based on: Hello! May I request Battinson x SpiderWoman!Reader fic where she’s from the MCU but then she ends up in Battinson’s universe and meets him? Maybe he doesn’t trust her at first but once she saves him from something, he relents then begins to trust her and maybe then a relationship ensues?? Thank you so much and have a great day!! ❤
author’s note: hello. it is so hard to not write for steven grant !!!!!! i’m holding onto dear life here, someone help. i have to finish this series and then i can move onto steven. but then st4 will come out…. god help. anywhos, hope you guys are enjoying the chapters!! this one is actually a personal favourite of mine, so please be nice :) i really love their dynamic in this one, it’s so explorable omg i could write pages and pages of this small interaction. so happy reading!! love you all and thank you for the feedback which is, as always, incredible and very appreciated :)
warnings: mentions of getting stabbed, nothing else
gif credit goes to owner!
bruce’s claws of hands rummage through every inch of his bed sheets, then of the curtains. in a mad cloud of frenzy that’s taken over his mind, he looks everywhere—under the bed, behind and under every piece of furniture in the room, he even rushes into the bathroom. but with his sense of surroundings, he can tell there isn’t a breath but his in the room. bruce huffs and runs to the wide windows of the room.
they’re closed, and he can tell they hadn’t been opened, either. his mind has gone completely blank. irrational, desperate, angry, confused, devastated. where is she? he stares blankly out of the window, at the long streets of gotham, at the horizon, beyond all of it. his eyes can’t even see properly. all that he sees in his fury and tornado of emotions is dark red, nearly black. he’s starting to run out of breath.
but he couldn’t care less about himself. he stalks out of this spare bedroom with heavy footsteps, booming like thunder, and pulls open the door. with the door he opens to get into the hall, honestly with every inch of floor he covers, he hopes for her face to pop up again, as if she was just hiding somewhere to cause him a surprise, or roaming this urban mansion on her own without waking him up. what a pleasant surprise that’d be.
“y/n?” bruce opens the door to his own room first, passing his parents’ room with the knowledge that not even alfred has the key to it. once he’s searched his own bedroom, every little inch of it, and doesn’t find her, bruce exits and heads towards alfred’s room. “y/n!” he doesn’t think of what she could have to do there, his mind doesn’t go as far as to search for reasons. he just needs to find her, and he needs to find her now. bruce knows alfred keeps his bedroom door open, so he doesn’t even bother knocking as he barges through.
but the room is empty, nor alfred nor y/n occupying it. bruce huffs again, and his eyes widen with cold, burning sweat in them. the tornado of emotions in his chest only grows bigger. it doesn’t scare him, for he’s felt fury and devastation like this before. what if y/n is in danger? and so, what if alfred is, too? where is alfred?
bruce practically flies out of alfred’s bedroom and heads for the stairs. he has the instinct to jump over the wooden railing to cut his way shorter, but he stops himself before he acts on it. he doesn’t have any gear on, and he is, after all, just a man made of meat and bones who would, in the best-case scenario, crash through the wooden stairs and, in the worst-case scenario, injure himself on them. they are tough. but as he realised before, he doesn’t care about himself that much right now. he needs to find her, and quick, and he will do whatever it takes to find her.
“alfred!” bruce calls as he marches down the steps as quickly as his big feet allow him to, he nearly stumbles down most of that journey. bruce’s frantic eyes scan the large, open area of the living and working quarters of the manor, and his ears finally pick up some audible proof of another living soul in the place. “alfred,” his voice comes out nearly as a bark in his discovery of alfred’s presence. no one else would play classical music in the house at this hour.
bruce hurries down the steps and towards their library where, undoubted, alfred stands by the desk. “bruce,” alfred greets him with concern all over his features and audible in his voice. he can see bruce being in a rush of movement and emotions, he can tell something’s wrong. bruce is even out of breath, “dear boy, what’s happened?”
bruce bites back a reply about not calling him a boy anymore because, frankly, his mind is somewhere else. his chest heaves with heavy breaths, and once his hands are on the table, down flat against the stone surface, is he able to look up at alfred again. “y/n,” bruce says, “she wasn’t—” in bed when i woke up? yeah, a great way to reveal them both to his godfather, “she’s not in the room.” bruce says, and then his eyes gain that desperation they did on the night he brought her here, when he begged alfred for his help and, unconsciously, support as well. “have you seen her? do you know where she is?”
alfred’s brow furrows more than usually. “sadly, i haven’t,” he answers, “did you check downstairs?” he asks bruce and begins making his way around the table, just to get closer to bruce. he’s a little nervous to, because bruce can get so unpredictable when he’s in such a mood, he can lash out. but he wouldn’t do that to alfred.
bruce shakes his head as it hangs low, and then has a deep breath in and out, it comes out in partial relief. relief in that maybe she is downstairs, down in his cave, doing whatever. bruce doesn’t care that she touches his stuff, reads his collected data, goes through his music records, or is watching television or trying out any of his created tools or devices. as long as she’s down there. “but she took all her clothes,” he voices what he noticed back in their room upstairs that struck him weird, “all her stuff…” bruce looks up at alfred again.
his godfather contemplates what that could mean. that sounds like someone fleeing the place they’re in. but why would she flee, why would she run? she looked perfectly pleased yesterday. maybe something happened between her and bruce. alfred looks to him. “let’s go see if she’s there,” he suggests, and bruce nods without hesitation. he’s the first one to walk towards the elevator, and he does so much quicker than alfred can. but bruce calculates that, and waits for him by the elevator door.
he notices right away that it isn’t on this floor, as it usually should be, the elevator box. with furrowed eyebrows, alfred’s footsteps and cane clicking through the manor echoing around him, bruce pushes the call button and then peers through the protective metal grid just to check if he can see where the elevator box is. he hears the noises of it coming up, but it’s quite far down. so maybe she really is down there, in the cave, if the elevator box was there last.
alfred doesn’t know what ground of teamwork, friendship or relationship, nonetheless, bruce and y/n are or were on, so he decides to ask just the few concrete questions needed for this situation now. “did anything happen yesterday, after lunch?” he asks bruce as they stand side by side now, waiting for the elevator box to come up. alfred sees bruce’s eyelids fluttering in just the slightest way before he can think of words to respond with, and it’s the first giveaway that the answer to his question is a positive one. “what happened, bruce?” alfred asks now in a quieter, softer voice.
bruce keeps his eyes disconnected from alfred’s, hating to be so directly looked upon when he’s this vulnerable. the elevator arrives and dings as it does so, and the two wayne men get inside, standing side by side in the box again. alfred closes both doors and presses the button for the very bottom floor of the manor, and relative silence falls between them as he waits for bruce to speak up. he knows it’s hard for him. bruce always suppresses everything, “she was acting… distant,” bruce finally says, and only says the very least of what happened, but enough for alfred to understand, “i asked what’s wrong, and she said…” bruce shakes his head, his eyes blank as they stare ahead at the elevator door, “she said it’s nothing i can change.” he looks at alfred again now, feeling sure enough of himself and not too exposed. even to the person that has known him the longest.
alfred nods, now in the somewhat clear of the situation. he tries to understand what it could be, though, taking everything that he knows about her. which is, granted, not that much. she grew up without a father, her mother was always working to pay rent and up-keep little y/n. she’s able to heal wounds faster than regular people, can climb walls and has that interesting instinct of hers that bruce told him about. feeling what’s coming.
perhaps she saw something coming from bruce. perhaps, if they’re treading on that ground, she’s not ready for a relationship. maybe meeting alfred freaked her out. maybe she’s not good with family things or situations, maybe she’s not used to being so close with people, whoever they are. it could be all, any and none of these things. men know so little of the female mind, after all. “do you think it’s something about me?” with everything that you have, especially with it, “she doesn’t want to see me anymore…” bruce’s brain isn’t even scratching the tip of that iceberg that is y/n, the mystery. he doesn’t understand.
“let’s just see if she’s here,” before we jump to any conclusions, alfred says as the elevator comes slowly to a stop at its final destination. the button dings, and that ding! echoes throughout the cave many times, sending off that loop noise of bat wings flapping in the dark. bruce opens the door and then the grid for him and alfred, and rushes out into the cave. he doesn’t hear a sound but for the bat wings, so he turns on the light—maybe she’s sleeping in here? in the car, maybe on one of the chairs?
alfred and bruce look around the cave and each take a side in wandering about it. bruce heads for the car first, opening the driver door first and foremost. but she’s not inside. his heart begins to drop lower and lower in his chest. he imagined her curled up in the passenger seat, or in the unfinished back of the car, her hoodie and bruce’s sweats warming her body. but instead of her, there’s just screwdrivers, wires and other maintenance garbage littering the back of the car, and nothing but the memory of her in the passenger seat now. his eyes burn with hot tears, and he bites on the inside of his lip to keep from crying out.
bruce shuts the car door and walks around the vehicle to where alfred stands by the row of many desks. bruce’s eyes are all the while looking at the far end of the old train tracks, into every corner, just hoping that she’s hiding there somewhere. he even cranes his neck to look upwards—perhaps she’s hanging on the ceiling and is planning to give bruce and alfred a good scare. but she’s nowhere in sight. no blue or red hanging from or slinging around the ceiling. no trace of her.
he walks up to alfred, and now stands with him. the suit he made for her still lays on the desk. well, partly now, because alfred’s examining the top part of it while holding it in his hands. “did you make this for her?” alfred asks bruce, turning his head to look at the younger man. an old boy, he usually refers to bruce in his mind. that’s what he is, a definition bruce fits best into. bruce nods with that devastated look on his face, and alfred raises his eyebrows in pleasant surprise. quite the engineer he’s turned into. something else on the desk, and not on the desk, catches bruce’s eye, and he walks over to alfred’s other side immediately to see closer what exactly it is.
in the spot where her old, torn suit was laying just yesterday, lays completely nothing except a small piece of paper. bruce gets stuck in his stupor. she’s left something for him. but where is the suit? did she take it? where is she? with trembling fingers, bruce touches the piece of paper, takes it in his hands and lifts it up. alfred leans closer to bruce to see, too, and bruce doesn’t mind.
don’t follow me.
a full stop at the end of that message. bruce’s nostrils flare. follow her where? so she did leave. did she go back to new york? did she find a way to go back there? did she go home? is she at work?
bruce has never seen her hand-writing before, and he discovers that it fits her very well. it’s not exactly relevant, but just a discovery he makes. he doesn’t know what to think of this message. if she asks him not to follow her, but he doesn’t even know where she’s gone, he should respect it. that is his first instinct.
but his confusion, devastation and the need to have his questions answered, as well as the care he has for her, overrides that first polite and taking-her-wishes-into-account instinct. she said she’d tell him what was wrong in the morning, she said they could talk in the morning. and now it’s nearly morning, and she’s gone, only memories and a note left behind her as evidence she was ever here.
bruce snuffles and throws the paper down onto the desk before leaving that spot. he walks around alfred again and reaches the last desk in the row, where his attire lays. with alfred reading the note, examining the paper, and trying to decipher what it means, while also trying to understand what bruce is doing, bruce starts putting on pieces of his suit one by one.
flattening jacket, jet leather pants, his boots and their heavy accessories. in the pocket of his flattening jacket, he finds the black pomade, and he smears it onto his eyes without looking in the mirror. he doesn’t need it, he doesn’t need for the pomade to be even or even neat, he’s in a hurry. he has to go get her right now, he has to see that she’s okay.
it may have well been a note from an abductor, and she could be in real danger. or she could be at home, or at work, like it’s any other day. whichever scenario it is, bruce needs answers. he needs this mystery to be solved. she can’t just leave him like this without telling him where she’s going, without telling him what’s wrong. she can talk to him, and she knows that. he’s told her, he’s shown her that multiple times already. he’s not ready to think or accept that maybe this is something she can’t talk about with him.
bruce pulls the kevlar pieces of his suit onto his body in place, and then snaps on the finishing touch—the cowl. with alfred looking after him, bruce struts over to where his bike is by the train tracks, and jumps down to its level. “bruce,” alfred calls, “she told you not to follow her.” he reminds him, fearing that the boy has gone completely off the rails now.
