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Fateful Beginnings

XXXII. “superglue”

parts: previous / next

plot: rumors spread about the circumstances of your interview with Bruce Wayne. You might have been more partial to each other than you realized…

pairing: battinson!bruce wayne x fem!reader

cw: 18+, depression, passive suicidality

words: 8.3k

a/n: it’s getting warmer in hereeee !! ahhh!!! this might be my favorite chapter yet!! as always I LOVE hearing what you think, please tell me everything!! <3

Watching the door close behind Bruce again, you felt a bruise forming.

All you’d done was check in on him, and he’d shunned you for it. Shut the door. Threw away the key. It was evident he wanted nothing to do with you.

Maybe it was all in your head—he hadn’t said he was done with you, he’d just… acted exasperated and absolutely finished with any semblance of your concern. How were you supposed to navigate that with only a week separating him and his attempt?

The phone buzzed in your hand. Dr. Crane. How were you going to navigate that while having to answer to someone else?

“Hey!”

Dr. Crane cleared his throat. “Ms. Y/L/N! Wanted to check in. Have you made contact with Mr. Wayne since we last spoke?”

“Yes.”

“And how is he?”

“Well, he said he was feeling bad. But he didn’t want to talk about it further.” It sounded worse than it was (at least you hoped it wasn’t so bad) so you pivoted. “He thanked me for helping him. He came over and cooked me some food a few days ago. We visited. Asked if I was okay. After seeing it.” You set the phone on the counter, taking a few steps back from it. Maybe if you spoke further away from the receiver, it would make the lie less painful. Make your conscience a little quieter.

“Hmm… anything since then?”

“Yeah, today. He visited again. To check in, I uh, I got in a tussle last night.” You winced at how it came out. Tussle? Really? You didn’t want him thinking he’d visited just to say ‘bad’ and then left. “That’s when he said he was feeling bad. But thanked me.” Your breath caught on the last sentence. You didn’t know if you’d ever be able to reveal it to Bruce, and you didn’t want to think about what he might do if he found out you’d been lying.

“I see a city hall meeting slated for this evening. Do you know if he’ll be in attendance?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Let me know after. We’re in the sweet spot for another issue.” He said it like the ‘issue’ was something as trivial and inconsequential as traffic on the way to the grocery store. You heard him typing on a keyboard in the background. “Are you aware of the side effects for the class of medication Mr. Wayne is on?”

“No.”

“In addition to assessing the state of his nervous system, I have a few more symptoms I want you to be on the lookout for. Rashes, fever, trouble breathing, fast heartbeat, seizures, uncontrolled movement of any part of his body, fainting, heat intolerance. Some of these are relatively benign, but I want to be kept informed if you gather any of that happening. Alright?”

You’d taken as many notes as you could while he spoke, and had zero concept of how you would know about most of those. Bruce could probably make fainting look intentional, or play it off before anyone could notice.

It was a short call, and he prompted you to trust your gut before signing off.

Showering was annoying; the Tylenol had taken the brunt of the pain away, though your head still ached when you delicately massaged shampoo against it. You had your phone in a baggie sitting on a ledge of the shower in case you slipped. You wished Mar could’ve stayed for you to shower, to make sure you were alright. Part of you was surprised she had stayed until you woke up. If you’d slept another hour, would she have left with Gianna? Would she even have left a note?

While you toweled off you tried to boil down the last 24 hours to something tangible. Mar had nearly been assaulted. You’d both gotten fucked up. Bruce had saved you. Mar had seen Bruce. Mar knew Bruce. Mar thought you and Bruce were together. Bruce knew she knew that, as far as you knew. The phone sat in the baggie on the bathroom counter, holding all of its secrets. You got out your blow dryer and started in on your soaked hair with one hand while the other scanned the video.

At 4:18 in the morning, Mar had emerged from your room. You turned up the volume, barely edging out the roar of the dryer.

“Hey.” She rubbed her eyes and walked to the medicine cabinet. You could only see her back from this POV. Bruce stood up to help, but waited. She pulled something out of a cabinet and he spoke. “Tylenol is better.” Bruce left frame for only a second, and returned with the bottle of it from where you laid on the couch. They exchanged bottles and you heard the sink run for a second.

You couldn’t see either of their faces, just their torsos, only hearing their voices. Mar was situated by the sink on the opposite side of the island. Bruce stood on the other by the middle stool. She didn’t let there be much silence.

“Where did you meet Y/N?”

“City Hall. She asked me for an interview.”

Oh, it felt strange hearing someone talk to him about you. To hear him talking about you. Couldn’t tell if you liked it or hated it.

“Why’d you accept her interview?”

He waited a few seconds, and from knowing her, you knew she was about to drill him if he didn’t speak. You wondered if he sensed it too, and that was why he was being forthright. “The timing aligned. I declined them for so long, people stopped asking. Worked out with the graduation speech.”

Mar’s tone was cold, investigative. She sounded a lot like she had back at Mora’s. Not wanting to deal with nonsense. You figured they were cut out for each other, if Bruce was cut out for anyone. They both didn’t give a fuck what anyone thought. If they had a goal, they didn’t mind being pegged an asshole on the way to meeting it. “All the way back in Spring, huh? Interesting.” You heard a slurp of some water.

“How did you and Y/N meet?” It was so fucking weird to have him talking conversationally. Lightly. Politely. Couldn’t be more out of character. You had an itch to start a spreadsheet of all his different personas.

“College. We took some sociology classes together. When did you ask her out?”

AH! She was so nosy. Your stomach clenched. “I haven’t.”

“She’s just gonna tell me tomorrow if you don’t.”

“We’re not together.”

“Whatever pact you guys made, I respect it, but I’m not a fucking fool.” Pact. At least she was making it seem like you were saying the same things he was.

“There must have been a miscommunication.” He sighed.

“What are your intentions? None of that bullshit stands here. I have a really good radar.” Her face moved slightly into frame, a glare set as she gave him a once-over. “If it’s just to fuck she needs to know that, man.”

You could’ve wrung her neck.

“It’s business.” If he was exasperated, his voice didn’t give him away. He was getting better at this.

“Fine. Keep your fuckin secrets. But if you mess her up, I don’t give a fuck who you are, or how many lawyers you have. I know who you are, Bruce Wayne, and I will not hesitate to use my voice to send you into the darkest pits of hell.”

“Noted.” Spoken genuinely, without sass. You mused on how he might’ve said it to you, and smirked.

“I won’t hesitate to fuck you up. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to fucking sleep.”

Bruce sat at the table, far enough away from the lens that you couldn’t make out his expression. He sat there on his phone for the next few hours until Mar entered again. It was hard to scrub while heat stung the back of your head, but you were forced to multitask.

“Did you even sleep?” It was like she was talking to someone completely normal; no worry about if he might hurt her, yell at her, no dancing around it like he was a stranger. The same framing situation: only able to hear their voices and see their torsos.

“I stay up late.”

Mar muttered something you couldn’t make out. He spoke again. “How are you doing? Y/N said you might have been drugged.” You hadn’t gotten used to him saying your name.

“You don’t have to act concerned because you’re fucking my friend.”

You nearly dropped the hair dryer, the hot metal grazing between your fingers as it slacked in your grip. Jesus fucking fuck. You wished more than anything you could crawl into his thoughts. “I wanted to check in. It’s a fucked up thing to go through.”

She paused. She actually paused. When she spoke again, her tone was gentler. “Not the first time it’s happened. And this time nothing actually happened.” She scoffed. “Piece of shit. He was acting so fucking nice at the bar, I should’ve known something was up.”

“You took his behavior at face-value. No blame in that.” Damn, an actually nice sentiment.

“Thanks for last night.” She uncrossed her arms and started rummaging by the phone, which was by the pantry. Bruce spoke unprompted. “Someone from the GCPD should be in contact within the next 48 hours. For your statement.”

Mar scowled. “Love doing those.” She’d done one before? She sighed. “Have you eaten?”

“I’m good. Thanks.”

“Well, I’m gonna make pancakes.”

“I can help, if you’d like.”

“Trying to impress me?”

Bruce didn’t respond. They didn’t speak again until you heard a rustle by the couch; probably you adjusting. “How is she?”

Bruce’s voice was dryer now, and you watched him reach for the dregs of his energy drink. “Seems fine. Pupils are reactive, she’s oriented to time and place.”

“What are you, a doctor or something?”

“Special interest.”

You grinned knowing the real reason. Nah, he’s just Batman. You’re not only talking to Bruce Wayne right now, you’re talking to a vigilante. She’d probably shit herself.

As soon as she had finished making breakfast and sat at the table opposite him, she started asking the frivolous questions. You felt a bit jealous of her. Getting to talk to someone she perceived as a celebrity without all the baggage, without all the fear. It might have been interesting, cool, fun. Regardless of if you thought he deserved it, or any ideological ick you got from his upbringing and social status, he lived a life entirely out of reach, kept exclusively behind a locked curtain. His life was the carrot on a stick dangling in front of every American chasing The Dream. He didn’t make it seem very fun. “What’s it like to be a billionaire?”

“I don’t think about it much. Lots of financial meetings.”

“You grew up in it so of course you don’t think about it.” A pause. You almost laughed thinking about what she was probably… “You wouldn’t miss a couple thousand, would you?” … yup. A laugh actually did escape you. As frustrating as it was to be on the receiving end of her questioning, it was decidedly enthralling to watch her do it to someone else. She took another bite and prattled more. “Nice disguise. Is it weird to have paparazzi follow you? It sounds annoying as fuck.”

“Certainly makes things more difficult.”

“What do you even do? Up in your tower, I mean. I don’t ever hear of any parties there.”

“Mostly keep to myself. Travel some. Prying eyes only got worse after my parents. Didn’t want to deal with it.”

“Damn, that’s right. Makes sense.” She finished her plate in thoughtful silence.

She put her plate away and offered some food to Bruce. At this point you looked at the recording and saw the time was one in the afternoon, just two hours before you’d woken up. He walked to the kitchen and grabbed a few pancakes, dry. In less than a minute his plate was clean.

Mar had gone back to your bedroom, telling him she was taking a nap. “Let me know when she wakes up.”

The next time you saw any movement was when Mar had made a slice of toast before speaking to you. You stopped the video when you heard her calling your name. You finished your hair, mindlessly combing through the strands, fretful about if she would ever put the pieces together herself. Black paint around his eyes. Good at fighting. Hell, she’d even said the word disguise! Why was it so clear to you, and no one else?

Between skincare steps, you’d perused Scypher, where you by far had the most notifications. It was soon evident why Mar hadn’t put two and two together: the people of Gotham thought Bruce Wayne no more than a reclusive drug addict. Maybe Bruce hadn’t had to put on the playboy show at all; everyone was already thrown off his scent.

He probably shoots heroin up in his ivory tower

swear i saw him buy on the east side

another rich scumsucker off his rocker

Then came conversations you were mentioned in. Your eyes widened at the sheer mass of them, and how cruelly they painted you. A particular thread stood out, having garnered tens of thousands of likes.

No one has talked about this STUDENT JOURNALIST — to me there’s no way someone like that would get the first pick. My sister works in editing and says people have been trying to get an interview with him for twenty years. What are we thinking, chat?

