wayne had a lot to offer people. He just didn’t know how. So, she gently peeled back his layers, finding more and more depths and complexities to him than she ever could have imagined.

This was a crush. She knew that. But the guy had invited her over for Christmas dinner. Just the two of them and Alfred. That had to mean this wasn’t one-sided…

Right?

Or that’s what she thought, anyway, until she was ushered into the formal dining room and placed at one long end of the table while Bruce sat at the other end.

Formal, indeed.

During the soup course, she cleared her throat and raised her voice. “I can’t thank you enough for having me.”

Bruce glanced up from over his bowl. “What?”

“I said I can’t thank you enough for having me,” she repeated.

He answered her, but it was completely unintelligible.

“I’m sorry, what did you say?” She asked.

“I said –”

Oh, screw it. Picking up her napkin and her wine glass, she waltzed down to his end of the table and planted herself in the seat next to him.

“This doesn’t seem like you, Bruce.”

“This is what people do, right? Besides, you decorated it so well in here. It would be a shame to waste the atmosphere.”

Pushing away from the table, she headed straight for the swinging kitchen door.

“Where are you going?” Bruce called.

“Just give me ten minutes.”

And then, she was gone. After so many days here, she knew the manor like the back of her hand. She navigated the stairways with ease, and set about improving this celebration. What was Christmas? Closeness? Coziness? Whimsy? Wonder?

She thought it was probably a combination of those things. But really, it was just one day where everyone could feel like they belonged. And she hadn’t belonged in that stuffy dining room.

Neither, she suspected, did Bruce Wayne.

And so it was that, less than half an hour later, she was leading Bruce and Alfred into the house’s cozy basement breakfast nook, which she’d taken the liberty of redecorating with repurposed holiday decor from the rest of the house. This was better. A simple four-top table, cheesy plates retired from an old Christmas party, a mismatch of wine glasses and coffee mugs because she didn’t know her way around Bruce’s kitchen in the slightest.

It wasn’t like any other Christmas she’d ever had before. But for the first time in a long time, crowded around that tiny table with a billionaire and his butler, she felt very much at home.

When the night came to an end, Bruce walked her to out. So close his warmth radiated through his jacket. Far enough away that the slight air between them crackled with possibility.

“Thank you for inviting me,” she said when they reached the grand entryway. It was a stupid farewell, but the first thing that came to her mind. Her body was too focused on the we’re going to say goodbye in a few minutes and he still hasn’t kissed me, is he going to kiss me, oh god do I still have garlic breath from that last course questions to think of anything cleverer.

“I’m glad you came,” Bruce replied, opening the door and unleashing a blister of cold air into the manor. They lingered in the doorway together. “I know it’s not easy giving up your traditions.”

“Even if your traditions include brooding alone and not celebrating the holidays?”

He bent his head and ducked behind that shaggy curtain of hair he never seemed capable of managing. An admission of guilt.

She shrugged. “I’ve been alone for a long time. I thought I’d try something different this year.”

“Glad you did?” Bruce asked.

She was breathless. Anticipating. This was her moment. Her last chance. “Take a step closer and I’ll tell you.”

Bruce glanced upward at the doorway. A slight furrow developed between his thick eyebrows as he saw what hung between him and his guest.

“I didn’t put any mistletoe there,” he muttered.

“I know. I did.”

And with that, she grabbed his lapels and pulled him in for a kiss, oblivious to the snow falling all around them, or the hammering of Bruce’s heart as she unknowingly picked up the broken pieces and put them back together again.

#bruce wayne x oc #battinson imagine #battinson x oc #battinson/reader #bruce wayne/reader

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