“you don’t get it, alfred,” bruce grumbles back. the words sting the older man’s heart quite a bit, but he tries not to take it personally. bruce is obviously on some weird wave of feelings, frustrated with the world, the woman and himself, and this short sentence doesn’t mean anything really, “i need to find her.” bruce says and revs the motorcycle up.
alfred sighs, shaking his head, and walks closer to the edge of the once-was train station. the growls of the motorcycle are loud enough to shut the bats out. “bruce!” alfred calls again, and bruce can hear that it’s important, so he turns to look at his godfather over his shoulder. “you will only scare her away. you need to respect her boundaries. respect what she asked of you.”
bruce turns his head back to look ahead, into the darkness before him. alfred’s right. bruce knows that. but his instinct to solve a mystery, answer questions, even in his personal life, is too strong to really take that into account. but how can he respect what y/n asked of him if she left him just like that—suddenly, no explanation, no warning. without having that conversation about her feelings. it’s not very fair. he doesn’t understand.
and she really could be in danger. worse, she could have gone home, to her real home in new york. and now he has no way of finding her. or maybe she just found a way to go home, and didn’t want to tell him, and is now working on getting back. it could be a million different things. but something tells bruce it’s all just a domestic, very personal emotional thing she’s going through.
and he’s promised to be there for her, whatever happens. maybe he hasn’t promised that to her directly, but he has to himself. and he will stand by that promise. he needs to know if she’s safe, he needs to know how she feels, what’s going on in her head. he has to know if there’s anything he can do to make her feel better, to erase those sour feelings that make her distant towards him. he will help her any way that he can. and if he can’t, then he’ll find a way. even if it’s seemingly impossible.
“you don’t get it.” is all that bruce says to alfred before speeding off into the dark, the sound of his quick motorbike nearly deafening alfred. the older man just shakes his head, looks at the message left by y/n, and then leaves it on the desk, where it was, while making his way back to the elevator. he can’t help bruce now. not anymore.
alfred’s words and y/n’s warning message, as well as words spoken by her last night, replay over and over again in bruce’s mind as he drives to where she lives. he knows alfred’s right, and that he really shouldn’t be doing what he is now. and he wants to respect y/n’s boundaries and her request. but he also wants to know why she left. why she cried. why she was so distant. there must be something wrong with bruce, and for her, he’s ready to change it at the soonest possibility.
bruce parks his motorbike across the street from her building, in one of the side alleys, and locks it in place. he looks up to where her top-floor flat is, and he sees a faint light in her bedroom window. the sky and air of gotham the typical colour blue of the twilight hour there always is before dawn, her window is one of the very few already or still lit. creates a great contrast against the blue sky, and it looks quite beautiful.
bruce sees the fire escape stairs, he braces himself for crossing the street, and takes the first steps to. but a car flies by before he can. and at that halt, he once again remembers what she told him last night, the message she left for him to read, and alfred’s advising words about the situation. bruce huffs and tries to cross the street again, but a bus drives by. those words in his mind again, stopping his every attempted movement.
perhaps he should take that as a sign. if his mind and, somehow, transport vehicles in his beloved city are stopping him, then maybe he really shouldn’t go across the street, up her fire escape, and knock on her window to confront her. perhaps it really isn’t the choice he should go with right now. bruce feels like an idiot standing there, on the street, not having decided what to do further, just standing like he’s stuck.
a few minutes of contemplation later, bruce gets on the roof of the building that is right opposite y/n’s. he doesn’t have his binoculars with him because he didn’t bring his backpack in this rush of leaving the cave, and his detective side is itching to go back and get them. so he can see what she’s doing, so he can be up to date with her. but the other, compassionate and caring side of him, forbids him to get the binoculars. if it’s anyone he shouldn’t be watching, it’s her. of all people.
his best friend, she has become over these months of working together. the best teammate anyone could wish for. a woman with wit, talent, skill and care written into her dna, coursing through her blood and constantly coming out to the surface. the most beautiful person he’s ever met, and could have the pleasure of knowing.
he should not be intruding onto her privacy, her feelings, her space that she so kindly has asked for. watching her, confronting her, that is all completely wrong and unnecessary. he hasn’t watched her without her consent before, so he has no right to do that now. he cares about her, but he shouldn’t let that take an unhealthy turn. he has to let her know that he cares in another way. that he has yet to figure out.
every sound that she made in her journey down the elevator and out of the manor through bruce’s cave hit a painful spot in her heart. she didn’t want to leave, and still hates that she did, she hates how her departure will make bruce feel when he discovers the absence of her presence. all throughout her journey out, she tried to keep her tears in. tried to keep her voice down, keep her sobs to herself. and she succeeded very well. until she got home.
as soon as she took off her mask, and was back in her loved, cosy apartment, the tears fell like heavy rain. maybe more like hail. stinging her eyes, creating visible white, salty tracks in her cheeks, spilling into her mouth, down to her neck. her chest lurched with sobs, her throat became sore after only the first few sobs, because they were so intense. so breath-consuming, as well. it seemed all the air in her chest had been sucked out, and her lungs had turned into small chestnut halves, not being able to take in any more than a single ounce of air. she made herself hurt both in her heart, and in her body.
she rid herself of her suit before stepping into the shower, and tried to wash everything off with the hot water. it was a relief of sorts, but she still cried. cried like she had only when she realised she couldn’t go back home to new york, and was stuck in gotham for who knows how long. there have been times before that, but honestly, her life that she had in new york, feels like a past one. like it doesn’t matter here. and so she doesn’t count those times.
she didn’t know she could feel pain like that again, and it’s not exactly her pain. well, maybe it is. perhaps she’s hurting all over again for how she was raised, how her mother had to live and work to make ends meet, how she died, about y/n had to spend her high school years and the rest of her life without a mother or father, how her aunt may didn’t exactly know how to raise her even though she did a good job, and how her best friend was always there for her, but then was in the same situation as her mother, and met the same end. which is partly y/n’s fault.
and now y/n is here, in a city still strange to her, without friends, family or any other kind of guidance, living paycheck to paycheck. aunt may doesn’t know where she is, why she’s missing, and when she’ll be back. and now y/n meets this man, who she does great work around gotham with, and who she undoubtedly feels attracted and drawn to. she hasn’t thought the fact yet, but she loves him.
and he’s from an entirely different world. grew up in a rich home with both parents, any and all kind of opportunities always available to him, he can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants to. he’s lost his parents, just like y/n, but his world, his life and the perception of the world around him is so different from hers.
and maybe that’s what hurts the most. the fact that though he understands her in ways no one else could, he will never understand her to the fullest. it breaks her heart, because she thought he was just like her. a recluse. a nobody. a masked vigilante who saves the city and its inhabitants by night, a simple person by day. but he’s not simple. and he’s not nobody. he’s obviously famous around the city, as his father was. running for mayor… a child of that mayor can’t escape the public eye. it’s realistically not possible.
she doesn’t care that he didn’t tell her that he’s well-known, it doesn’t hurt her. on some level, she understands that. something that she hasn’t gone through, hasn’t felt and done herself. and that’s where they differ again. she can understand things and feelings she hasn’t experienced herself, but he can’t. he knows the world as he’s seen it, nothing more and nothing less. everything that is outside of his world isn’t his problem, isn’t real, sort-of, isn’t that big a deal. one more difference that makes the biggest crack between them.
you might call y/n weak for not saying this problem to bruce, for not talking it out with him, for not waking him up when she left. but she couldn’t have stood the look on his face as she’d tell him she’s leaving. as she’d tell him that she can’t live in this kind of world. she knows, or maybe can only guess, at how much he cares for her—he’s shown it over the last few days especially. and she appreciates that.
but she can’t live in a world that is blind to the sufferings and hardships of others. that’s what their night work is all about—not turning a blind eye to the horrors of gotham. and it seems that it’s been just a mask to him. because when that cowl and eye make-up is off, when he’s ridden of his kevlar suit, and is dressed formally, he’s a person with completely different values, a different ideology he lives by. and she can’t take it.
he could be helping people like her mother more, helping children like he himself and y/n was more, with all the resources, money and reputation that he has. fight crime and bring criminals to justice with his public face all over the papers. but no. he chooses to go out at night, be selective about his targeted enemies, and spend all his days in hibernation. no move left or right to fight real issues.
y/n thought they were fighting real issues. but masked vigilantes at night—what is that gonna do against the criminal half of this city, at least six million people, on a larger scale? spider-woman and batman are just a joke to them, really. and they’re just human, too, even with y/n’s super-healing and ability to climb walls. she’s still just a woman who can be hurt, embarrassed, shamed, exposed and… killed.
she can’t sleep after her shower, no matter how hard she tries to. so she leaves her light on and stares into the ceiling as the day creeps onto gotham with its sunshine and rainclouds, as always. can’t have one without the other, it seems. occasionally, tears fill her eyes again, and she lets herself cry. she finally can cry here, at home, without shame, without fear that someone will hear her—even her neighbours. it feels good to let it out, but she’s in disbelief about how much there is to cry, how much pain there is still left. in her chest, mostly. about everything.