There was a poll attached that had thousands of hits. ‘See Results’ showed you that between Fucked Him, Scripted, or Both, most people had chosen… both.

The replies were especially heinous.

Is ‘sucked off his limp cock’ an option ? cant imagine the man has any stamina anymore with all that fucking dope. The man had an NFT profile picture and ‘your mom’ in his bio. Stellar. You’d been tagged right below it. what does @youruser think about this?

Someone had answered in place of you, coming off so high and mighty you had to put the phone down before reading more responses to it.

She got bought off. Scripted responses and interview. Wayne Enterprises didn't want stocks to go down. That's why they couldn't get a real journalist, no one would agree to that unethical mess. Screams litigious. Probably signed an NDA anyway with his fuckass company

|

this tracks. aint pretty enough to bargain that way. less then mid if were being honest. females only care about $$$ anyway, he could pull any one if that was it

You put the phone down. It didn’t matter. You had a life to get back to.

You couldn’t be bothered to wear heels tonight, but you needed to wear something dressy; you stared a little too long at the mirror before tugging on your dress, a haze of insecurity swooping over you. You forced yourself to walk away.

You had to stay off your phone, save calls. You turned off notifications for everything besides, noting Dr. Vry had called you earlier. She’d left a voicemail detailing that there were another hundred-fifty School of Journalism applicants. Apparently, before your interview, they’d only gotten around forty-eight a year.

Outfitted in a pair of old loafers and your same dress, hoping it didn’t look too haphazard a combination, you grabbed your PRESS badge, notepad, pen, and recorder. You tucked your ID and other personal things under your dress and into your shorts pocket. If you didn’t feel like total ass, you could’ve imagined you were a spy. Jetting off to the Meeting of the Elite to uncover clues and inquire between the lines. A resentful, anxious, overwhelmed, stubborn spy. It couldn’t have felt less magical.

You shook off the past week, the past summer, the past year. Bruce Wayne wasn’t your life, he was a minuscule part of it. No longer would you let him take over your brain space—his life was his, yours was yours. As massive a secret you held, as bizarre as it was to be on a first-name basis with a modern Kennedy, you had your own life to attend to. Interviews to conduct, business to get to, truth to find. For the first time in months, you began to feel a bit hopeful as you left your apartment. If Bruce showed up tonight. If not you would literally panic. You willfully ignored the contradiction, just as you ignored the nagging thought that this newfound hope was a fleeting attempt at coping.

Gotham was normal. Cloudy, smoggy skies. It was easy on your aching head. Flickering street lamps as the evening light got ready to wane were not, however. The bustle of the people on the sidewalks, the cracked concrete, the glimmering potholes that had every other driver making a face as they slammed into them. Everything was the same as it had always been. You walked past the same people on their same commute. Saw the same taxis pass. The walking sign on the left was still out of order, murdered by kids sticking their gum into the crevices.

You kept to your usual space, the furthest to the right you could possibly get without scraping your arms against the jagged—sometimes bloody—brick, or stepping in someone’s vomit. You recalled your first month here when you’d had to hold your breath for most of your walks. Breathing ‘fresh’ air here was like gulping someone’s rancid morning breath.

The walk to City Hall wasn’t long, but it was annoying. Cobbled streets, men who wouldn’t move out of the way even if they took up the entire sidewalk. Most of your shirt sleeves had snags from being squeezed against the sides of buildings on walks like these. You had half a mind to kick a dirty puddle at them whenever they forced you to the margins. You didn’t want to double your concussion.

The air was teasing you with autumn; a few excited trees plopped leaves for your feet to crunch, though there weren’t many of them in the area. The city was mechanical, industrial. Something as sensitive and nurturing as foliage didn’t have a place here. One time you’d seen a dandelion growing out of a concrete mound and you’d cried. Maybe you’d been unhappy here longer than you’d thought. That had been in the second month.

As you walked the last stretch of blocks, your destination sitting just in the distance, that hopeful, determined version of you dwindled. You thought about if he didn’t show up, and if he did. You thought about how unfairly singular your life was. You thought about that a lot lately.

On Tuesday, to pass the time, you’d read through Bruce’s interview responses again. This time had been a lot more painful. You’d forgotten about it in the flurry of the attack, but you’d sat with your notebook for hours. Looking at the way he wrote his letters, the Gs in particular, written with a long tail that folded in on itself, seeing the grains of the paper indented in black streaks. It made you feel better holding his writing. It made his being alive feel more real. You wanted to know more about his family camping trip. Where had he gone? Where had he traveled to? Where did he want to go that he hadn’t yet?

It was his loneliness. You smelled the burning sting of it on every page and it attracted you like a moth to flame. It was never written outright, but it was strong subtext, as clear to you as him candidly naming his nerves. It felt exceedingly intimate reading back even his most playboy responses, the hindsight of his desire to die blanching every pen stroke.

This city was brutally lonely, and everyone was so desperate not to feel it. People clustered to fragile friend groups full of superficial conversation, filled their bodies with substances, stayed out all night not daring to slow down otherwise the world might fall apart. All you were was slow. All you did was think, and feel, and think again.

You’d had a lot of time on Tuesday to think about his attempt. You had a horrifying feeling of jealousy about it. You never let your mind sit there too long. It wasn’t normal to feel that way. Reminiscing on the places depression had taken you always made you feel incredible shame. Its vice grip in the middle of the night, three in the morning, when the world was quiet and asleep, but you were so painfully, entirely awake. It was why you’d come to Gotham in the first place. This city never slept.

A masochistic part of you, as you carefully labeled it, thought that Bruce might be the only person in your life who truly understood despair. He’d come face to face with it. It had nearly won out he’d let it come so close. He was willing to show his sadness. Willing to sit in it. Willing to marinate in it, really.

“He doesn’t like to show it, but compassion comes easily to him.” Alfred’s voice punctuated your contemplation. Even if it was out of guilt, Bruce had stayed with you all night; and by the looks of the video, he’d stayed fully awake for it, even with nothing to hold his attention save whatever the hell he had on his phone. Mar had left before asking you how you were—Bruce made sure to ask. Possibly because he could handle it. Probably because he’d acclimated to pain. Your mind wandered to more projections.

Gabbi, Lara, and Rose hadn’t been able to handle the good you, the best behavior you. Your dad never wanted to talk about the reality of your mother’s sickness. Couldn’t even say the word cancer. Your mom didn’t want to dwell, either, and Debbie… she was an emotional wreck. If you stepped on a crack in the sidewalk she might burst into tears, lamenting on how she missed her mother, her father, her old pair of shoes. You’d always been the one to calm her down growing up. The one to hold it when no one could. Bruce seemed like he might be able to hold it. Engage with it. When you argued, he argued back. It wasn’t lost on you how he’d asked about your mom last Thursday when you’d started crying. You felt a lump forming in your throat. He couldn’t actually give a fuck, could he?

Perhaps you were propping him up on a pedestal, delirious from being forced to orbit around him for the past 168 hours. You weren’t exactly comparing him to the world’s finest communicators. His version of handling things was to storm off, deflect. His version of handling things was to argue. His handling things was violent, aggressive, impulsive. And, you thought wistfully, you were actively in the throes of suicide watch. He was everything and nothing all at once.

The steps were easier to climb in loafers, each step jolting you back to time and place. Why the hell had you ever tried to fit in and wear anything different? You tallied how much money you had left, wondering if you could afford a trip to Target for some slacks and a sweater. City Hall was exceptionally busy, even for being only five minutes early. Conversation appeared buzzier tonight; caterers were already handing out dozens of drinks. People were usually more subdued at this point. What had happened?

When you fully stepped inside (instead of just peering through the side window like a dork), every head snapped to you, the din going calm. A few people rolled their eyes, or sighed, and went back to their conversations, but some people continued to stare, leaning in to whoever was nearby to mutter something. You struggled not to squint as the lights pouring from the chandeliers bored a hole into your skull.

You went to your usual place of refuge, near the middle of the back wall, opposite the appetizers and wine where most clustered. Except… there was a group standing now, with PRESS badges in varying fonts, sizes, pins and lanyards. Some had beautiful cameras with lenses that begged to be inspected, adored. As far as you knew, the Gazette only had one Canon you could rent out, limited to once per term per person. Stingy.

“Y/N Y/L/N, is that right?” A gorgeous blonde woman with gleaming veneers and impeccably styled 70s curls held out a manicured hand for you to take. You took it, your hand threatening to go limp when you noticed the VOGUE logo braided into her lanyard. “Eva Reveé, chief staff writer. I read your interview with Mr. Wayne, it was such a pleasure.” You swallowed hard. You felt supremely underdressed. Understood why people had rolled their eyes at your entry. A mousey small-town wannabe student journalist scoring one of the most sought-after jobs in the industry. You wanted to sink into the floor and disappear.

“Yes. Y/N.” You smiled and did a small laugh, trying to act like you weren’t talking to someone who worked at fucking Vogue. She flashed another smile at you. “You are just the cutest.” Patronizing. “Get a chance to read my email yet? I am sure your inbox is positively flooded right now.”

You turned red. You needed to remember to upgrade foundation when you came to events, a tint wasn’t nearly enough to camouflage your nerves. “I haven’t, I’m so sorry.”

“You’re perfectly fine. I was only wanting to chat about your experience interviewing him! Potentially get some ins for other journalists like myself. We were all chatting before you arrived and were so impressed you were able to score a high-profile case for your first publishing.”

You didn’t like her tone, but you were probably just irritable after the concussion. To play up the awe, or play up the professionalism? Shortchange yourself or prop yourself up? You opened your mouth to speak, but then everyone gasped, hushedly. Before turning your head, you knew Bruce Wayne had just entered the building.

“Mr. Wayne!”

“Are you alright?”

“Your accident looked horrible.”

“What caused it?”

“Didn’t think you’d be here.”

Eva and the other journalists all inched toward him, eyes bright and ravenous. Glancing at him was a bit painful, more than it had been earlier when you were already desperate to escape his gaze, but you needed to assess—you quickly realized this was, in fact, the very worst type of event for you to get any true read on him. He’d never been more on than in this room every week. How were you ever supposed to assess his mental state when he was putting on a show between these four walls?

Last night was far from written on him, not even smudged. He had no bags under his eyes, they were clear and engaged, his posture was tall and at ease. Even his voice, when he spoke, had been relieved of its crackles. It was like the past 24 hours had been a ghost. The only evidence of his attempt were some scratches on his neck and jaw, and scabs on his hand. They already looked better than they had a few hours ago. You imagined a team coming to Wayne Tower to do some fancy makeup over his injuries. The image was hilarious, but faded faster than it ever had before. Usually you adored watching Bruce squirm, even if it was relegated to your imagination, but you saw through it. I feel nervous before every event, he’d written. I don’t like crowds.

“Folks,” Bruce walked toward the center of the room and clapped his hands together, holding them tightly at his waist. The room orbited around him, the audience going still listening to his words. It was eerie. You’d never seen him have this much control over a group. “I’ve heard a lot of discussion surrounding my accident this past Friday.” He seemed to make eye contact with everyone at the same time. “I want to reassure everyone that I am okay. By the grace of God and the incredible team at Gotham General, I’ve been healing wonderfully.” He paused and looked around the perimeter of the room again. His eyes flit onto yours, and held for a second too long. He blinked and continued, and you exhaled when he released you.