bruce stays on that opposite building all those nights and days that she spends at home. they both know when her official, documented sick leave ends, and so he stays till that very day she has to return to work. y/n mostly spends her days moping about, and orders her meals in, not wanting to leave her place. partly because she really doesn’t feel like it. she doesn’t want to leave her house, doesn’t want anyone to see her, doesn’t have the energy to even put on normal clothes and do random errands.
and partly, though she’d never admit it out loud, she’s afraid that she’ll run into bruce. either he’ll catch up to her in a more empty part of town, or she’ll run into him as bruce, not batman. though that is very unlikely, because he never comes out of his cave. judging by how she left him, she can imagine him only sulking about, as she knows him well enough. but she’s still afraid of that confrontation of seeing him, bruce asking her questions, wanting to know what’s going on. so she doesn’t go anywhere.
but on her first day back at work, she gets to experience that fear quite starkly. thankfully, her co-workers are glad to have her back and aren’t mad at her for missing work. though that’s a silly thought to have—after she tells them that she was stabbed on her way home, she realises that. the looks on their faces, even tears in some of their eyes, tell her enough. in their eyes, it’s not her fault that she got stabbed. the truth is, different, of course. a masked vigilante attacking criminals has the consequences of their actions fully on their own shoulders to bare. but, also, at the end of the day, no one really asks to get stabbed. it’s only the fault of the attacker.
on the middle of her shift, which she shares with her colleague-turned-friend vanessa, an irregular costumer comes through the door. because she’s never seen him in this kind of attire before, y/n doesn’t take him for much more than the regular attorney or lawyer—those types wander into jeremiah’s more than occasionally. but as she begins to notice that he’s walking a certain way, a way she knows practically by heart, she instantly recognises him. and her heart drops to the pit of her stomach as her mind blanks, and she can only try to hold back tears and think of anything to say.
treat him like a regular costumer, a voice inside her head says. and then the heads of other costumers already sitting down start to turn, and y/n ducks her head down shyly. “is that bruce wayne?”
you should be confident, that voice says again, he’s just a customer. so she looks bravely up at him, her chin nearly up in the air, and she sees he’s standing right in front of her, his stomach nearly pressing into the counter. he looks so different. she hasn’t seen him in days, his hair is clearly washed, his face is clean, too, and he’s in a suit and coat a few too sizes bigger than the size that fits him tightly.
“welcome to jeremiah’s,” y/n starts to say in her best confident voice, but she discovers it’s quite husky and small. she clears her throat as bruce just looks at her, also taking in this sight of her. dressed in a dark red apron, her washed hair up in a ponytail, she’s wearing a button-up shirt underneath the apron. her face looks sad and tired, though her usual costumer-smile tends to convince him and others otherwise, “what can i get you?”
bruce does his own best attempt at a smile, but it comes out with a tone of disappointment. her heart aches at that expression on him. she sees that she’s hurt him, and that he only wants to know why, and perhaps wants to talk. “hi.” bruce finally says after getting his credit card out of his wallet. y/n’s eyes flick to it for just a moment, and she can only imagine the wealth that hides behind those twelve numbers and the name on the card, “a cappuccino, please,” bruce orders, and y/n absent-mindedly registers that in her screen. she nods, and takes in the way his voice sounds. just as small as hers, and quieter, as though he really is talking just to her, like he always is. none of that husk and broadness of batman is audible in his voice. she looks to him with raised eyebrows.
“anything else? a croissant or chocolatine?” she suggests, and her eyes still blink as they attempt to keep the tears at bay. she can’t believe he’s really here. should he be here? should she have told him where she works? well, he’d know, anyway, he has all that data on her. damn his brilliant mind to invent a thing like that.
bruce gives her an absent smile. “a bit of your time,” he says with that pretend-sweet smile still on his lips. it’s not a pretend smile towards her, more like pretend in general. because he isn’t a man who smiles a lot. and he isn’t feeling sweet now. it’s hard for him to mask his true emotions, he’s crumbling inside at the moment. he’s trying not to cry himself, and her usual, polite smile at the beginning of this exchange nearly drove him over the edge to start crying. but he can do this, he can stay strong, even though he wants to strip himself bare in all aspects in front of her whenever he’s with her, “and company for dessert.” bruce adds then.
he’s asking to talk with him. right now, it seems. y/n looks back at her friend vanessa, who’s standing close by, doing some small cleaning of the coffee machine. she gives her a glance back, and has a grin on her face. to vanessa, the situation is entirely different from the reality of it. she doesn’t know y/n knows bruce wayne, and she guesses that she can’t decide whether to say yes or no to this fine piece of a billionaire. vanessa gives y/n a nod and turns away, though her ears stay fixed on their conversation.
y/n shakes her head slightly as it hangs low, and she gives the café hall a scanning look. the customers’ eyes are still on bruce, and, sadly, her as well. she hates this attention, and she hates the amount of it. soon paparazzi and news will be at their doors, filming and photographing through the windows. bruce wayne going after simple city girl in café, all the headlines will say. she doesn’t want that.
“bruce, i can’t,” she tells him, finally, in a whisper, as she leans a little closer to him. to establish some privacy between them, even in this public of a place. bruce’s eyes grow disappointed, “i can’t leave work.” and i still need my space.
he shakes his head, sadness growing bigger and bigger in his eyes, “i’ll wait for you,” he tells her, “whenever you can.” he says, and somehow feels guilty. about whatever it is he’s done to upset her, make her leave.
“bruce, i don’t—i don’t know if i can,” she says with a shake of her head, eyes looking at his coat, at his suit and tie, at his hands gripping the counter. their faces just inches apart, she could kiss him right here and now. if it wasn’t for a lot of things. looking up at him again, she sees him already moving his lips to say something more, but she stops whatever it is, “ever.” she finishes her sentence and waits for the realisation in him to hit with a heavy heart.
it does. it does, and it makes him lean back, straighten his back, as he looks at her with those dark, sad eyes full of realisation. he blinks a couple times, and y/n can tell it’s to keep tears at bay. she knows him so well she can predict his every next move. yet she still wants to hear him say those words, express those feelings. sometimes he can get unpredictable, even for her, and say the most bizarre things. perhaps this is one of those times, too. “i’ll wait for you,” he says, “i’ll wait for you every night at… our place.” narrows. the train platform in the outskirts. y/n gulps, tears gathering in her own eyes now, too. she can’t keep them away. “i’ll wait however long it takes,” bruce promises her with a sure nod. there’s noises on the other side of these windows growing in volume, but y/n doesn’t dare look at them. she nods at bruce, “until then, just the cappuccino. no sugar.” bruce says and adds a little smile at the end, which y/n knows is a true one. of course he doesn’t take sugar in his coffee. a true, true smile from him.
y/n nods at him again and finalises the order in her computer screen, “that’ll be…” she waits a moment. she glances at the credit card in his hand, then back up at him. her eyes are glassy, and bruce can see that. it breaks his heart to see, but it also makes him realise that neither side of this situation is easy. not for him, not for her. and that’s, in some way, good. it’s not entirely his fault for whatever she felt was wrong. y/n deletes the order, “on the house.” she says and blinks her tears away, attempting herself a smile as she begins to make the cappuccino for him.
every passing second fills her eyes with more and more tears until they’re spilling over and onto her cheeks. one even lands in the milk foam she’s made for him, and it nearly drives her over the last edge. she could cry, and she could laugh at it. but she makes no noise, only pours the foam into the burgundy take-away cup, more tears spilling from her eyes, some also landing into the cappuccino—will he think it’s gross?—and some on the white cap she puts on the cup.
she doesn’t have the heart to wipe them away, because she wants this situation to be over as soon as possible. so she gives the cup to him on the counter, sliding it over to his side, and gives him a sad, tired smile. bruce sees her tear-stained cheeks, and he sees the droplets of tears on his cappuccino cap, and he immediately has the urge to wipe her tears away. with that instinct comes one to pull her close, kiss her until both their breaths run out, and not let her go until their issues have been resolved.
but, taking all these simple and complicated circumstances, bruce settles for a sad smile of his own and “thanks,” before he leaves. he makes sure to look over his shoulder after he closes the door after him, and he sees y/n staring after him longingly, sadly, before he turns his head in a different direction—doing so with an aching heart—and heads off. to where—not even he knows. some place he can get away from the crowd of people that gathered at the café windows.
y/n cleans the milk jug and the coffee horns, they call them, before she turns to vanessa, who looks more concerned than she did when y/n told her she was stabbed. she doesn’t have the heart, the ability to keep her tears in, or the energy to tell vanessa why exactly she’s crying, and what exactly just happened. so y/n takes a deep breath and tells her, “i’m gonna take a break,” quietly, “please, cover for me for a while?” she looks to vanessa, and her friend nods. she only gives y/n a quick hug before she leaves for their staff room, letting her know that she’s there for her.
bruce cherishes the cappuccino on his drive home, so much so that he keeps it on his desk, by all his computers, as a reminder. and every night, at eleven, he waits by the train platform in the outskirts of the narrows. he waits for her, for that good omen that she’s ready to be with him, work with him again. every night that he goes, he hopes she’ll already be there, waiting for him—as she’s always done—and that everything will be just like it was. he even hopes she’ll be late, which she never is, and he knows there’s no use in waiting more than an hour.
but he still waits. he waits through the night, night after night, he doesn’t know how many. but he’s there, every single night, waiting for her to arrive. and when he finally sees her again, it’s in an entirely different direction. she’s slinging across streets and buildings right before his eyes, going somewhere else. somewhere he knows.
based on: Hello! May I request Battinson x SpiderWoman!Reader fic where she’s from the MCU but then she ends up in Battinson’s universe and meets him? Maybe he doesn’t trust her at first but once she saves him from something, he relents then begins to trust her and maybe then a relationship ensues?? Thank you so much and have a great day!! ❤
author’s note: woohoooooooooo. have you guys seen moon knight??? I’m kinda only watching for steven, cause with the third episode the show lost its quality to me. but allthe episodes haven’t been released yet, so I’ll try and not to judge it as much until then. but! I do love steven. and it’s taking such a huge effort in me to not abandon this story and start writing for him. god, it’s so hard. but I love bruce. I should also finish visitation hours… and finally update your good will bcs st4 is coming out in more than a month but omg. I just can’t, I can’t tap into steve. christ. I hate my procrastination and not finishing stories. im sorry for it all. happy reading!
“so, y/n, what do you do? besides the vigilante night shifts.” alfred asks. ah, the usual question she was just waiting for. sat around the very table bruce said he and alfred have meals at usually in the beautiful hall, y/n feels welcome in the company of these two men. though she can’t escape the feeling that she’s having a very important, formal meal with them, and that this is a test of some sort.
the sun up right at its mid-day peak shines through the gothically-decorated windows of the hall, breaking through in yellow and orange rays, which tickle her skin and eyes. she scoots over to her left on the very fancy chair and clears her throat as she does so, not wanting to raise an alarm in either alfred or bruce. “i’m a barista,” she answers nonchalantly, a light smile on her face, “at, uh… saint jeremiah’s.”
alfred nods. suddenly y/n feels awkward about her workplace. she doesn’t know what bruce and alfred do as work that pays all their extremely expensive bills for living here, but it must be something that pays big time. they can’t just live in an urban mansion like this, make all these weapons, tools and vehicles, and suits for bruce and now her, too, without a well-paying job. and it’s hard to find those in america if you don’t get lucky.
but, as she found out from bruce, his father was a rich and well-known man here in gotham, and bruce inherited all the money and, she guesses, reputation from him. so perhaps it was just his luck to be this… wealthy. she can’t say she’s not a little envious of that. if her parents had been rich and she could have lived in a mansion like this, woah, her life would have been a lot easier. and she appreciates all that bruce has done for her so far, she sees now that he does it out of the good of his heart. he really cares for her.
but taking her background, her life, her family circumstances, she still feels weird about it. partly she feels like it’s all not serious enough, partly she feels that she doesn’t deserve it, and another part of her thinks bruce is doing too much, and perhaps he even wants something in return. but it doesn’t seem that way. after she told him the truth about how she’s wound up living in gotham, there’s no asking in his eyes anymore. there is curiosity, but not the kind egoistic and ill-meaning men have. best believe y/n knows that look well.
“ah, the one right by the courthouse, is it?” alfred asks, his voice full of genuineness, and y/n nods. “must be a pleasant crowd that comes there, then?”
“mostly yes,” y/n answers, “though, because this is gotham, mornings are much better than the evenings. not to say we’re all morning people, but there’s less of the dangerous types around in the early hours of the morning.” she explains. alfred nods again, and bruce feels like he’s entered the conversation once again. he’s been coming to and fro, slipping in and out of talking and listening. not that he does that on purpose, his thoughts are just racing all the time. and watching y/n converse with alfred is a sight he never knew he couldn’t get enough of. two of the most important people in his life, and it’s safe to say they’re getting on well. it makes his heart swell.
“there should be some security with the courthouse and everything, no?” bruce asks her, slightly worried.
y/n looks at him with her bright eyes, feeling his concern by the look on bruce’s face. “well, there is, but they’re mostly looking after the courthouse,” y/n tells him, “since there’s always demolishers and trouble-makers around, they’re pretty busy.” she sighs, her eyes now falling to her plate and the fork she keeps moving around it. “if i wanted the attention of the world on me, i’d just put my skills and abilities to use when those types come around, but since that’s the last thing i want, i don’t.” she admits.
alfred hums. “must be hard to keep that restraint,” he says and y/n nods along, “bruce tends to forget himself in that aspect, he especially did at the very beginning.” alfred looks to bruce, and he gives his godfather the look of annoyance and disbelief. y/n chuckles, but seriousness remains like a veil across her face.
“i can imagine,” y/n says and glances at bruce momentarily before continuing. she knows that alfred’s put him on the spot, sort-of, and he doesn’t enjoy being exposed like that. so she continues, “i used to have that when i first had my powers, it was in high school.” she feels comfortable enough sharing with alfred. she looks to the older man, finding the look in his eyes very comforting. “used to hate P.E. with all my body, and i still do. hated the entire concept of it, couldn’t do anything properly, hated myself for it, you know.” she leans with her back into the chair. bruce admires the look in her eyes while she talks. “but as soon as i got my powers, i could do anything. i suddenly had incredible reflexes, coordination, strength, speed, agility—everything,” she reminisces of that time, memories playing back in her eyes like a slideshow of pictures, “and suddenly i could get good grades in P.E., i could even excel and be top of the class, even go on competitions. but i couldn’t, couldn’t i? it would have been wrong.” y/n sighs and looks to her plate again. “so i stayed little ole, helpless, weak me. had to put on quite the performance for the last two and a half years of high school.” she sits up again.
bruce feels for her. it’s not like his skills in fighting came over night, it was alfred who taught him everything, but he knows what that’s like. he knows people probably assume two things—either they assume he is good with his fists and is sporting quite the figure underneath the suits he wears on those rare occasions out in public; or they assume that he’s just a weak man hiding behind his father’s power and money who couldn’t raise one fist to fight for injustice or himself. but he can’t exactly show those skills in combination with his public persona, can he? he and alfred would be exposed immediately once people connected the dots.
“i guess it’s different for you,” alfred says kindly, matter-of-factly, and y/n picks up immediately on how he means that. she nods, “high school’s a tough time, as i hear it.”
“you didn’t go?” y/n asks in wonder, thinking how that would be possible for a man of his character and knowledge. alfred chuckles.
“oh, i did,” he says, “just not a public high school.” he clarifies and sends y/n a wink. she chuckles at herself and bruce grins at that faintly.
“me and alfred went to the same one,” bruce butts into the conversation again, turning y/n’s attention to him. she raises her eyebrows in a tell-me-more manner, “blackheath high school in england.” oh? bruce keeps getting more and more interesting with each thing that he says. how interesting, y/n thinks.
“your father did, as well,” alfred adds, “that’s how our families got to know each other. me and your father were close as brothers then already,” he makes a smile at bruce. his godson nods at him, feeling a bit on the spot again, as he always does when his father is the topic of any conversation. even in light-hearted situations like this one. he always feels some sort of pressure or loom hanging over his head at the mention of him, “what about you, y/n? your father have any friends he still keeps close contact with?” alfred looks to the woman, but she looks away, her eyes widening for a few seconds as she thinks of the best way to handle this answer.
“oh, i wouldn’t know,” she says with a slight shake of her head. bruce’s ears prick up more at her words. she’s never talked about either of her parents before, and neither has he asked about them. the topic’s never really come up before, and now it has. her eyes have a glaze over them that bruce can’t exactly place, “never knew my father.” she shrugs.
alfred feels awkward. “my apologies. i didn’t mean to bring up anything you don’t want to talk about.” he tells her immediately. y/n shakes her head fiercer now, she doesn’t want the man to feel bad about his innocent question.
“it’s fine,” she assures him, “it’s not taboo or anything.” she clarifies. “a lot of kids have grown up without a father, and i’m just one of them. i only ever had my mother.” y/n sighs, and her posture changes again—bruce notices—she sinks into her chair as though to close off from the two men, from this conversation. it’s not exactly intentional. “up until a point, she was working a lot of… different jobs,” y/n continues, and bruce sees her eyes and face having a certain expression. he can’t place it, again. perhaps because it’s emotions he’s not had to encounter before, “to raise me, to pay rent. hasn’t always been easy.”
she’s not telling him everything, obviously, it is her intention, and he realises that. he respects it. but there’s something about her mother, something really integral that she’s not revealing to him yet. perhaps she never will, and perhaps it should stay like that. if it’s truly too troubling or painful for her, he won’t push it. but something—perhaps that sense he’s picked up from her—is telling him it’s important to the character.
and now he also realises why her attitude towards money is what it is. she feels awkward and imposing to accept his money, his kindness, his gifts to her. and no wonder. she did tell him “because of how i grew up, and some other things”, if he remembers correctly. that conversation happened just over an hour or two ago now. and their conversation last night, about the clothes and underwear, and even the ice cream. it’s hard for her to accept all of that for free. perhaps she feels undeserving of such kindness and gifts free of charge—bruce would disagree; in his eyes she deserves much more, what he’s given her already is the very least of what she deserves—perhaps something in her doesn’t let her enjoy things free of charge that come to her out of the good of someone’s heart.
to conclude, she’s just as fragile and embedded with sufferings and a tough life as he is. though he has always had the money to do whatever he wishes—that’s what makes them different. and perhaps bruce has had a better support system than y/n, but he doesn’t know that.
“she’s done quite the good job of raising you,” alfred tells y/n in an almost congratulatory tone of voice. she gives him a half-smile. the man didn’t really know what to say at first, because he’s never been in that kind of situation, so he does what he does best—offer her some comforting, encouraging words, “we’re not blind to those horrible things happening here, in gotham,” alfred says, “whatever we can, we do. but bruce is always busy with something else to look through and accept any real deals.” he points out.
bruce sighs. it’s true, what alfred says, and bruce wants to help the city and its very weaklings more every day. but his mind is always miles away. and he believes that batman does some, if not most, of that already. help those who cannot help themselves. y/n gives him a look, wondering what alfred means, wondering what reasons bruce has for that absence. “gotham doesn’t like to stand up to all the crime and injustice that goes on every day,” bruce finally says, and his voice has changed to that of his vigilante persona. y/n nearly sighs. it’s strange to see him in regular clothes, without the dark circles around his eyes, speaking in that voice, “i’ll get more involved, i promise, alfred.” he looks to his godfather, who nods.
“no need to justify yourself to me, dear boy,” alfred tells him, and y/n nearly melts. alfred’s fatherly affection to bruce comes out beautifully whenever it does. but it’s not alfred that bruce was justifying himself in front of, or for. it was y/n, who bruce’s eyes flick towards with meaning in them. y/n gives him a light smile and nod.
“maybe i can help,” y/n suggests half-seriously, “accept those deals instead of bruce and get things going.” she says, and shoots bruce a playful wink. he is amused, too, but not quite as much as she is. she’s sort of made him look a little incompetent in his role in wayne industries, but he doesn’t take it to heart.
alfred smiles wide, “you know, i like you enough to accept that,” he tells her, which gets them both laughing. bruce makes a grin in the midst of their laughter, “to the eyes of the public, you could be the visual for wayne enterprises, and bruce could take a long, long vacation.” alfred adds on.