“Many people are speculating that substances were involved. I want to assure everyone in here—and outside of it—” He gestured toward you and the throng of press. “That is not the case. I take the safety of my fellow citizens very seriously.” He let that sit. “I have a penchant for fixing up old cars.” He did a dry chuckle. “On a test drive around Tower grounds, my steering went out. Thus, the tree.” He was referring to the viral photo of his car nearly entirely wrapped around a thick oak tree. You gulped.

Some people mumbled, a few grumbled. Bruce stood taller, straightening the last few discs in his spine. “I was disappointed to see how far I have left to go with the residents of this city, though I understand it. I hardly leave my parent’s estate for twenty years, and now I’m in campaigns, given a voice in the election for Gotham’s mayor, and it’s only been a few months.” People’s shoulders were beginning to drop. “I’ve forgotten that though I’ve been in the public psyche, that doesn’t mean we know each other, and it certainly does not foster trust. The reactions to my accident this week have been eye-opening. I’m excited to start working with you all, and the city, to build that trust in the first place. Being Thomas and Martha Wayne’s son is a ticket into a lot of rooms, let me tell you.” Leaning a bit more playboy rich kid. “But I realized you don’t really know me, and I don’t really know you. I want to bridge that gap with this campaign season, and beyond.”

Some people nodded, less grumbles. You were absolutely mesmerized by this version of Bruce. He commanded the room flawlessly, like every syllable was a meticulous sculpture, but made everything also seem casual, off the cuff. Alfred had to have given him public speaking lessons. This was jarring. Somehow knowing precisely what to say and how to say it to lend public favor, but making it look humble, unassuming. Without a lick of nervousness.

Right then, you remembered you hadn’t turned on your recorder. This was a part of the meeting, and a massive conversation right now. You’d have to report on it. You looked down to start fiddling with it, but the REC button was stuck.

“Hopefully, that began with the publishing of Ms. Y/L/N’s interview with me last Sunday.” He both looked at and gestured toward you, the room following his hand like a cat to a laser. You went still, frozen, with your hands clutching the plastic, as a hundred or more eyes, elite eyes, powerful eyes, fixed on you. Analyzed you. Judged you. It took all your power to grin and not faint. It felt like the entire world was in this room, and in a way, it was.

“It was a great honor, and I want to publicly thank Ms. Y/L/N for handling it with utmost tact, integrity, and humor. She could not have provided a more professional, comfortable experience. We are truly indebted to the hardworking, prodigious talent of our university graduates.” He turned back to the room, consequently removing his grip on your neck. “Now, enough about me.” He held his hands up. “Let’s all enjoy tonight.”

You felt like you were buzzing; the room quieted, noise fading to the background. The sensitivity in his eyes before he’d looked away, the firmness of his words, he must have been briefed on the conversations online. You headed into the conference room when Mr. Convoy propped open the doors.

As Bruce walked away, he hoped he had stilled the criticisms hurtling toward you. Alfred had informed him upon his very late arrival back at Wayne Tower that the internet was lit up after the accident, and that it had catapulted the critique of you (and him) from the fringes into the forefront. He’d gone on the Wayne Enterprises account to see some of the conversation, but quickly had to abandon it before typing something that would’ve made everything catastrophically worse. He hadn’t been in any mood to think about you, or to think about anything, but he couldn’t stop himself fuming until the very second the words had left his mouth in front of the group. Even now, as he followed after your lead into the conference room, every step was straddling a mine. His contact lenses irritated his dry eyes after staying up so long, and it didn’t help that this was the first time wearing them to City Hall. He wasn’t looking forward to having to replay that speech later.

The first thing he did after sitting down was scan the room for you. His eyes moved to the righthand corner, where you always stood with your notebook and pen. The lurch of panic cinched his chest until he saw you nestled in with the other reporters in the back left, just barely out of peripheral view.

Convoy started the meeting the usual way, sprinkling in some good vibrations toward Bruce and his continued healing. As he explained why the candidates had not come this evening (“They are getting ready for their first respective rallies. At the meeeting’s end, we will go over the election calendar.”), Bruce fought the urge to shift his chair toward you. He wanted to check your face and see if you were okay. He was shocked you’d shown up tonight; you’d barely been able to look out the curtained window at the filtered, low light without visceral wincing. Had you only come to check on him? He wanted to dead that. How could he do that without talking to you? Was he not going to talk to you anymore?

His mind argued with itself the rest of the meeting, distracting him entirely from its content. An innocent, passing thought interrupted his ruminations and the pros and cons lists he’d drawn up to interrogate himself: he’d just talk to you after the meeting and you’d bring him up to speed about what happened. That thought felt like the first nail in the coffin; his body was already instinctively reaching toward you, trusting you.

By the time Convoy had started listing the tentative schedule for the campaign rallies, he knew he had to lock in. This… fondness he felt toward you…

He visibly grimaced. He was tired, no, exhausted. Coming up on thirty-six hours without sleep, on new meds… gah! He felt the exasperation in his bones. It wasn’t fondness, it was illusive familiarity, when in reality: he didn’t know you, even if he felt like he did, and you didn’t know him, even if you felt like you did. You’d blackmailed him. You’d done an interview. You’d saved him. You’d visited him. You’d argued, caretaken, whined, and promised, and threatened, and talked to him. That was all.

He was crushed by guilt. He’d traumatized someone. He told himself he’d feel the same way if it had happened to anyone else. He felt responsible for cleaning up the mess he’d made of you. But as he glanced behind him to see you nonchalantly scrawling something between college-ruled lines, he couldn’t read any distress in you at all. Still, the need to save you remained.

You looked at him right then. Your eyes explored the injuries on his hands, then traveled to his chest. Still vigilant. Still worried. He didn’t know if you knew he was watching you. He considered having a final conversation about it all; express his thanks, reassure you he was—he suppressed a groan— prioritizing safety, and be done with it, but exploring the guilt with you would only keep it in the present. He’d just have to grit his teeth and bear it. Let the time pass without fiddling with it. Let your wound scab over. He wouldn’t be doing you a service picking at it.

He focused instead on how he’d handle Batman going forward. He could plan well into the night, concentrate this energy toward something useful. He’d need new protocol; he’d have to talk to Alfred about developing a second distress signal; one that was for mental things, not about to bleed out, come rescue. His throat threatened to close whenever he thought about it. How his brain wasn’t reliable. The fabric of reality would fall apart around him if he thought too much about it right then. If he thought about it at all, ever.

“Didn’t think you were the religious type.”

Bruce turned to the left again and saw you closing your notebook. You looked normal; loafers instead of heels, though. Smart. Wouldn’t want to risk falling again. Tiny glance about the immediate area, and he leaned in ever so slightly. “Gotta get on their good side somehow.”

Why did he lean in? Why did he listen to his body pulling closer to you? You’d caused this. You’d decided to talk to him, after he’d made himself clear. You rolled your eyes. When you looked back up at him, you squinted. Christ, if you were able to see his lenses too… You squeezed your eyes shut and brought your fingers up to massage your temple. It didn’t relieve his worry. “Just wanted to touch base. Surprised you came tonight.”

“Couldn’t not.” He led the both of you toward the door, stopped right before the doorway, and leaned down to ‘fix’ his shoe. He lowered his voice, pretending to wrangle a knot out of his shoelace. “I saw what they’re saying online. You and I can’t be seen together.”

“I didn’t know it would be so… aggressive. I’ve only seen a bit of it.”

He was surprised you were. Always a pessimist, and you seemed to know much more about the social landscape than he did. Every single reaction you had eluded him, further solidifying you as a lock he couldn’t pick. He stood up and pretended to fix his hair. You weren’t looking at him, instead eyeing the ground as if wanting to speak. “What?” It wasn’t a conscious decision to egg you on, but, he’d done it.

“You don’t want it.”

“Pity?”

“Concern.” You tucked the notebook into your armpit and flipped your hair over your shoulder to get it out of your face. You got quieter, barely audible. Your eyes were all over the place, everywhere except him. “Are you sure you’re safe?”

His heart began to pound. The time to have the conversation had been thrust upon him, opportunity presenting itself on a silver platter. Maybe this wasn’t picking the scab, but applying ointment. His eyes latched onto the room you’d used last week, and he hid his next sentence under a cough. “Go to the bathroom.” He yawned. “Room from last week in five minutes.”

You left, your dress flouncing behind you, and he set out to find Convoy. After a seconds-long conversation about needing to make a ‘private call’, he’d gotten the man to open the room. “Make sure to lock it on your way out, Mr. Wayne.”

Now that he was alone in the room, he felt unsettled. This decision was impulsive, but necessary. The playing field needed to be leveled, in whatever way possible. The record set straight. A million other phrases and idioms whizzed around his thoughts, trying to come up with an itinerary. He needed to be grateful for what you’d done. What you’d witnessed. Sure, it was fucked up that you’d initially blackmailed him to get the interview, but the interview was assisting his public persona. He had to do one sometime. As much as he hated to admit it due to how uncomfortable it was to be known, it wasn’t your fault that you’d noticed it was him. He’d met a few people as both Bruce and Batman, in passing—as much or more than you had, and you’d deduced it.

You probably wouldn’t have stayed in his house if the flooding hadn’t happened. You’d seemed horrified at the prospect, remembering your gasp from across the table as he’d slammed himself out of the chair. You’d been rude, and intrusive, but you hadn’t committed any cardinal sins. And the elephant in the room: you’d watched him attempt to end his life. You’d seen him hit the ground. You’d gotten him help. He was sure that was etched into your memory like a scar. He had to be appreciative of that, and for calling Alfred in the alley, or he’d ruminate on it for the rest of his fucking life. Whatever guilt was eating him up, he needed to excise it to get back on his way. He needed to be the scalpel, detangling all the gluey tissue and muscle joining the both of you. So your thoughts wouldn’t ever wander back to him. So his thoughts wouldn’t ever wander back to you.

A crucial aspect of that was setting up expectations for future interaction. Unless you were leaving tomorrow, he’d have to see you again, here, every week, indefinitely. With public scrutiny at an all-time high, and you both getting wrapped up in vigilance for one another, everything was getting too complicated. You’d become entangled in his life, and his yours, to a lesser degree. Unless you were also a vigilante in your respective hometown, he didn’t think he could get caught up with you the same way. He needed to make you free of him. You were worried. He needed to soothe that worry, firmly, thoroughly, so that you might start keeping to yourself. You’d meant to leave last week, anyway. It appeared safe to assume the only reason you’d stayed was because of him.

Five minutes. He did a quick scan of the room with the watch on his wrist. The exterior was luxury, but he’d swapped all the internal components to check for bugs. The room was cleared in about five seconds. He let his shoulders drop.

When you entered the room his thoughts exited. The door clicked shut. The only light Bruce could chance keeping on was a lamp in the corner by a stray podium. He was being risky enough talking with you here, he didn’t need to draw more attention, but it was hard to see your face clearly. Also elusive: that his night-oriented vision served him in every other circumstance, but not with you. He gestured for you to sit down, and you did. He cleared his throat. “I wanted to talk with you.”

You looked afraid again. You looked like you were expecting him to lay out an imminent plan of taking his own life. Appreciation. Reassurance. Goodbye. “I left abruptly earlier. I wanted to reassure you I am safe, and I have no plans to take my own life or anyone else’s.”