“oh no, he’d be my assistant,” y/n corrects alfred and shoots bruce a wink again. he shakes his head, “my translator, business language to english.” she says and laughs again. alfred chuckles, and bruce eventually cracks up and utters a chuckle himself. he doesn’t know how seriously these two have taken y/n’s suggestion, but if it’s serious to the very brim, bruce wouldn’t know a better person besides y/n to take his place as the leader of wayne enterprises. only alfred, but he made it clear long ago that he has no desire or intention to be that public, be that important to the company. though he already is more important than bruce, with all the work he’s doing already.
after lunch, it’s safe to say y/n and alfred get along very well. just like bruce expected and wanted them to. while one of the kitchen boys was clearing the lunch table, alfred took y/n up to his study and the library—which bruce had already shown her, but that didn’t matter to either of them—and showed her around more. did a better job than bruce could have, because he’s not that informed with the placement of everything in the library, in the study, or in the vinyl collection.
the most beautiful moment of the day, perhaps, one of bruce’s favourite moments in his entire life is when alfred put on voices of spring waltz,op.410 by johann strauss, and asked y/n for a dance. bruce never knew she could dance—another topic that hadn’t come up in their countless conversations before—and he couldn’t stop watching them dance. how alfred kept playfully switching between the regular waltz and the vienna waltz, the faster one, every once in a while, keeping up with the rhythmic changes of the composed piece.
how she twirled, and how her hair swayed along with her. how she smiled and laughed at alfred and his movements and how he turned her here and there, sometimes unexpectedly. in contrast to the sadder conversation the three of them had held during lunch, about her parents and her childhood—quite a sobering conversation for bruce—she looked happier than ever. so contagiously happy that bruce could not keep away, and joined their waltz dancing. of course he knows that it’s a two-person dance, but with the men’s agile movements and y/n’s instincts and ability, they made a three-person waltz work. twirling and turning y/n here and there, making the dance steps side by side and in a circle instead of directly facing each other—it all worked and made the three of them laugh a lot.
bruce already reminisces of those beautiful moments now, hours later, as he lays with his head in y/n’s lap on their shared riddance bed, y/n reading a book in silence and bruce drawing or writing in his notebook. uncharacteristically so, y/n hasn’t said a word since they entered the room. well, apart from some necessary for companionship few words. but she hasn’t said anything about how the lunch was for her, what she thinks of alfred, how she feels—absolutely nothing about that matter. and it’s kind of worrying bruce.
what also worries him in her behaviour is how reluctant she is suddenly. no hands in bruce’s hair, neither of her hands are touching him at all. she hasn’t made a move to kiss him, hasn’t made a move to get closer to him. and it’s not only bruce’s touch-starved nature that raises worry about this in him. it’s also the aspect of how well he knows her in general. she likes to be touching him, more than he allows himself to touch her, regularly. bruce always feels awkward about initiating it, but maybe he should. perhaps that’s what she expects of him now, having gone into this weird behaviour of hers.
maybe she’s just too exhausted to socialise, even with him. even though she’s usually the sociable person out of the two of them. maybe, which bruce hopes to be untrue, she’s upset with him, or mad at him for some reason, for the time being, unknown to him. what could it be? he can’t recall anything that he said or did was wrong. and it’s so hard to read her. perhaps it’s because he’s gotten to know more of her, that the parts he still doesn’t know, are a complete mystery to him. it’s strange. bruce doesn’t exactly know what to do.
he doesn’t know that her brain and heart are nearly bubbling over the edge with all her thoughts and feelings. he can’t possibly feel or sense that, even with how well he knows her. but y/n’s been an active, rumbling volcano ever since that door of this room closed behind her and bruce. one question, one word put in the wrong place, could cause an entire eruption of that volcano. and neither of them need that. but she can’t help her rushing thoughts.
private high schools. a well-known philanthropist, surgeon father. a gothic mansion in the outskirts of gotham. more money than anyone else. tools, weapons, instruments, vehicles, devices for anything he might need. impenetrable suits that intimidate those without one. gifts without end. it’s an alien world to her. and she can’t quite place how she ended up here, inside it.
“are you… tired?” bruce interrupts their silence that grows more and more tense with each second. his voice in a guessing tone, as if he doesn’t know if that question is the exact right one to ask. bruce lays on her stomach with his chest now, looking up at her through her book, even though he can’t see her face. he’s sure he knows it well enough to know where her eyes are, though.
y/n doesn’t move her eyes off the book she’s reading as she answers, “a little.” she admits to him. short, colder than usual. something’s definitely off, and bruce’s heart falls to the pit of his stomach as he realises that. it’s definitely something to do with him. only what? and maybe asking her what exactly it is in him, or in anything he’s said or done that upsets her so much—because he’s willing to change; for her, if for anyone at all—will be worse than what he’s feeling between himself and her right now. how can he know without trying it out?
it’s killing him, this not knowing of what’s wrong, of what’s behind her stale mood. but he doesn’t want to make her uncomfortable. he wants things to be better between them, and he can’t guess why they’ve grown so tense and unbearable now. he doesn’t know what to do. scared to take the first step, scared to leave things how they are because they might escalate, scared of the matter she’s upset about being unchangeable. he’s stuck.
bruce lays his cheek on her clothed chest now. “did i do something wrong?” he finally asks her, having gained enough courage and also having realised that she means more to him than having an argument, in the most fragile voice she’s ever heard him speak before. she can hear fear, anxiety and self-doubt in his voice, even in those very few words spoken.
y/n stares ahead in her book, taken aback by his question, and taken aback once again in how well he knows her already. he knows something’s up, and she appreciates that. but can she bring herself to tell him what’s up with her, and why she’s feeling the way she is? y/n sighs courtly, and keeps her book as a shield between her and bruce, realising that’s an easier way to talk to him about her feelings than if she would be looking right at him. why has she become so closed-off to him all of a sudden, though? she doesn’t know. “no,” she says with a gentle shake of his head, her voice quiet.
really? then why is she not talking to him at all? not telling him how she feels? “then what is it?” he asks her. bruce rests his chin on her stomach again, she feels its pointy character digging softly into her skin. she sighs. he’s relentless, and she knows that about him. perhaps this is the first time she really notices that because it’s expressed directly towards her. and he doesn’t ask these questions like he does when they’re both interrogating a criminal at night. this is different. because this issue is much more personal to him.
y/n closes her book and places it at her side, now greeted first and foremost with bruce’s anxious, caring face. not so far from her own, and she feels even closer to tears now. she hates feeling like this. bruce laying in her hold is bugging her, bothering her for the first time ever. his eyes on her are suddenly too much, and she doesn’t know why. everything was fine with him just a few hours ago. her attitude has changed so suddenly, it bothers her to no end. she doesn’t want to be upset, doesn’t feel entitled to be so, but she is. and perhaps, after all, she should be.
she tries to keep her tears at bay. she doesn’t need to cry now. “nothing that you can change,” she tells him in a shaky whisper, only meeting his eyes for a fleeting second. she turns away then, pulling her legs up and away from under his weight. but bruce places his palms on her thighs and stops her movements. she looks at him again, slightly frightened, “bruce.”
“tell me what’s wrong,” he tells her and hopes the words didn’t sound like a beg. his eyes are sure, they’re set on her as he is set on uncovering the secret behind her change in behaviour, “please. if there’s anything i can do or change, i w—”
y/n shakes her head and rolls her eyes, “there’s nothing you can do,” she says, slight fury in her voice, “already told you. even with… everything that you have, especially with it, you can’t change it.” she says. you can’t change, she thinks to herself. but even in her upset mood, she knows that would be said too much. she damns herself for even thinking those words and their meaning.
“then talk to me, please,” bruce doesn’t care anymore that he sounds like he’s begging, he doesn’t care how desperate his voice gets. this is important to him. she is important to him, “just talk to me.” his voice grows quiet, to the volume of a whisper, and he feels himself on the verge of tears suddenly. he gulps as he looks up at her still, just pleading for her to understand that he’s here to help, that he doesn’t mean her any harm.
y/n shakes her head, runs her hands over her face, all to keep herself from crying out, and just sighs. the tears are coming, but she won’t let them take over. she won’t. she can’t. “not now,” she tells him finally, her eyes looking away from his—anywhere, the ceiling, her hands, her book to the side—and he can hear her fragility in her voice. he feels for her, “tomorrow. i’m… too tired now.” she tells him finally.
bruce nods. he wants to get to the bottom of it as soon as possible, now would be the perfect time. but if she’s asking him for tomorrow morning, he will respect that, and he will wait. so he nods and lays a kiss on her hand out of pure affection. her eyes fill with tears suddenly at that gentle gesture, and her lip quivers as her emotions take over and want to unleash their full wrath on her. but she won’t let them. she mustn’t. bruce kisses her hand again, kisses all over it—her palms, her fingers, her knuckles—and it really brings y/n over the edge, her lip quivering further and further until tears spill out of her eyes, over her cheeks.
she loves him. it’s the first time she admits that to herself. she loves him, she knows she does. she doesn’t want to push him away, she doesn’t want to hurt him. she wants to be close to him as possible at all times, know him more and more, bare her entire self to him. and yet she can’t help but feel out of place. she can’t help but feel like a complete alien with him, in his world, in his home. so different from hers.
night begins to grow across gotham like a big, dark cape, the darkness creeping into every inch of bruce and y/n’s room—curtains, walls, the floor, the bed and its accessories—and so bruce turns off the bed-side lamp, puts the book on the nightstand, and crawls over y/n again. her form trembles as she makes quiet sobs in the dark now, hiding her face in her hands, and bruce doesn’t shush her now. he lets her let it all out, because he can tell she needs it.
he doesn’t intrude on her personal space anymore with questions or words at all. he just holds her, pulls the covers over them both, knowing that it’ll be too hot with both them underneath, but also knowing that when y/n cries, she tends to grow cold all over. the warmth will be good for her. he caresses her hair with his hand and just listens to her soft yet intense cries. on one hand, he hates to hear and see her cry—it breaks his heart. but then again, he can tell she needs that release. pent-up emotions, perhaps frustrations with herself and the world, need to be let out sometime. and so it’s soothing for him that she seemingly gets that relief now. at least he thinks she’s getting it. in reality, he doesn’t really know.
at some point in the darkness growing ever-present and unavoidable in the room, y/n cries fade to silence, and bruce discovers she’s fallen asleep. being tired himself, and being with her, bruce soon falls asleep, too, with her still in his arms. he’s glad about how peaceful she is in her sleep, even if the problem between them is unresolved, even if he doesn’t still yet know the reason she cried so hard, and why she cried at all.
y/n knows bruce is a heavy sleeper, and she adores it. she hates to be taking advantage of that now, in the night hours, when she slips out of his heavy hold and gets up from their bed. she bids herself not to cry any tears as she picks up her few stuff and wraps it up in a ball she can easily carry. she ignores the tears that fall as she opens and closes the bedroom door in the quietest way possible, and she hates causing that sharp pang in her heart that happens as the door quietly thuds closed behind her.
she doesn’t want to leave him, and least of all wants to hurt him with her leave. but this is so not her world. this is not her place. there’s too many differences between him and her. and she can’t bare it any longer.
based on: Hello! May I request Battinson x SpiderWoman!Reader fic where she’s from the MCU but then she ends up in Battinson’s universe and meets him? Maybe he doesn’t trust her at first but once she saves him from something, he relents then begins to trust her and maybe then a relationship ensues?? Thank you so much and have a great day!! ❤
author’s note: hello. sorry for the delay. there’s been so much to do and so much going lately that i can hardly concentrate on anything at all, including, unfortunately, writing. so sorry! doing my best :))))) hehehehehhhehe. anywhos, new chapter! who’s excited? me asf. batman also comes out in HD next week, so i’m pretty excited about that, too. i saw it 3x in the theatres, and it was suchhhh an experience, truly a unique one. so happy reading my babies !