He realized he’d been looking slightly above you, not at you, and dropped his gaze to your eye-level. You were squirming. Breathing too fast. He continued, choking back the grief that suddenly threatened to annihilate his body. The words came out of him with robotic monotony. “I promise that I am prioritizing safety. I’m adding a new distress signal into my suit. Keeping up on medication. Checking in with Alfred. I promise I will keep doing that.”

It was the lenses. He didn’t want to relive this. “Thank you for helping me. I mean it. From the bottom of my heart.” His jaw was starting to tremble, and he prayed you wouldn’t notice. He watched helplessly as your eyes glazed over. Fuck. Why did this feel so distressing? Grueling? Why was he starting to sweat? Long stakeouts, heated fights, he’d never been stricken by such apprehension. But you were shaking. And it stamped an ache onto his heart in a shape he’d never felt before.

You were so fucking close to blurting it out. You were trembling in an attempt to contain the lie clawing its way out of you, tooth and nail. I didn’t see it. I only said so so you might stay alive one more day. The words wouldn’t come, yet they couldn’t remain. It was a fucking prison.

Outside of him thanking you for effectively lying, it was evident this was the last time he wanted to talk to you. It was clear he was annoyed by you. That your concern and care wasn’t warm or cozy, it was sharp and inhospitable. A strange sensation settled into you. It was your first year of undergrad. Your boyfriend of three months had packed his car to head home with you for the holidays. You’d gone about four miles until you stopped in front of Lara’s house. He handed you a note. “I want you to read this.” He hadn’t even been able to say it to your face, speeding off right after he handed you a backpack of your things.

At least Bruce was looking you in the eye while he shed you.

You rid the comparison from your mind. You’d thought you were falling in love with that guy. You’d been infatuated with him from the moment you’d met. Bruce was just… Bruce. The only feelings you felt toward him were frustration, guilt, anxiety, and all of it was flooding you now. The mind was simple sometimes. Trying to find patterns even if they weren’t there, overlaying memories. Trying to make meaning out of a meaningless life.

You and him had formed a strange, flimsy, temporary camaraderie, if you could even call it that. He’d helped you, you’d helped him. He’d hurt you, you’d hurt him. He worried about you. You worried about him. Becoming intertwined in each other’s lives in secret, specific ways; suddenly, without asking. Moreso than camaraderie, you’d been in cahoots. Knowing something no one else knew was intimate, but not inherently special. Like a dollar store superglue. It got the job done of sticking things together, but the bond was easily broken apart, leaving a bunch of residue no one wanted. Whatever weird fairytale of connection sat dying in the pit of your stomach shouldn’t have existed in the first place. Before today, it hadn’t even reared its ugly, confused head.

You hadn’t realized he’d gotten a call until you heard his voice lower to a gravelly hue. You moved your eyes to look at him, unblurring your vision by focusing on the phone pressed to his ear. “Can they give it to him?” A pause. Whoever he was talking to, they knew him as Batman. It was uncanny seeing him speak like that dressed in polished Dior. You instinctively spun your chair around to look at the door, making sure it was closed. On the swivel back, you noticed his gaze slip away from you as you scooted back to the table’s edge.

“I’ll check it out.” Click. He got up and pushed his chair in. You followed suit. “What is it?”

“Miller made bail. Said something on the way out about security footage.” He was already nearing the door. It took you longer than you liked to recognize the name. Your brain was mush.

“I thought you said you were taking a break this week,” There you were, going right back to abandoned houses, bitter friends, empty fields.

He pushed past you, but stalled right after. “Tell your friend to stay away from the neighborhood until his trial. You too.”

“Bruce.”

He adjusted to face you and you took a stuttered step back, way too close for comfort. So close you could smell the detergent on his clothes, see the setting shine in his hair as it dried from a recent shower. The microscopic speck of black he’d missed by his tear duct. “We don’t need to do this anymore.”

You opened your mouth to protest but nothing came out; his eyes dropped to it for a half second before resuming domineering eye contact. You felt faint. “Don’t make this difficult.” His biting enunciation made your eyes narrow. So heartless, and for what? But it didn’t hold. I see right through you. His sensitivities were scrawled on the walls of your mind in sloping, hurried letters.

You both drew a deep breath at the same time, forcing the both of you to turn your head and avert your gaze. The only sound in the room was too fast, too shallow breathing. He turned around abruptly, whacking you with his cologne.

The room’s oxygen had been replaced with smoke. At last, facing the door he could gulp down a breath. He kept a tight rein on his tone so the ebbs of adrenaline rushing through him wouldn’t taint it. “Stay in here for a few minutes, lock it on your way out. Get a ride.” He grabbed the doorknob and walked out calmly, every muscle in his legs frenzied for him to sprint off. He smiled his way through the foyer and out to the valet. His sweaty palms left prints on the steering wheel as he drove off.

He needed to sleep. Staying awake so long had made him hysterical.

Fateful Beginnings

XXXV. “bittersuite domesticity”

parts: previous / next

plot: you and Bruce bond, a task more pleasant than either of you anticipated.

pairing: battinson!bruce wayne x fem!reader

cw: 18+, substance use, fluffy fluff 😏

words: 8.1k

a/n: i think y’all are gonna like this chapter 😇 yes the title is a play on words... iykyk (🎵)

Suddenly, idling at Rai’s had much higher stakes.

You tried to relax and peruse the back aisles, but more customers arrived. You got in line behind the older lady while Rai attended to his kind community member duty of speaking with her like an old friend. Elderly residents nearby weren’t able to get out much, and he picked up a lot of the slack. Except right now, that duty had you frustrated and overwhelmed in waiting, the grumble in your stomach starting to have a bite. At this point it had to have been fifteen minutes, meaning Bruce would be up in your apartment in fifteen… fuck.

You did a last circle around the store, eyes flitting between snacks, slushies, candies… You kept looking back trying to catch his eye, hoping he might get the hint and step aside for a second to help you. It wasn’t working, and your leg was beginning to sore. Glancing at her cart, they still had a bag or two to fill. Shit.

You grabbed a few extra candies and got in line behind her, resigning to stay put and let fate take over. Upon hearing the rustling of your items, she looked over her shoulder and grinned at you. “Skittles! Oh, I love those little things. Have you tried the sour ones? I keep them stocked for my grandson. Speaking of…” She held up a hand to Rai and wandered back to the candy aisle. Fate!

“Can you check me out really quick?” You showed your few items, and he nodded. “In a hurry, huh?”

“Yeah. Would you be able to grab me some uh,” You peered through the glass and saw the tabbouleh was out, and you chose the item falling into vision next. “Chicken tenders. Can I have half a pound?”

“Sure.” He bagged it, glancing as he closed the bag to see the woman arriving back. He handed it over and winked at you. “You can come back sometime this week and pay.”

”Really? I can—”

“Here you go.” The lady placed a few bags of sour skittles on the counter with a smirk. You nodded to Rai who nodded back, and after a quick thanks, hurried back up to your apartment. He’d be there in seven minutes. He seemed like the person who was usually early.

By the time you made it back to your apartment, it was the time of his arrival. You hoped he was caught up in traffic or something (not likely…) and tossed the food on the counter, the legs of the dining table scraping against the floor in the most grating fashion as you pulled it in front of the couch. Midway through unplugging the television in your room and prepping to carry it out, you heard a knock at the door. You hoisted the TV into your arms and staggered through the door to place it on the table, where it looked unseemly. On your way to let him in, you noticed you didn’t have an outlet nearby. Ugh.

Bruce had given himself a pep-talk on the drive, coaching himself on what to say to you. He knew he wanted to apologize, that much was extremely clear. He went back and forth on telling you the pity thing, because the revelation was genuinely so simple, but endowed crucial context…

It was starting to sprinkle; end of August meant Fall was practically a week away, which was a slippery slope to the highest crime events of the year. Going into 2024, he didn’t think he’d have to worry about an election for at least another year or two, and he wrestled back fears of another Election Night 2022 debacle.

Soon he’d be able to get back out there; usually this time of night he’d be headed down to the basement after a quick meal with Alfred. Drawing up some plans for the evening (that were usually disposed of due to unforeseen circumstances) before suiting up. He expected his body to feel more antsy to get back to it, or feel considerably slower, neither of which he did. His wounds were healing, his left leg still ached but nothing he couldn’t drag his mind away from. Tonight felt quiet. Nights like these invariably left him suspicious.

He waited a few minutes in his car, parking in the same alley he’d dropped you off in. His palms were starting to perspire, knowing he was going to answer to you in whichever way you held him. As much as he desired to spend the whole night stalling, that was his problem. He’d been avoiding you earlier, avoiding being cared about, and avoiding being caring. While he didn’t much care about the implications of isolation and avoidance as far as he was concerned, he didn’t like you being in the blast radius. If the hugs had told him anything, it was that you were already hurting more than enough. He was done putting you in jail for the crime of caring.

You deserved a proper apology, and that was what he’d give you.

Walking toward your apartment while the nightcrawlers were just getting started made him uneasy. Every man he passed on the sidewalk that looked down at his phone had him biting his cheek, gripping the fabric of his jacket pocket, enraged. Which of these pathetic freaks wrote about you?

As he reached your unit, the rage was dimming. When you opened the door, he noticed you looked tired, but not exhausted–that was good. You stepped aside for him to walk in, and he shed his top layers, fighting against his manufacturing to make sure the apology actually got past his lips.

Bruce was in a black outfit, with his usual thick jacket and hoodie pairing. Your body had an immediate response to his presence after the argument, reflexively turning away from him and stiffening. Locking the door behind him felt superfluous in his presence, but you did it anyway.

He removed his jacket and hoodie as he walked the expanse of your floor, draping them over the back of a chair. Your eyes searched his body for evidence of injury or duress, and for about the millionth time since you’d been around him or Alfred, you wished they didn’t read body language like the written word. His tone was soft, apprehensive. “I thought you might want some company.”

Thought I might want some company? You narrowed your eyes and crossed your arms. “So you’re not in crisis?”

“You thought I was in crisis?”

You looked to the ground. “We argued again, so.”

He didn’t appreciate being perceived to the point of recognizing character changes, like how strange it was for him to request a movie night. He rarely asked it of his parents as a kid, their busy schedule leaving the invitation up to them on the rare occasion it ever came. Alfred was always the one to initiate after their deaths, but he’d stopped asking after the twentieth time Bruce had isolated to his bedroom instead.

Thinking back to how busy his mother had been, a thought struck him: were all the ‘vacations’ she went on actually her being admitted to Arkham? Had they hid it that well? Something must have flit across him then, because your eyes were darting across the plane of his face with increasing confusion.

He shook his head while he recovered words. Even thinking about the photos of his mother Riddler had posted didn’t render him as discomposed as this morning, when simply being around you felt like a knife lifting his nailbeds. Alfred had made some unfortunate points that painted you in a much better light. “I’m not in crisis. I wanted to apologize for how I acted earlier. I was avoiding you.”

You didn’t know why you got anxious when he said that, but you did. He put his hands in his pocket and struggled to make more than intermittent eye contact. He heaved a large sigh, which made you especially attuned to what he might say. Swore you could feel the hairs of your inner ear buzzing with anticipation.