warnings: a little nsfw (fingers in mouth, fingering but not really?); nothing else
gif credit goes to owner / creator!
with her hand in his, bruce leads y/n away from the desk where her suits are laid out, and he leads her around the row of desks to reach the covered vehicle he so wants to show her. alfred’s only seen a glimpse of it while bruce was working on it, and he solicited the part orders, but he hasn’t seen more. bruce also hasn’t let him, he makes sure alfred is really busy while he continues to work on his new project, so he wouldn’t show up and surprise bruce. it’s sort of something bruce wants to show alfred when it’s done. to see what he thinks.
bruce takes his hand out of y/n’s hold—but doesn’t do so without laying a kiss on her palm first—and leaves her by the vehicle’s side while he goes to uncover it. the project is in its finishing stages for now, bruce has yet to take it on a test ride, he somehow hopes for a special occasion to do that, only he doesn’t know what that would count as.
he takes the silky black cover by its corner and whooshes it off the vehicle in one go, he thankfully succeeds. y/n’s eyes don’t know exactly what to look at. the object confuses her at first, she can’t tell what is what, but then she starts to recognise bumps and edges, and the image becomes clearer. it’s some kind of car, only… jacked up on steroids. it is black in its entirety, and sleek, and very much intimidating because of its size.
she looks to bruce with bright eyes and a kind of awkward smile, and he gives her one in return as he waits for a further reaction. but y/n doesn’t really know what to say, she turns her stare back to the sort-of car. huge wheels, a low front, and a spacious interior, it seems. she walks over to it, runs a hand across the sleek material on the front hood and nearly shudders. it’s cold, but incredible to the touch. she takes her hand away and tucks both her palms into the sleeves of her hoodie, feeling a little cold all over now.
she crosses her arms over her chest as she walks beside the car, looking at its details, coming up to bruce step by step. “did you make this yourself?” she asks once she’s finally close to him again. bruce looks from her to the car and nods. y/n shakes her head. “one hell of a job.”
bruce grins as his hand skims over the door handle nearest to him. “taken me more than a year,” he says, “can’t risk having someone else to do anything on it for me, because, well…” bruce looks into her eyes again, “you know.” he gently moves his eyebrows in an emphasising way. y/n chuckles and nods. “wanna show you the interior, as well,” bruce says and opens the door. the door only makes a faint click that sounds as sleek as the car looks, and y/n is again impressed. she doesn’t hide it—her raised eyebrows and slight grin of amusement—as she gets into the car, and bruce’s lips stretch into a grin of their own at her adorable reaction. as soon as he shuts her door, he makes his way around the car to get in on the other side.
y/n glimpses at bruce while he does, but her attention is honestly more occupied by the car’s interior. two screens on the middle console, where usually a radio would be. some switch panel next to the screens, where the small stashing cabinet resides in a usual car. but as she traces her hand under the switch panel, she feels a rectangular form in a different material than the rest of the panel, and she presses it so it opens.
nails, wires, screwdrivers and multiple other little things alike pour of out of the hide-away, and the clutter they make startles y/n just as bruce gets in the car from his side. he furrows his eyebrows at the mishap when he sits down, and y/n sighs. “sorry,” she says and starts picking everything up to put it back in place, “i’m just curious.” she comes up with some sort of excuse. bruce nods and helps her pick up the pieces, since the console of the car is pretty close to him, and there’s a lot of room for legs on both sides. y/n thanks him quietly, and he just gives her a timid smile.
once the things are back in their hide-away, and y/n closes the cabinet, she turns half-way in her seat to check out the rest of the car. also to make herself busy with something as she now feels a little awkward at having spilled all that, and in front of bruce. this is his car, his property, his working ground, and she’s too much of a curious cat to keep her hands to herself. what a clutz, she thinks.
she notices how spacious the interior still looks from the inside, but how there’s nothing in the backseat quite yet. only tools and other car pieces she assumes are still left to be attached, put in place. she looks above her, sees the ceiling with quite the big window in the middle of it. big enough to fit bruce through when he’s in the batman attire, she realises. she looks back at him, and bruce can see the dots connecting in her eyes. she knows what it’s for, and he doesn’t even have to tell her.
y/n sits fully in her seat again, rests her side against the back support and bends one of her legs to cross it over the other. her hands in her lap as she looks to bruce. he’s sitting in his driver’s seat like a regular person, but his head and shoulders are turned to face her. their eyes connect again. the pleasant, positive tension between them is palpable. one word could make it thicker or make it dissipate. it’s up to them, but they feel the tension, too. like electricity in the air of the car.
“any plans for the backseat?” y/n asks. bruce grips the edge of the chair with his hand gently and peers over it to look at the unfinished part of his vehicle. he shrugs.
“i honestly don’t know if i’ll need it,” he says to her and returns to sitting normally. she notices how casual he’s become with her, she’s not noticed it until now though he’s probably shown that bare truth and casual behaviour a day or two prior already. he’s stripped himself of the brooding, mysterious image in front of her completely now. she can only be thankful that he’s done that. she doesn’t want a masked vigilante with her, she just wants him. the vigilante thing is a part of him, but it’s not the main part. now y/n shrugs.
“you could have casualties that you need to take to the hospital or the police station,” she points out, “you never know what situation you might end up in.” she grins very lightly at him. bruce loves the little gestures from her, he finds them quite adorable. he nods.
“that’s true,” he says, “might just put three or four chairs in there for that. maybe some emergency box or something…” bruce says, and it makes y/n chuckle. he’s wonderful when he’s thoughtful. quite the contrast to his usual behaviour.
she reaches a hand over to his side of the car, where she lays it atop his palm that rests on the console between them. bruce looks at the hand, then looks at her. her eyes are unreadable, and yet mischievous as a fox’s. “or you might need to take me home,” she suggests timidly, in a quieter, smaller voice, “maybe some place else.” she bats her eyes at bruce as she leans her head onto the headrest, her hand staying on top of his. he blinks a few times and tilts his head at her. bruce wonders what she means, perhaps she’s saying something more to him than these few words.
“where do you want me to take you?” he asks, and realises his voice has dropped lower in volume. y/n faintly smiles at his question, at the possible obliviousness it encompasses. she caresses the skin of his hand with her thumb as she keeps giving him languid eyes. he has no idea what she means, doesn’t he?
she lets their eye contact last just a little longer and then moves in for what’s hers for the taking—bruce. she carefully slips her leg over the console, only wincing a slight bit when her injury very quietly protests at the movement. bruce notices that change in her facial expression, and his hand immediately reaches out for the part of her body closest to him—y/n’s thigh. it makes her think he finally realised what she meant with her words, but he really is still oblivious to her ministrations, and that reaching out to her is for support.
but she’s not in pain. not really, not anymore, as she now brings her other leg over the console, too, and splays them across bruce’s lap, one leg on each of his sides. bruce just watches her silently, that supporting hand still treading carefully across her thigh, having an instinct of what to do but not knowing if he should do what it tells him to.
y/n feels a little out of her own depth now, but she won’t shy away anymore. not this time. when she’s so close to him, and he’s letting her be. it’s a sacred moment, a sacred opportunity. she won’t let it pass. there’s complete silence in the car as y/n leans her torso down closer to bruce’s, the quiet background noise of the bats squealing and flapping their wings on the cave’s ceiling is practically inaudible now. bruce must have installed some kind of sound-blocking mechanism into the vehicle’s doors and windows, and perhaps he did that on purpose.
bruce looks up at her—what a strange position he’s found himself in, and y/n could say the same – she never thought she could get on top of him and actually be on top of him, looking down at him, taking that he’s so much taller than her—with eyes that are both fearful and ready, eyes wanting something so much yet being afraid of it all the same. he can’t stand his own contradictory behaviour. but he really is up for anything y/n might be offering.
that feeling of readiness only grows in size when y/n kisses his lips, pulling him closer with her palms on both his cheeks. without filter—not that he needs one around her—bruce moans at the immediate and sensual contact with her that he so appreciates. his hands instantly grab onto her, that first one staying on her thigh, now, encouraged, moving to the back of it and spreading his fingers across her covered skin there.
to make a man of his size, of his greatness and power, moan in such a yearning and intimate way has truly got to be one of y/n’s proudest moments. she wouldn’t call it pride exactly, but something towards it. and it being bruce, someone she admires and appreciates so much, someone so close to her, makes that little thing all the more special. her fingers all but press into his skin, nearly creating a stretch there, and she moves her other hand down to his hair, trudging into the silk forest of it.
god, she loves his hair. raking her nails across his scalp, she earns the most raw and guttural sounds from bruce. and that only proves that he loves her hands in his hair, as well. he adores them there. scratching and pressing at his skin in the best ways imaginable. the movements of her hand in his hair only makes his own hands grapple onto her tighter, and as the kisses they share grow hotter and more lustful with each second, their pent-up frustrations towards themselves and each other pouring out into them all the while, neither of them can contain the moans and whines—more from bruce than y/n—that all of this coaxes out of them. they let their natural sounds out without any control or shame.
bruce doesn’t know how to be, who to be, how to behave, when she’s like this in his arms, just as needy as he is. he has instincts, and yet he doesn’t know what to do with his hands—what feels good for her? should he kiss her neck? should he grab her ass like in all those videos? no. that’s an immediate no in answer to the last question that pops into his mind, and he doesn’t even know why he feels so sure that she wouldn’t like that. he just somehow knows, and so he doesn’t move a muscle further to even initiate that kind of contact.
y/n feels how partly clueless he is, she feels how rigid and nervous his hands are, although they are squeezing her skin in a delightful way. she smiles faintly to herself, bruce feels that gesture against his lips, and she rests her hand around one of his wrists, the one that wraps around her waist. bruce looks into her eyes, pulling away from her lips, feeling that perhaps he’s done something wrong. something to upset her, crossed a line. but there’s no sign for such a thing in her beautiful, clouded eyes. “do you want to touch me?” she asks in the lowest of whispers. one of her hands is still resting against bruce’s cheek, and dare he say, it’s distracting him very much. her eyes are, as well, and he barely hears her question at all.
with a bit of a mental struggle, bruce comes to and his eyes blink a couple times in an almost clueless manner as he does so. he suspects her thumb moving across his cheek, near his lips, is on purpose. unable to form words in response, and also feeling too shy to speak, bruce just nods his head. y/n finds it typical to his behaviour, and she doesn’t mind at all. it’s always endearing to her that she does the most talking and he just listens, agrees and grumbles a word here and there. she guesses it doesn’t really fade in intimate moments like this. and she wouldn’t wish it to.