“I appreciate you opening up to me.”

Hearing words like apologize and appreciate felt foreign from Bruce. You’d heard variations of them before, yet it remained uncanny. Like his mouth wasn’t used to forming the words. They didn’t seem to roll off his tongue.

“But…?” You braced yourself for him to assert that the two of you couldn’t speak anymore. That a boundary had been crossed. That he appreciated you opening up, but he didn’t want that to happen anymore. That he was glad to have helped you, but he didn’t want to make it a habit.

His brow cocked. “What do you mean?”

Your tone was petulant, brittle. “You appreciate my opening up, but ‘we don’t have to do this anymore’. Or maybe you’d rather ‘I don’t want it’?”

An extended silence, leaving a lot of room for your mind to fill the blank. Some time for your eyes to roam about his outfit, his hair, his face. The wear evident in his shirt, seeing some of his skin peeking through. A hole at the bottom of his left pocket. How he double-knotted his Converse.

When he spoke next, it was through closed eyes. “I’m not good at this. I’m not used to any of it.”

The hugs? The conversation? Being cared about? The whole city cared about him. The whole internet. In some ways, the whole world. “Used to what?”

“The only care people have shown me is through pity.”

You felt one of your defenses shatter, your shoulders becoming a bit lighter. “About your parents?”

He nodded, becoming sheepish. He detested being this open, it drained him, but he wanted to return the favor of your earlier vulnerability. “Yeah. Everyone still looks at me like I’m that kid. No one saw me, they saw what happened to me.” And you saw me hung unsaid, on the edge of his teeth. “You checking on me and opening up felt like pity. Everything does.”

It felt fucking weird to use his words like this. His voice was going dry from talking so much, even though he really hadn’t talked much at all. Maybe it was the things he wasn’t saying. He wanted to look over at you, but the adrenaline coursing through his veins at feeling exposed was excruciating. If he looked at you right now before you spoke, he’d fill in the blanks. The valley between his share and your response felt painfully raw.

You said what you thought, your mind thunking the pieces into place plainly and neatly. “That makes sense. I never thought about that.” It wasn’t the most flowery response, but you noticed his shoulders stop tensing. “I’m sorry if I played into that.” You sighed, feeling like you should’ve put the pieces together sooner yourself, without him having to hand it to you on a platter. Hmm. Why might someone who endured a national tragedy as a child be annoyed with people’s concern?

The sound of a knock at the door startled you. You and Bruce exchanged a look, and you backed off while he walked to the peephole. It was then that you realized you hadn’t checked it before opening it earlier, assuming it was him. You couldn’t forget again.

His hair rustled against his forehead as he turned around. “It’s Gordon. Probably here for your statement.”

“You can hide in my room.”

He walked into it and shut the door seconds before you opened to two officers, only one of whom you’d seen before.

“Is this the residence of Y/N Y/L/N?”

You nodded. “Yeah, that’s me.”

Detective Gordon, as you could see via his badge, stepped in alongside a mustached officer. Martinez was his name tag. “We’re here to collect your statement on the assault that occurred 28th of August, on the corner of Bushnel and Tally. I’d ask if now is a good time, but we’re already late to collect, our apologies.”

You invited them in and tried to play off that they had nowhere to sit. “I’m waiting on some new furniture,”

Det. Gordon shook his head, taking out a notepad. “All good, ma’am. We should be no longer than a few minutes.”

And a long few minutes it had been. They asked only the most basic of questions, such as where he kicked you, any words he said, any threats he made, and if you were aware of any prior history between you and the assailant. Martinez held up a camera, asking if there were any visible injuries. You held out your hands initially, seeing the scabs on top of the knuckles, but you’d forgotten if they’d come more from trying to stop Bruce than the man himself. You stuck to showing them the bruise on your thigh, which you hadn’t had the chance to look at. Deep red, purple and gravelly, looking like you’d been skidding against the sidewalk. You figured falling out of his vehicle didn’t help.

Surprisingly, they knew about that too. You figured a certain vigilante had been the informant.

“Let me summarize to make sure we’re on the same page.” Det. Gordon flipped a few pages back, adjusting his glasses. Martinez was looking at the ground in front of him, his hand situated on his hip. He seemed to only be here for backup, maybe they had to come to these things in pairs. “Wednesday evening, you received a call from…” His voice dulled as he recited the events in perfect detail, each additional sentence drilling into you how intense the past two days had been. After what felt like a lifetime, he finished. “Is that correct?”

You nodded, your throat closing. Bruce had really saved you twice in forty-eight hours. Probably an attempt to cope, you thought about how Walter never had to worry about anything like this.

“I need verbal confirmation, ma’am.”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

Det. Gordon sighed, scribbling something else. “Looks like we’ll need to pay Mr. Wayne a visit.” Martinez perked at the statement, and you suppressed the ghost of a laugh. If only he knew Bruce was in the next room.

Det. Gordon closed his notebook, tucking the pen into the spiral. “Thank you for your time, Ms. Y/L/N. We’ll get back to you sometime in the next week with further details. Sorry that happened to you.”

“Yeah, sorry that happened.” Officer Martinez tipped his hat at you in apology, following behind Det. Gordon, gently shutting the door. Not three seconds later did Bruce step out of your bedroom, face contorted in serious consideration.

“It never takes them that long to get a statement. Something big must have happened.” You could see in his eyes he was thumbing through all sorts of information in the back of his head. You giggled, a sound Bruce didn’t find completely unusual (everyone had different reactions to traumatic events, after all), but the sound itself embedded in his chest. You laughed again, and it pushed deeper. “What?”

“You just look so serious.” Another laugh slipped out, which snowballed into a laughing fit. Bruce wondered if you might start crying again, like you had the last time you laughed in front of him like this, but you didn’t, doubling over in bursts of giggles. His body was a disorienting blend of feelings in response.

When you opened your eyes after gathering yourself, your vision was hazy, your head a bit dizzy. Your chest felt light, and your eyes caught on the tenders sitting to your right on the countertop, your stomach grumbling. You fished one out of the bag, your eyes rolling back at its decadence. God, so fucking good!

Oh, fuck. You’d taken an edible an hour ago. You didn’t think you’d taken that much.

Bruce side-eyed you, having averted his eyes after feeling his stomach jump at the rolling of yours— suspicious of how quickly your face had fallen and how fast you moved from task to task. “Are you o—”

“I took an edible. Right before you called, I forgot.” You cracked a laugh at the absurdity of it all, unable to contain the humor bubbling inside, but quieted yourself by focusing on eating the food. Your stomach was like an empty pit. You finished eating your singular chicken tender without further accidental innuendo, and became worrying, serious. Your shoulders deflated. “I’m sorry. If you don’t want to be around someone high, I know you don’t do substances, it’s probably weird,”

He interrupted with something he hoped might break you out of your slumped state, because he didn’t feel weird. “I actually took some of the edible you gave me back in spring.” As expected, your face lit up… with confusion, and awe.

“You said you never do them.”

“It was an interesting night.” You didn’t need to know that was precisely when he’d decided his persona, developing it while his brain was slow and the world was blurred. You sat in thought for a moment.

“But that doesn’t mean you’re okay with being around someone who is.”

“I’m more concerned if you are comfortable with it.” He’d noticed the TV wasn’t plugged in, but before moseying over to try and find a plug, he wanted your answer.

You shrugged. “I mean, yeah. We’re just watching a movie or whatever.” You messed around in the bag some more, procuring a bag of Skittles. He hadn’t had one of those since he was a kid.

Even lacking sobriety, your perception skills remained intact. You held the bag out to him. “Have some.”

He took the bag and opened it, pouring a few into his palm. You dug around some more, the sound of thin rustling plastic filling the silence, and pulled a pouch of Sour Patch Kids. He didn’t know if he’d ever tried those.

You opened the bag and each ate some handfuls of the respective candies in silence, your face puckering a bit at the sour sting. Bruce noticed a small bottle of rosé in the corner by the bread cabinet, unopened. It was far from the best idea on a night like this, both inebriated, a day after a man had threatened to have you killed, but he gestured to it regardless. “Mind if I have some?”

“Don’t just have some because I’m high, dude.” You popped another candy in your mouth. Bruce shrugged and walked toward it. You shook your head, but with his back turned he couldn’t tell, forcing you to voice your concerns. “Seriously.” Your tone fell from its casual cadence to a darker tone, firmer. “You said you never do it,”

“I’ve had alcohol before, I’ll manage.” As he approached the bottle, he hadn’t quite known what had possessed him, but as his ears attuned to the rustle of the plastic and his eyes acclimated to the physical space, he realized he felt more free. If he drank at home, he’d either have to be alone in his room or in the kitchen with Alfred. He could never at a social event, because he didn’t attend them to be social, he attended them to analyze. Letting anything lower his inhibitions around the likes of Convoy and Gavenstein wasn’t an option. However, now it felt fun. He grabbed the neck of the bottle, and you spoke with a start.

“Wait, your meds. Can you drink on them? Will it make your symptoms worse?”

Bruce recalled a ‘use caution when consuming alcohol’ warning on the outside of the bottle. It didn’t say no… “Should be fine, won’t have too much.”

“Bruce.”

He glanced over his shoulder at you, your face knit with worry; it ruffled him, but he blocked his thoughts before they became too rigid. This isn’t pity, this is concern. Concern was borne of care. You cared. Instead of turning away, he’d care back. He hummed on ideas for a shake. “Would it make you feel better if I called Crane?”

You nodded, bewildered that his tone bore no sarcasm or annoyance. He took out his phone, and you counted the subtle rings barely heard on the other end. Dr. Crane picked up after two. You couldn’t hear his voice, too muffled, but you could hear Bruce’s.

“It’s Bruce, yeah. I had a question about my medication.”

You watched as he pressed the phone to his ear, how he slowly meandered around the kitchen, looking at his shoes as he spoke. Warmth flooded you seeing him seem perfectly fine. This was the first time neither of you had been in crisis since. All you were going to do was watch a movie. No trying to stop him from hurting himself, no worrying about where he was, or what he was doing, none of him saving you.

Bruce hung up, thwarting your daydream. “Should be fine. Are you fine with it?”

You met his steady, bright blue eyes and felt a jolt in your chest, like falling down the stairs in a dream. You looked down at the bag from Rai’s, the red THANK YOU in copied prose crinkling about. “Yeah.” You shoved the feeling away, cracking a joke instead. “If you’re fine with not having million-dollar wine.”

He chuckled, the same way he had when he held you. Mostly internal, through his nose, his chest moving more than anything else. You studied him unwrapping the lid, reaching into his pocket for his keys that, of course, had a pocket knife attached. Watching him uncork it put you in a trance; the subtle ripple of his back with the movement, the pop of the cork coming undone beneath his fingers.

You’d been curiously silent behind him; when he finished opening the bottle he turned around, meeting your half-lidded eyes. Your head was in your hands, framing a sleepy grin. His stomach lurched, fluffs of anxiety toiling within it. The last time he’d felt this way was when Selina had unexpectedly kissed him. Confusing to have it appear now, in such a different context.

He channeled his focus instead on finding a glass. You didn’t have any flutes, but he withheld a joke about it, not wanting to make you uncomfortable or come across pompous. He poured a hefty glass, his wrist tipping further the more he felt your eyes on him.