“i want you to touch me, too,” she says, taking her hand off his, and slowly, as not to make a sound that could ruin the moment, she unzips the gorgeous trousers that he got for her, also partly revealing the underwear that he also got for her. bruce gulps as his gaze slips downwards to where her hand lingers, and the partly-revealing sight nearly drives him insane. his impulses are strong and hungry, but he keeps them down. he doesn’t want to cross any lines with her.
without any questions asked or words spoken—she knows his body language well enough to tell he’s not uncomfortable, just nervous—y/n takes bruce’s hand away from her waist, slowly brings it back around her body to the front and middle of it. all the while, she keeps that other hand of hers still on his cheek, caressing his coarse, experienced skin with her thumb as a way to soothe him, if he needs it. he’s as much inexperienced as she is, she can sort-of tell, and so she knows this is a first for him, too. she knows what she likes, though, so she knows how to guide him.
here and there, she feels his hold on the back of her thigh tighten, squeezing her skin, and she lets out a little whimper every time he does because it’s just the right squeeze on her muscles. it makes the sacred place between her legs hotter and even wetter every time, and she guesses that she’s just found something new that her body likes. and her whimpers are doing all the work on bruce, as well. he doesn’t know how long his self-control will last. even around her.
y/n’s fingers around his wrist, she guides his hand past the borders of her pants, where the pads of his fingers come into contact with her clothed cunt. she’s so sensitive that this mere first contact makes her shudder and utter a faint whimper, and her eyes drop closed. she nearly collapses onto bruce, but her body draws the line at her head only resting on his shoulder. because of this response from her, bruce feels confident enough. he’s made her smile, he’s made her laugh, he’s made her cry and he’s made her feel this euphoric—is there anything he can’t do now?
he doesn’t need her guidance by hand anymore, bruce feels confident with his instincts, and he can always ask her to check in, to see what she likes and doesn’t. pressing his middle and ring finger into her underwear, he feels a sticky wetness on the fabric that now coats his fingers, as well. he breathes a heavy breath against her neck, and his eyes drop closed, too, just for a moment. she’s heavenly. there are many ways he has imagined her already—still ashamed to admit that even to himself—but this outdoes them all. “fuck,” bruce manages to utter, being at quite the loss for words because of how incredible she feels. he can’t get over her. so he treads on fragile ground by dipping his fingers deeper into her underwear, so that he could really feel the expanse of her—even when clothed—really on his fingers.
and my god, is that even more incredible. he’s pressed his fingers right in between her labial lips, he can feel all her gentle edges and folds on his pads, and it almost sends him into over-drive. forget oral and penetrative sex, he could spend the rest of forever just tracing over every inch of her most intimate parts, over and over, much like she does with the scars on his back. only when he does this, he body is oh-so-responsive. shuddering in his hold, grinding on his thighs closer to him, uttering whimpers and moans into the skin of his neck, gripping his shoulders every once in a while. he loves it all. he could spend forever in it. this moment, this feeling, with her in his hold.
bruce is discovering her, the feel of her, the different spots and buttons he can push in her. much like she’s discovering how it feels to be touched like this by someone else. she’s never had that before, and though he swipes across her clothed folds and flicks his fingers quite the right way, she can still tell that he’s nervous about it all. which means he’s never done this before, either. not even this with a woman. she wonders how that is true, she wonders how that makes him feel. but she’s also kind of appreciative that she’s the first one to get him like this, to get him to do all this. she’s the first one he’s experiencing this with, too. it’s something so special for the both of them.
he’s not even fully touching her, and yet with how wet her underwear is, it’s nearly the real thing, and she’s slowly coming undone for him. no words uttered, only moans and whimpers from both of them, bruce reaches his free hand that was grappling her thigh just now—much to y/n’s dismay, though, she whimpers at the loss of that touch—, up to her face, and he cradles the side of it in his large, supportive palm. it makes her look at him, precisely his goal in making that movement, and she does so with hooded eyes, barely supporting herself up before him. bruce presses his fingers closer to where her entrance resides beneath that drenched fabric of her panties, and it sends her into a spiral.
y/n’s face nearly melts into an erotic expression, her eyes closing shut, eyebrows drawing together, cheeks blushing redder and her lips hanging open. her lips. her whole face is breath-taking when she’s experiencing pleasure, and it means the world to bruce that he can coax this wonderful feeling out of her, plant into her wonderful feelings and experiences, and he discovers that he loves seeing her like this. completely true, just and raw. just for him.
but his thoughts get caught in her lips, and suddenly he’s so fascinated by them. his thumb skims across her cheek, and progressively gets closer to her lips until the pad of his thumb has reached the corner of them. in his hue of fascination, bruce watches as he ventures his thumb down the soft pillow of her lower lip, and he glances up into her eyes to see how she takes that. her eyes aren’t the main tale-tell for her reaction, as much as her hips and hands are. but her eyes do overgrow with a thicker cloud of lust after they open again, while her hips experimentally roll down onto his, and her fingers dig deeper into bruce’s shoulders. it’s nearly painful for him, but he likes it nonetheless.
“open up,” he requests her quietly, feeling that she already wants to do it, but perhaps, as she’s got lost in the feeling of it all, she forgot to give her lips that command. y/n listens to him immediately, proving bruce’s theory about that forgetting, as if she just remembered how to give her body orders, and bruce slips his thumb inside. he feels her wetness increasing heavily at that contact, and he allows himself a grin, “that’s it, baby, you like that?” he asks her, now feeling more confident than usual, and all because of her.
y/n can only nod and make a mewl in response as her mouth welcomes bruce’s thumb inside it. her mewl resonates from her throat, bruce can feel its vibrations even on her tongue as he presses down onto it. his middle finger penetrates her entrance in the slightest of ways, but it immediately has her thighs trembling, and affecting the rest of her body in wonderful ways. her back arches, making her breasts press against bruce’s chest, and he suddenly realises he’s never felt her this close to himself. chest to chest. god, he adores her.
her silky tongue beneath his thumb, lips sucking around the base of it. her soft skin in both palms of his hands, her wetness coating his fingers like a nectar, her breaths and hair in his face, tickling the skin there, her eyes only looking at him when they’re open, looking hungrily and lustfully, her thighs on his, her breasts against his chest… she’s a vixen at his complete mercy. a complete dream, and he’s not even entirely sure she’s real. that’s how heavenly she is.
bruce can’t wait to get to know every inch of her. feel the expanse of her on his length, taste that sweet nectar dripping from her on his tongue, explore her body and find out what venture gets which sound and body movement out of her, see what makes her fall apart, how long each thing he wants to try out takes with her. he wants to know her to the very depths, until there’s nothing left to know, and he can do it all over again, make it as good as the first time.
y/n has no idea how bruce knows how to touch her, how to feel her up, how to rile her up more and more. only thing she can think of is his intuition, perhaps something he’s borrowed from his great detective skills. he can just read her so well, she almost thinks he knows her better than she knows herself. his fingers at her entrance are pushing in and out teasingly and yet fully enough so that he’s coaxing her towards that wonderful release. and how did he know that a finger in her mouth would do the wonders it does? perhaps he didn’t, and just wanted to try it out. to be fair, she’s ready for anything he wants to try with her. she’s had so many firsts with him already that each new one is just another wonderful addition to the list.
but y/n sobers up from this blissful feeling of bruce immediately when she hears metal gears turning and chains being pulled. she stills so suddenly in his arms that bruce worries again that he’s done something wrong. it’s a far away sound for now, but y/n can tell it’s getting closer—it sounds like someone is using the elevator she and bruce used just a while ago to get here. how she didn’t hear the elevator going up when it was being called, she doesn’t know. but she looks through the matted window of the car’s back to see the elevator. the tube is not full with that cabin yet.
“what’s wrong?” bruce asks, glancing towards where she is momentarily. y/n gathers herself, realises he’s retracted both of his hands from her intimate parts, and is now just resting his palms on her thighs. she runs a hand through her hair.
“someone’s coming,” she tells him in a rush and zips her trousers closed. bruce furrows his eyebrows, and realises he probably needs a tissue for his hands. there has to be one somewhere here… y/n moves off him in a flurry of movement, plopping back down into her passenger seat, while bruce looks around all his little boxes and compartments for just a single tissue. who could be coming here at this—?
bruce shakes his head as he finally finds a tissue in one of the rogue clean-up boxes he barely remembered to leave in this car. “must be alfred,” he says with a grunt of effort as he bends back up from the car’s floor and wipes his fingers clean, as much as he doesn’t want to. he looks at y/n in her seat, facing away from him. she hopes her hair doesn’t give too much away, “why did you move over there?” he asks, though at how sharply she turns her head to look at him, he kind of regrets doing so. his face grows small in anxiety.
“i don’t want your godfather to see me like…” she shakes her head before she can finish that sentence, and turns away from him again. her fingers card through her hair again and again, she feels so nervous, “i don’t know, i’m nervous.” she’s speaking much faster than usually. bruce grows concerned. “i’m nervous, i want to make a good impression and—” she sighs in frustration, and then turns to look at bruce again, “he doesn’t know, does he?”
his eyebrows furrow. “about what?”
“us!” y/n hisses back, almost as if they were in high school and talking about some big secret. “you know, that we’ve… you know!” she’s so puritanical in talking about their shared kisses and what they’ve attempted to do, it’s nearly comical. she was much more blunt just some ten or fifteen minutes ago. bruce gulps.
“no,” he shakily says, “i haven’t told him. should i have told him?” he’s panicked, too, maybe because of her panicky attitude, and can suddenly hear the elevator coming down the long shaft, too. y/n raises her eyebrows and shrugs.
“i don’t know!” she tells him, “do you want to tell him?”
now it’s bruce’s turn to shrug, “i don’t know,” he says honestly, “do you want me to tell him?” he makes sure, really only caring about her through and through.