The high created a delayed reaction, and you realized too late that he’d watched you gawking. Gawking? Was that what you were doing? You grabbed another tender and your juice before turning around to scoot the table closer to the outlet, desperate to shake off whatever stupor you’d been unconsciously put under.

Bruce would’ve jumped in to help, but he thought the distance would be good right now. He didn’t like the way his attention pulled toward you, or the way his hands shivered around the glass. Thankfully, his voice was unaffected. “Anything you had in mind to watch?”

You finally plugged the cord into the wall, and unceremoniously plopped onto the far side of the couch, leaving the whole right side open. “You can pick.” A wash of relief settled over you at having been the first to sit, not wanting to be the one to gauge how close to get if he’d sat first. Bruce wandered over with his very full glass of wine, and sat about a foot away. It still felt too congested.

“I got nothing.” He adjusted into the cushions, taking his first sip of wine. His left side was lit like a live wire.

You turned on the TV and flipped through some channels while he sipped. You had to force your eyes to remain strictly contained to the screen, a task that was monumentally difficult through the peak of your edible. “There’s this one show everyone’s talking about online. We could try watching the first episode, it’s like an hour.”

Bruce nodded, resting his hand with the glass on his right thigh. “Sure.”

You clicked it, thanking the ultra-fast wifi in the building for an immediate loading. You might have died if you had to stare too long at a black screen, the uncomfortable portrait of you sitting together reflecting back.

You both sat like that for the duration of the episode; in silence, with the occasional sip from Bruce. The first half was one of the more awkward things you’d experienced; you were acutely aware of how high you were, and how alone you were with him. You’d nearly taken double the dose earlier, and you probably would’ve freaked the fuck out if you had.

About halfway through the episode, you began to get sucked into the show—in a bad way. The acting was terrible, absolutely piss-poor; this resulted in a few sideways glances to Bruce which he reciprocated, each time his cheeks becoming a little more flushed from the alcohol. As the episode ended, you became one with the couch, the high beginning to taper, and your nerves the same. Bruce was about three-quarters done with his drink, probably the equivalent of one and a half shots if he downed the last bit.

As the first episode’s credits ran, you sat in a dumbfounded hypnosis. This was what everyone had been raving about? Huh? Your high’s slow descent left you less inhibited. “…That was so fucking bad.”

Buce nearly choked on his wine, evidently having taken a sip just as you spoke. You turned toward him. “You don’t agree?!”

He shook his head, licking his lips to catch the drops of wine that’d escaped in his almost-coughing recovery. His voice was more animated than you’d heard it before. “I was hoping you wouldn’t click ‘next episode’.”

A second of silence and you both laughed, his cheeks moving from a light rose to sunburn in tandem. He gave the impression of a lightweight; for once not drinking with Mar, you weren’t the least liquor-experienced. His laugh was cute, more full than you’d anticipated, but you could barely hear it over your own. “I don’t know how people can stand it.”

He stuck his hand out to the TV, his brow furrowed with such pure befuddlement you started laughing again, to which he giggled through his next sentence. “The officer was so obvious. Anyone with half a brain would’ve figured it out… is that the premise of the show? Whodunnit?”

“I thought it was the unassuming friend, I thought that was obvious.”

Bruce’s hand slapped to his thigh, his head cocking toward yours with a gentle eyeroll. “You’re joking.”

“Let’s go to the last episode! I’ll be right.” You grabbed the remote and clicked through the fifteen episodes between, each click evoking a scoff from him.

“The friend would be so cliche.”

So disdainful for someone wrong. “And the suspicious officer wouldn’t be? It’s so on the nose.” You clicked PLAY, now taking a while to load up.

“Which would make someone overlook it, like you’re doing now.”

“Alright detective.”

The episode opened to a black screen fading in, showing someone’s hands, lingering there, the metal handcuffs clinking. You and Bruce sat forward in your seats as it panned up to reveal the friend in custody.

“I TOLD YOU!” You paused the show and tossed the remote aside, gloating.

Bruce smirked, taking another sip of wine. “What if it’s a fake out?”

You’d never pulled out your phone so fast, and shoved it in his face when it confirmed your suspicions. “Hmm!”

“Alright, alright.”

“Hand over the baton, bucko.”

He side-eyed you, his mouth curling into an amused smirk. “‘Bucko’?”

“Can’t believe I outsmarted the ‘world’s greatest detective’.” As soon as the words passed your lips, the reality set in of who you were sitting next to, and anxiety nipped at your skin again. It was easy for you to dismiss his power when you were angry at him, or begrudging about it; when he had all your systems activated, wanting to run, scream, fight. Not when your guard was down, and you were under a green haze. Not when he was sitting comfortably on your couch.

“Suit might be a little short for you.”

His attempt at humor shocked your nerves again, dulling them. “Didn’t know you were capable of making a joke.”

He grinned, cocking an eyebrow as he sipped the rest of the wine. You’d never imagined him this relaxed. His shoulders down not from defeat, but relaxation; his eyes half-lidded not from desperation, or succumbing to whatever darkness lay within him, but wine’s subtle embrace. Even his legs were more splayed out, casting their net wider, his normally chiseled jawline dulled as his head sank into the back cushion.

You liked him like this, and felt braver. You sat back against the couch to match, tilting your head toward him, his already tilted toward you. “So what else does Bruce Wayne do?”

He looked confused.

“Public you. Do you just go to City Hall meetings, occasionally a shopping spree that totally isn’t a photo-op?”

He chuckled under his breath, his words coming out a little slower. Whoa, you really liked making him laugh. You wet your lips, subconsciously shifting nearer. “About to go to campaign events.” He met your eyes again, an act that was rapidly becoming a slippery slope. Every time he did it you felt more and more comfortable there. “What about you?”

“Campaign things? Yeah, I don’t have much else to do. I’ll try to be at every event.”

“You’re genuinely interested in Gotham politics?”

“Would I rather be home? Maybe, but it’s fascinating. The fact it got sprung on so quickly…”

“Been meaning to pay Reál a visit.” He stayed looking at you the entire time, and you drank up every second of it.

“I was thinking that too.” You mimicked his earlier laugh without conscious awareness. “If only we could pair up. Alas…”

He shrugged, the ripples in his shirt moving with his shoulders. “We could.”

You laughed again; whether it was the weed or his more friendly company, you’d figure later. “No way.”

“You could chaperone my visits. Be my transcriber.” He grinned at you, not giving away how much of it was a joke.

You rolled your eyes at him, playfully. “That’d be making me your personal assistant, Bruce.”

He liked when you said his name. “Guess you’re right, Y/N.”

A few seconds of silence rattled around your chest like a ping-pong ball. “If that happened, shit. Whatever credibility I have left would tank.” You looked at the screen, still paused on the friend’s form in the striped outfit.

“Don’t want that.”

You stared at each other, then busted laughing again. It felt different than how Dr. Vry had sneered at you in the meeting, mocking the notion of you having a name to protect; this was harmless, and if you hadn’t already picked up on it, you could tell by his smiling glances between laughs. Mmm, this wasn’t…

Wanting to ask him this since the candidates were first announced but never having the opportunity, you shot your shot after the din lowered. You grasped for anything platonic to settle the rhapsody that threatened to overwhelm you. “Which candidate are you liking?”

Bruce shot you another look, making your stomach flip. He was teasing. “You care about the billionaire’s opinion on city politics?”

“I am rubbing off on you!” You beamed.

He rolled his eyes in that same way, the grin sneaking into your eyes filling his chest like a balloon. He could hardly breathe around it. “I won’t endorse.”

You squinted. “Why not?”

“People could think whoever I endorse paid me off. Could have the opposite effect.”

You nodded, pondering it for a second. You were more relieved than you’d let on. “That’s better than what I thought your reasoning was. Thought I’d have to fight you.”

“And what did you think it was?”

“Some apolitical bullshit.”

He sighed, the whisper of a smile on his cheeks lifting it nearly into a laugh. “For someone who acts like they know me so well,”

“And when did I claim to?” This was the most pleasant ‘argument’ you’d ever had.

“Maybe it’s more your tone.” You could’ve sworn he winked at you.

This conversation had the aura of a flotation device; barely holding you both afloat. “I don’t know how I feel about a man talking about my tone. Especially one as sunshiney as you.”

“Touché.”

Laughter filled the room again. It was becoming easier and easier now, like a contagion. Bruce lightened his inflection, making it almost sing-songy. “What about you? Who do you like?” You held in a laugh that would’ve projected flecks of spit across the room. You felt ridiculous, and weird, alongside such vast enjoyment. You never, ever thought his company could be so agreeable.

“Only barely looked into them, but March seems about as stellar as a politician can be.” You were surprised you could still think so clearly; usually by this point of the edible, you were crashing into your pillow. His presence tonight was captivating, and you held back a flash of panic having thought that.

You hadn’t been looking at him, holding in a laugh having forced you to stare at his frayed black shoes, but you caught him laughing in your periphery, shaking his head. Your suspicious glare prompted him to elaborate. “You missed when he came to a meeting, it was like you were speaking through his body.”

“Now look who claims to know me so well!”

“That’s right, you hate the idea of taxing the rich and using the funds to help the less fortunate.”

You blushed, biting back a wide grin. “You’re so annoying.”

“Mmhmm.”

You gave him a once over while he checked his phone, mulling over how this simultaneously felt incredibly natural and out of character for him. Was this one of the ‘last good days’ people talked about? What Dr. Crane told you to look out for? An unusually elevated and expansive mood, inevitably leading to a crash, or signaling a resignation to the end? You didn’t want to kill the vibe, but felt that same pull to be the responsible one. “Really, are you okay?”

Bruce attuned to the shift in your body language as if it were his own. His knee-jerk response was to deny and reassure you he was fine. Truly, he wanted to tell you to stop asking him, and stop concerning yourself with his wellbeing. The alcohol had infiltrated, his walls dropping with far less resistance than usual, allowing him to start thinking through the tunnels of emotion without much fight. He felt okay right now, unnervingly so, but when he thought back to going home, about stepping out of the confines of these walls, it all felt heavier.

“It’s okay if you’re not. I’m not fine, either.”

He glanced over at you, your eyes blinking more than usual from the marijuana, slightly unfocused, but trying. He looked at his hands in his lap, fiddling with the tip of his pinky.

“And you don’t have to share because you think you owe it to me.”

Any other day he would’ve bristled at such blatant concern, but right now it cocooned him in comfort. Made his cheeks warmer than they already felt. He recalled your head snapping to the conference door when he’d slipped into his Batman modulation, an action that had him staring at you too long, only half-hearing Gordon on the other end. Had his breath catch before leaving.

“I want to. It’s just new to me. Talking, socializing, parading those rooms.” That physical pain returned to him, and he gestured to you. “Someone knowing besides Alfred. And the mental stuff.”

He expected you to be bored, for your eyes to have glazed over, but your attention was eager. You weren’t even wringing your hands together as you usually were. You spoke gently, but in a fashion nowhere similar to coddling. He wanted to lean closer to you.

“How’s that been?”

His chest puffed with a sharp breath, the rosé swirling in his gut. “No more owls, if that’s what you’re asking. The medication’s been fine, makes me feel a bit jittery, not hungry. That’s about it.”

“It’s gotta be hard to adjust to.”

He nodded, opening his mouth to speak. You spoke first.

“You’re also under the influence, I don’t want you to regret sharing anything.” Now you wrung your hands together.

His eyes searched yours, continuously floored at how often you chose the response least expected. No one else would look out for him like this. None of the people at City Hall, at least. No one in any rooms he’d ever been in. The next words out of his mouth spilled from unadulterated confusion, unable to scour his mind for an obvious answer. “How are you able to do that?”

His brows were knit together tight, all semblance of humor gone. Your voice was softer. “Do what?”

“Look past my reputation.”

You didn’t know how much he’d like the answer, but you said it anyway. “I guess I don’t idolize that stuff. Supreme wealth and influence. I actually hate it.”

“What makes you hate it?” He leaned closer to you, feeling the strongest pull to completely unravel you like a spool of thread.

You noted his swerve from questions about his wellbeing, but didn’t tempt it again. You’d given him an out for a reason. You kept to task, shifting your body toward his without thought. “I don’t like hoarding resources when so many people are without.”

“That’s why you’re watching a movie with him.” You were like a hearth, warm, bright, and he wanted to keep adding kindling.

“Touché.” You grinned, hoping he wouldn’t see the color brought to your ears, but resigned to the reality he undoubtedly did. “I do hate that about you.”

“Would it help if I hated it too?”

“But you’re still not doing anything about it.”

Even when you were interrogating him, listing off his inadequacies, it didn’t dampen the hospitality he felt toward you. He didn’t even care it felt disorienting to admit he liked it. Alcohol was a dangerous drug, his eyes in a constant deliberation between focusing on yours or your lips. “What do you think I should do?”

“You really want to hear it?”

He nodded. He could listen to you talk all night.

You released a sigh from the bottom of your lungs. You floored it without thought for how it might come out with your jumbled, free-flowing mind right now. “I think people should be housed. Given food, access to resources. Like actual access, not handing them a paper or telling them a phone line when half of them don’t have phones. There are more empty apartments in the city than people houseless.”

Damn. “Really?” You were so passionate about this… it was enchanting.

“Yes.”

“So, subsidizing those units?” He’d hand you his card right now. He’d do just about anything you asked right now, his focus growing increasingly singular, the room crowding.

You nodded. “Making it free until people get on their feet. Work with the next mayor to draw up a new budget.”

Underneath the bloom of the alcohol, he felt himself beginning to simmer. He sat back a little. “And what if they just want to loiter?”

“What if they deserve to?”

Bruce didn’t have a response, thrown yet another curveball by you.

“Wouldn’t you want to relax and recover if you spent the last few years out on the streets, and you finally had a shower and a warm bed that’s all yours? A kitchen with food? We could partner with local charities and businesses to provide food and stubs.”

We. His mind zoomed on it like a magnifying glass. He shifted his weight, feeling unsettled. This was verging on a massive argument, tempting a trigger on his fight or flight, your conversation yanking him in opposing directions. “What about people with criminal convictions?”

“Your moral compass needs some nuance.”

Bruce bristled, the thought of criminals being handed a check to live comfortably off the government feeling as wrong as kicking a puppy. What did criminals do to deserve comfort, safety? They’d taken his parents from…

Something flashed across Bruce’s face for only a millisecond, his shoulders slumping. His brows knit together, barely, like a half-formed thought. He scanned the ground in front of him before subtly clearing his throat.

They hadn’t taken his parents from him. One person had. One man pulling the trigger. Christ.. He blinked a few times, vowing to dig into it more later. Something about the greater revelation hidden inside made that thought feel like the inaugural brick.

Thankfully, all he had to do to abandon the thought was focus back on you. The alcohol rendered his ruminations less sticky, but you stickier. He was starting to recognize the contours of your face. His initial balk melted into trust. “Nuance. I’m listening.”

His gaze falling on you was beginning to feel like a third place. Maybe a first. “You’re actually listening to me?”

Your pleasant surprise did heavy-lifting on the mood. He razzed. “Guess it’s the alcohol.”

You paused before sinking into his capturing charm, fretting over how out of character this was. Mood lability was one of the terms Dr. Crane had taught you, but before you could get too wrapped up in your thoughts, Bruce pulled you out of the early waves like a trained lifeguard. He positioned his body toward you, leaning even closer, tilting his head to better meet your wandering eyes. The second he tethered you there, he let down the anchor. “I’m safe.” He nodded slowly, just enough for you to register it.

Soft ebbs of his wine-tinged breath caressed your nose. You looked away, but his lullaby ‘hey’ drew your eyes back. He nodded firmer now. “I promise.”

You bit your lip, tears studding the rim of your eyes.

“I’ll keep promising until you believe me.”

Instead of the whimper that wanted to escape, a single tear fell, and his eyes followed it until it dripped off your chin.

“I don’t take your trust lightly.”

He’s so sweet like this. Another tear, overwhelming sensations swinging on monkey bars in your chest cavity. You brushed it off with the back of your palm, shaking out your hands as much as you could in the small space between you. His focused attention felt permeating, like standing too close to the sun. You let out an embarrassed laugh, struggling to play off your emotionality. “I know every time you bring it up I start crying, and I don’t know why, but. I can handle it. I want to be a resource.”

He mused on that a moment, the only evidence of it being the subtle shifts of his eyes focusing on yours. “If I ever feel like that, I’ll call you.” He measured your reaction with a fine-toothed comb, not wanting to ask too much, needing to straddle the line between comforting you and burdening. You nodded and withdrew your phone from your pocket, leaving him swimming in repose.

You handed him your phone on the New Contact page, and you watched as he input his number. Your breathing was deep and shallow altogether, confused, like the tendrils of flame that scorned your stomach lining as your eyes outlined the shadows of his hair across his forehead, like the electricity that zapped your nervous system when he spoke to you like that, the undulating depth of his blue eyes…

You busied yourself flipping through more streaming channels. Another popular show made you click, this time one Mar had personally recommended. He handed the phone back, glancing at the TV. He didn’t want to watch anything right now, he wanted to keep talking to you. But he didn’t really want you to keep feeling upset, either. He nodded for you to press PLAY.

It started how any flashy drama does, with a wild cold open. Your attention followed the commotion, flashing to a scene in a silent office. Pretty soon, the screen fuzzed out to unintelligible static. Tears streamed down your cheeks from the emotion of the scene, and Bruce leaned closer. His voice was hot in your ear, peppering goosebumps across your skin. “Let me.”

He pressed his lips to your cheeks, kissing away your tears. The clip of your heart thundering in your chest had you gasping at the contact, pushing yourself up to your knees to bring your mouth to his. His lips were soft and enveloping, turning your gasps into panting whines. His cologne squeezed your throat, leaving you breathless.

“Y/N…” he moaned your name into your mouth, a sound that went straight between your thighs. Your phone thudded against the ground, freeing up your hands to thread through his hair. The sounds he was making… Your arms collided, both having the same idea at the same time to pull the other’s shirt off.

Just as his shirt pulled over his head, you opened your eyes, jolting up. You felt your phone slide from your thigh to the couch cushion, still open to New Contact: Bruce. He rustled beside you, blinking slowly back into the room. You both looked entirely unmussed, a foot away. Everything still intact. You both had dozed off, apparently.

It was a fucking dream.

Looking at the screen showed you’d both been out for around half an hour, the show playing on. He ran a hand through his hair, stretching his neck from side to side while he yawned. You averted your eyes in case he could beam into your thoughts. “Um, I need to pee.” You gulped and rose unsteadily to your feet, all but racing to your bedroom.

You rested your forehead against the door once it shut, a gasp of breath leaving you. You twitched hard at the ghost of his lips on your neck, shaking your head while you ran to the bathroom, running ice water in the sink. You cooled your hot hands and placed them on the back of your neck and cheeks, letting your eyes shut.

Dreams are strange. Fickle and unintelligible. The coolness was bringing you back down, settling your heart rate before you inevitably passed out. You spent another few minutes there, avoiding your hair as much as possible as you tethered yourself with each press of your fingers to your face. You shook your hands out, jumping in place. Whew. The images and sensations were fading safely into obscurity, the temperature defogging the haze of your high.

Padding back to your bedroom showed the time to be around ten. The nap had only made you more tired. When you walked back out you focused on your kitchen island, ignoring the giant, screaming, flashing lights coming from the couch. You yawned, and he got up in response. “We fell asleep quick. Don’t know what that says about the show.” He said it so casually, but your mind was positively tumbling all over itself. You nodded, your mouth drying.

You weren’t aware that he was internally stewing over how seamlessly he’d followed your lead once you’d passed out, and all of the embarrassment that was following now that he was awake. He didn’t know that you were holding in a scream.

You brightened so he wouldn’t pry, watching him stretch himself more alert. “I know, I guess the week caught up with me!” Forced to look at him, you clamped your teeth against your tongue in preparation. It was needed.

“I’ll walk. Text you when I make it back?” He wanted to get ahead of your anxieties, knowing if the roles were reversed he’d demand it of you. He simpered. How egalitarian.

“Oh uh, yeah! I’ll text you when I get to bed.” Suggestive. “So you can have my number.” The recovery was far from smooth, but you were struggling to capture an impossible feat of looking at him but not perceiving him. He gave a small thumbs-up as he pulled the hoodie over his head and buttoned his jacket. Once his back was turned toward the door it was easier, but not by much.

He opened the door, peeking over his shoulder. “That was fun.”

“It was nice to have company. Even if it was yours.” In anguish, you clawed back to jests in a futile attempt at normalcy.

He laughed under his breath once more. “Even if it was yours.” His barely-there grin was the last thing you saw before the night crashed to an end.

Jesus fucking Christ.

I don't like romance heavy books and such, so I don't usually actively search that out. But, I came across a fanfic on AO3 (Reverti Ad Praeteritum by Batsutouaai) with romance as a sub plot. (It's a ship that I don't actually like and usually avoid, but the story premise drew me in so I stayed)

17 chapters in and the two *finally* kissed! Like-! The romantic tension was nearly killing me.

Anyway.

A quick turn of events, Part 6

Fem reader, some fluff, some angst, slight tension.

Tw: sexual tension, anger, slight violence, alcohol.

Part 5 <-

Hands off!

Two weeks has flown by like nothing. Y/n could've never imagined herself living such a lavish life, but here she is. In this huge mansion, living under the same roof as Lorenzo and his clones. Living in luxury. Being spoiled like a princess.

Sitting in the winter garden infront of a canvas she dreamed the time away as she painted. Inspired by the beautiful garden and the small creatures living there. She listened to soft music as she let the colours come to life with every brush stroke. Humming to the music in her own little bubble. She felt so at peace.

Lorenzo had been watching her from the top of the spiral staircase for a while. Leaning on the railing. He sighed quietly in content to himself. He hadn't changed out of his morning robe yet. It was still relatively early in the day. A soft flick of the wrist and he had a coffeecup in his hand. Warm and rich. He took a sip before he made his way down the stairs and towards Y/n. He could see how far away in her thoughts she was. As he gently put a hand on her shoulder he could feel her jump a little as her bubble burst. She didn't expect him to just appear next to her. His rough morning voice breaking their silence.

"So this is where you've been hiding all morning."

He took another sip from his coffee. With a smile she looked up at him and nodded. His dark beautiful eyes, the wild unruly hair and his morning stubble. He managed to look so effortlessly handsome. She got butterflies in her belly and felt so lucky that someone like him wanted her. Lorenzo couldn't help but give her a soft smile back. He ruffled her hair.

"Pretty girl."

A few minutes went buy before Antonio came walking in. He looked more serious than usual. He went straight up to Lorenzo. Y/n could see them talking, but why couldn't she hear them properly? They weren't even standing far away. She guessed it was some demon thing Lorenzo could do. She continued painting for a while as they conversed. Antonio informed Lorenzo about an important business partner who was coming to town. Lorenzo thought about it for a few seconds. He sent Antonio on his way to his club to get the VIP lounge ready for his business partners. He wanted to show them some good old-fashioned hospitality while they where in town to get a great deal out of it. Lorenzo turned back to his darling and leaned down to her ear.

"What do you say to a trip to the club with me tonight, hm? It's Saturday after all."

She lit up at the idea. That sounded fun. She shot up from her seat and hugged Lorenzo. He laid an arm around her and looked down at her.

"I'll take that as a yes."

Later in the evening Lorenzo come up to Y/n's room. He's holding a dark green giftbox with a black ribbon on it. Y/n is in her bathroom getting ready. She was humming and finishing up her skincare routine as Lorenzo came up to her. He held out the box to her. She looked shocked. An expression that said he didn't need to get her anything. She took the lid of the box and looked inside. Gasping as she pulled the most beautiful dark red dress out. She spun around hugging it to herself. She couldn't believe her own eyes. He smirked watching her. Watching how excited she became by such a gesture. He loved spoiling his baby.

"I'll let you get ready pretty thing, we'll meet by the entré later."

Lorenzo disappeared just as quickly as he had appeared. Y/n was in awe at how this dress looked. She couldn't wait to put it on. She was giddy while finishing her hair and makeup. Excitingly she slid the dress on. It fit her perfectly. Enhancing her every feature beautifully. She went over to her closet and picked out a pair of heels that matched. Putting on some pretty jewellery before she took a final look in the mirror. Damn, she looked hot. Like someone would burn their finger if they touched her. She felt confident and ready for the night.

As she descended the stairs her eyes meet the sight of Lorenzo waiting for her. He had a matching dark pinstripe suit, with a black silk shirt underneath. No tie, just unbuttoned at the top. A gold chain around his neck. He looked like a dream. His gold tooth glisend in the light as his grin grew when he saw her. She took gentle steps. Carefully not to slip. Her knees felt weak seeing him watching her like that. Hungey eyes observing her. She felt a tingle in her body. The mood in the room shifted. Anticipation filled the air.

*whistle* "You look burning hot sugar."

Y/n blushed bright red and looked away. Flustered at the comment. She would probably never get used to this kind of attention. Looking back at him she answered him with a shy voice.

"So do you."

He walked towards her with his hands gesturing out towards her.

"Ain't I a lucky fella? Having this piece of candy by my side."

As if she thought she couldn't blush more. He certainly made it possible. His words worked like magic on her.

"You ready babydoll?"

He offered his arm to her.

"Yeah."

She answered, trying to sound as confident as she could. She put her arm around his as they walked out to the car. Antonio was driving. Valentino joined them as an extra bodyguard for the evening. Dominic stayed at home to watch over the mansion while they were away. Lorenzo kept his hands mostly to himself during the ride to the club. How he managed to have the discipline, when is little lady looked so delicious, nobody will ever know.

Once they arrived at the club everyone would move out of their way for them. Y/n felt like a celebrity. It was a weird feeling if she was honest. So many people staring. She held her head high and tried to look unbothered. Lorenzo couldn't have been prouder to show of his precious lady. They sat down in the centre booth on the main floor. Where they could view the whole club and the whole club could view them. Lorenzo guided Y/n to sit down.

"Stay here for a moment my dear. I have some business to attend. Valentino will stay here with you until I'm back."

Y/n smiled and nodded.

"Okay."

Lorenzo and Antonio walked of to meet a group of well dressed men. He showed them up to the VIP lounge. Y/n presumed they where the real reason they went to the club tonight. Not that she minded it to much. Valentino slumped down in the sofa across from where Y/n sat.

"So dollface, you like to party?"

He had a grin on his face. His arms where resting along the back of the sofa. He lifted one of his brows to express his question more.

"Well, I haven't really been partying so much to be honest. My first time going to a club was when I met Lorenzo actually."

Y/n blushed a little. She rubbed her arm and looked at Valentino. He had a slightly surprised look on his face. Then he started laughing.

"You hit the jackpot on the first try the then. Hell, your virgin trip to a club can't be topped by anyone else I can say that much."

Y/n didn't really know what to say except giggling at Valentino's statements. He was kinda right. She would have never imagined this being the outcome of her first outing. A few minutes goes by while they talked about parties and clubbing amongst others things. Valentino straightens up has Lorenzo approaches. He sits down in the middle so he has the view of the club in his front, Y/n to his left and Valentino to his right.

"Val, get us some drinks to start of this night won't you?"

Without hesitation Valentino gets up and heads to the bar. It doesn't take long before he is back with a vide variety of drinks. Y/n was amazed. She wasn't shocked since she knew Lorenzo owned the place, but it was still amazing to her. Lorenzo pulled her close to himself holding his arm around her and laying his hand on her thigh.

"You can pick anything you want princess."

She looked up at him with big doe eyes. Like she was asking him, really? He gestured his other hand towards the low table. Looking at all the drinks her eyes landed on one in particular. It was a bright pink drink in this beautiful glas with a strawberry stuck to the edge. She reached out for it and picked it up. The first taste felt like a strawberry dream. Like nothing she had ever tasted before. It went down so smooth and easy. They spent some time just drinking, talking and enjoying each other. Valentino stood just outside the booth so unwanted people wouldn't interfere with them.

As the night went on Y/n got a bit buzzed. Not drunk but enough to feel less tense. She felt brave enough to put a hand on Lorenzo's thigh and ever so slightly move it up a bit. She smirked oh so innocently at him.

"You're playing a dangerous game baby."

He smirked back at her. He leaned in closer to her. Within reach to kiss her but stopping just to tease her. He wouldn't mind unfolding her on the spot, but he was entertained by her little game. She leaned closer to him. Her mouth slightly opening like right before a kiss. The tension between them building. The heat rising. The air felt hotter. But instead of a kiss she started talking.

"I really feel like dancing."

Y/n gracefully stod up and walked out to the dance floor. She started to move with the rhythm. Dancing sensually and giving Lorenzo looks. He sighed as he sat back. She kept surprising him. He kept watching her every move. Every sway of the hip. Every place her hands caressed. He enjoyed every second. Even the hungry looks others gave her. She was like a forbidden fruit on the floor. The night was going smooth. That was until some creep snuck up on Y/n and started touching her. He grabbed her wrist and squeezed her. A fire was lit in Lorenzo's eyes. He saw how uncomfortable Y/n got. How she struggled. Enough was enough. Lorenzo stood up and made his way across the floor. Not in a hurry but with intent. Anger was visible on his face. Terrifyingly calm and concentrated anger. Lorenzo didn't really mind guys looking or even flirting with is girl. He was secure enough for that. But when it came to uncomfortable and forced touching a fuse lit inside him. Pure rage formed. People moved put of their way and a big circle form around the three people. Lorenzo tapped the guys shoulder to get him to turn around. The guy responded in a rude tone. He didn't even see to have noticed the crowd moving away.

"Buzz of dude, she's mine!"

As he turned to look around at who tapped his shoulder you could see his face become paler. Lorenzo grinned and spoke in a controlled manner.

"Hands of loverboy. I don’t think she appreciates your attention."

The man immediately let go of Y/n and backed off. His eyes lost hope. He started walking backwards as Lorenzo got closer.

"I think you and me are gonna have a talk, man to man."

Lorenzo gestured to Valentino to take care of Y/n for a minute. Y/n ran into Valentino's arms for comfort and they went over to the booth again. Lorenzo grabbed the guy by the neck and dragged him off into the back. The crowd soon went back to normal after they had disappeared. It was rare but not unexpectedthat Lorenzodeslt with ungrateful creepsin his club. Y/n felt so uneasy but Valentino helped her in his own way. They talked it out a bit while Lorenzo was gone.

In the back of the club Lorenzo held the guy by his neck. He could barely contain his anger. He almost lost control, but remembered he didn't want the police creeping around his club more than necessary. He let the guy run in the end after a traumatic lesson in consent and a lifetime ban from the club. He brushed of and fixed his attire before he headed back.

When he got back he went straight over to his little flower. Checking to see if she was hurt or bruised. He wanted to hesr what she had to say about the whole situation. He knew most of it already because of Valentino, but he felt that she could need the moment to process and talk about it. After she had gotten her time to speak Lorenzo gave her a serious look.

"That maggot will never be in your or any other girls vicinity ever again."

Y/n hugged Lorenzo tightly. He put his arms around her and stroked her back. Any other regular guest knew better than to start shit in Lorenzo's club. Everyone knew he took it seriously. He had made this place for people to enjoy themselves, not to take advantage of others. Everyone knew not to mess around, and especially not with Lorenzo's girl.

ur so real for that like we should def makeout ♡

no fucking way are you real? Cuz I can’t comprehend how tf you write shit like smut out of REAL PEOPLE? and then have the fucking nerve to say oh I love these people. Shaking my fucking head.

“get on the bed,” anon growls when they come into the room. eyes low, quickly ridding themself of their clothes while you hurriedly move yourself from your desk to the bed. you follow their actions and take off your clothes, and anon gets on top of you.

they must have had a rough day at work, being a bit more aggressive with you than usual. they smash their lips onto yours, and you gasp at the action. anon shoves their tongue into your mouth without warning, and you open up your mouth more so they can explore the warm cavern with their tongue.

you moan when anon brings their hand to your chest, taking your breast in their hand to pinch your nipples.

“a-anon… please don’t tease me”

“be patient, slut” they hiss, pulling away from your mouth to suck hickeys into your neck. their fingers slide down your body… dipping into your folds.

the way anon rolled your clit in their fingers had you whimpering, before you almost screamed when you felt their fingers slip into your hole.

“so wet y/n… so needy just from me kissing you” they laugh, and you feel yourself getting close from the combination of anons fingers inside you and on your clit.

“nonie ‘m gonna c-cum!” you grip the bedsheets below you, and anon lets out a small hum of approval for you to cum. with a few more strokes you were seeing white. clenching around their fingers uncontrollably while you ride out your orgasm.

after catching your breath, anon pulls their fingers out of you and flips you on your back. “we aren’t done here, baby.”

okay on a real note, if you don’t like it… don’t read it! you’re on tumblr! you’re going to find smut in literally any fandom you look at on this app (like fork in a kitchen…) 😭

here’s a quick tutorial on how to make sure you don’t see anything like this again:

ill let you know right now that i reallyyyyy don’t gaf… and i’m keeping this as nice as i possibly can. like seriously just block and scroll 🤷🏽

any other responses i get like this i’m just gonna ignore btw… because its so easy to not see smut of you don’t want to see it