“yes!” y/n says, but then feels she’s coming off as too straight forward. to bruce, about their relationship, whatever it is. what would he tell alfred, anyway? i’ve kissed the girl whose life i saved in our vigilante team work mishap a couple times, we nearly went to second base. “no?” y/n then throws out in her panic. she shakes her head again and thinks she’s both confusing the man next to her, and making him think she wants to keep this a secret, which she most certainly does not want to do. she throws her hands in the air for a fleeting moment, feeling confused herself. “i don’t know! christ… i’m a mess.” she says finally, her head in her hands.
the opening pull of the elevator doors somewhere behind them startles them both, as they’re in quite the fragile state, and y/n nearly jumps in her seat. bruce can feel her nervousness in the air around her, and he’s scared to reach out to her, though he still does it, worried he might catch that same electricity as is running through her veins. “you’re fine,” he tells her, and finds the gesture weird. has he comforted her before? and yes, he realises he has. how did he forget? perhaps this is just a different setting, “i’ll get out first.” he informs her. “and hey,” he calls on for more of her attention, “look at me.” bruce’s voice is a whisper again. y/n anxiously turns to look at him. he offers her a smile. “you’re great, y/n,” he says, and if it’s not the first time he says her name, then it’s definitely one of the first, “there’s no reason for alfred not to like you. i promise. plus, he already likes you.”
“how do you know?” she asks him. bruce shrugs.
“he’s my godfather,” he simply states, that smile of his turning into a grin. bruce moves a rogue hair strand out of y/n’s face, tucking it behind her ear. she appreciates the gesture, and makes a small smile herself, “you have nothing to worry about, i promise you.” bruce assures her. “i really like you,” christ, he feels nervous and shy as a teenager as he says this, and he wishes the hormones weren’t so strong. but he wants to tell her these things, even if it’s hard to and gets him all flustered, “and you’re amazing. it’ll be fine.” bruce finalises.
y/n manages to make a smile at him in response and she nods her head. she believes him. bruce feels weird at handling such a domestic, everyday-thing like he handles more serious issues. but perhaps domestic things are just as important as vigilante things. and perhaps he needs to put more focus on domestic things. now that y/n is formally meeting alfred, has seen his home and his cave, and is getting closer to him in general. as he’s getting closer to her. he needs to be in touch with his domestic side more, he realises. and so he makes that his resolution for the near future. perhaps this vigilante thing has made him less grounded than he thinks.
“okay,” y/n says as she nods again, and bruce’s smile grows in size. he caresses her hair and leans closer to her just momentarily to give her forehead a kiss. y/n closes her eyes during that fleeting affectionate gesture, and bruce is gone in the next moment. her eyes closed, still in some astral way feeling his lips on her forehead, she hears him get out of the vehicle and close the door behind him. she feels like a little hedgehog that’s drawing into its form in this quite spacious passenger car seat, the reminisce of his kiss on her forehead as vivid as if it had colours. the undertone of what that kiss meant is what truly sticks to her heart, and she’ll appreciate that forever.
she hears quiet words spoken between bruce and alfred, and even a chuckle on alfred’s part, and she sighs. y/n doesn’t know why she’s suddenly so anxious around the man she’s met twice, being in quite exposing states both times already. now she’s dressed, and feeling much more like herself, and it seems her characteristic nervousness returns with that trueness of self, too. she doesn’t like it. it’s not that big of an event to have lunch with alfred. then why does she feel so nervous all of a sudden? she feels like a teenager all over again. of course, the memory, feelings and images of her and bruce’s shenanigans just a few minutes ago are much too vivid in her mind to forget or ignore. she hopes the presence of alfred especially will do erasure.
y/n sighs again and opens the car door, swinging her legs over the seat to get out. it’s not that she wants to forget or ignore what they began to do. it’s just quite bothering and informal to be thinking about those things while she’s with both bruce and alfred. she really does feel like a teenager, and it’s bothering her quite a bit. she’s an adult, and should be first and foremost, be able to control those thoughts and impulses and second, should not be feeling nervous about having them if they’re there. it’s so complicated…
with a small, shy smile on her face, y/n keeps the hair strands tucked behind her ear by bruce in place and walks around the vehicle of incredible size. their conversation drops in volume and slightly fades as she comes up, and she feels awkward that they do. y/n braces herself and raises her head up once she’s in close enough vicinity of them both. bruce gives her adoring eyes, while alfred has the usual look of warmth across his whole face, but especially visible in his eyes. he gives y/n a smile.
“hello,” y/n says in a quiet voice, feeling awkward still, even with the soothing presence of both these men. they’ve been nothing but kind and welcoming to her, yet she still feels out of place. could it be just their presence? could it be because y/n really likes bruce and wants to make a good impression on alfred? or could it be the financial difference between her and these two men? she can’t guess, and maybe it’s all three.
y/n fumbles with her fingers behind her back, so they wouldn’t see how nervous she is. but bruce sees her hands, nonetheless, he’s that taller than her to see even behind her. he feels for her, his eyes soften as he gives her a glance. “good day, miss y/n,” alfred tells her, nearly bowing before her in that formal movement he makes. she smiles back at him and nods, “finally i see you out and about! an occasion we should celebrate.” alfred says and looks to bruce for agreement, which he gives him with a smile and nod.
bruce wants so to reach out to y/n in this moment, just reassure her in a way that he can. a hand on her shoulder, on her waist, anywhere. but he fears that doing that in front of alfred will just heighten her nervousness, and he doesn’t want to put her on the spot like that. y/n nods at alfred’s words. “thank you,” she says, “never thought i’d get out of that bed, and i’m quite relieved now.” she admits with a chuckle.
“i hope you’re hungry, too, dear,” alfred says cheekily and sends her a wink, to which bruce playfully rolls his eyes and nudges alfred’s arm. the older man just chuckles more in response. y/n still feels out of place, even if out of her and bruce, she’s usually the comedic one. she seems to have suddenly lost that skill or characteristic of hers, and all out of nervousness. she also doesn’t want to admit she’s hungry, because she doesn’t want to be the one whose needs or wants need to be pleased right away. god, everything’s so weird, “you’re not nervous, are you, dear?” alfred suddenly asks, having noticed her silence. he even looks to bruce after y/n’s eyes change a little after that question.
bruce worries for her, since it’s half as hard for her to talk about her feelings as it is for him, and yet she’s always been the more open one. y/n’s lips part as she immediately wants to deny that assumption and lie about her current feelings. but she sees truth and genuineness in alfred’s eyes, and that convinces her to tell her own truth. she nods before saying, “yeah, a bit,” she admits, making a sad smile.
now bruce can’t stay away anymore, his urge to soothe her becomes much too great, and so he gently lays an arm around her shoulders and pulls her closer, his hand squeezing her shoulder comfortingly. either alfred doesn’t actually notice, or he pretends to not notice that movement and its meaning, so he just shakes his head. “no need to be nervous, dear,” he says, and y/n can say this is the first time a man over forty has called her dear multiple times and she hasn’t felt uncomfortable by it, “from what i hear from bruce, you’re practically family by now, and aren’t a guest anymore.” alfred tells her, and bruce only nods in agreement. that’s what he’d put it, too.
y/n smiles wide, and feels shy again, but she fights the urge to tuck herself into bruce’s side and hide away like a bashful child. she looks up at alfred and nods. “thank you so much,” she says, “that means a lot.”
“oh, you’re welcome,” alfred responds and turns on his heel, “now let’s get your bellies full before you both drop.” he says and begins clicking away towards the elevator with his cane. y/n looks up at bruce, and he looks down at her genuinely, adoringly, that same look still in his eyes. he adores her, and she adores him. there’s nothing quite like sensing that mutual feeling towards each other and knowing it’s true. truly one of the seven wonders of the world, she’s sure.
y/n leans up on her very tip-toes and lays a quiet, quick kiss on bruce’s cheek before they follow alfred across the cave to the elevator. bruce feels his cheeks heating up, and then he feels her hand on his chest, “thank you,” she quietly whispers to him as they begin walking. bruce’s lips stretch into a languid smile. he wants to smother her whole, and even more than that. yet it still wouldn’t be enough to express his adoration towards her.
based on:Hello! May I request Battinson x SpiderWoman!Reader fic where she’s from the MCU but then she ends up in Battinson’s universe and meets him? Maybe he doesn’t trust her at first but once she saves him from something, he relents then begins to trust her and maybe then a relationship ensues?? Thank you so much and have a great day!! ❤
author’s note: hello. I’ve had a lot of work lately, on top of that I’ve had stress and pressure from my direct boss, which has caused me a three-day-long panic attack + today I had a breakdown. my hands won’t stop shaking, and I’m on the verge of crying while still stressed out of my mind still. seeing you guys’ feedback on this story has cheered my mood quite a lot these days, even if for a little while, so thank you to everyone who’s here andreading this :) I hope some of you read through this author’s not as well, haha. soooo I’ve cried my eyes out and am ready to get drunk and write. I’m terrified to go to work tomorrow. who knows what my boss might say to me, I can’t stop my heart and mind from racing. christ…. also omg - one of my favourite writers on here liked my post “where is your jealousy” soooo you could say IM SOFJHSBDFAJH happy about that. anywhos. happy reading!
song req: catwoman by michael giacchino (have y’all heard this??? it’sjhsufhsiudfsybfjh)
word count: 9.6k
warnings: none, i think :)
gif credit goes to owner / creator!
what a man lays beside her. such strength, courage and noble emotionality lies inside those muscles and that thick, scarred skin that adorn his back, his arms and waist… he’s quite the sight. she remembers how he couldn’t stop looking at her when he first saw her face, on the night of their first real encounter with each other. and how she told him to not stare, but he did it anyway. now she knows how that feels. even if he’d ask to not look at him, she couldn’t help herself.
so much of the past, so much pain and fear hides inside him, too, along with that courage, power and emotionality that can make him quite impulsive. there’s certain beauty in that controversy, beauty in him, because that’s what really makes him up. along with a very specific sense of humour, and the things that make him smile. the things he dislikes, and the ones he can’t help but have in his character. they all make up a beautiful, unique man. she’s really never met someone like him.
someone so wounded and impenetrable at the same time—she can’t really read his face most of the time to tell what he’s feeling. someone so rich in a way, and poor in some others at the same time. someone who doesn’t show his emotions, and yet whose actions show how much he cares. he’s so difficult, and so head-on, so emotional and easily-affected. that makes quite a beauty.
now that her side injury is doing better, y/n can lay on that wounded side more, and she uses that to her advantage—to get closer to him in the bed they share. the riddance bed, as they’ve deemed it. bruce also called it the aurora bed—the princess who can’t wake up, much less get up from the bed, you know. she smiles to herself gently, and reaches a hand out to her prince. she doesn’t want to wake him, but the hair on his head and the scar biography of enemies on his back are simply too irresistible to not touch.
she traces once again over those scars she’s already traced a couple times, and he doesn’t move a muscle in response. she’s not surprised—the movements on his skin there seemed to calm him when he was awake, and they nearly lulled him to sleep. so she’s not surprised he stays in his slumber as she traces these scars. the bumps and stretches of skin—both upper and the more sensitive tissue-kind—and the pigmentation due to penetrating or blunt-forced trauma are all so fascinating to her. they’re like sacred runes to her, and she could trace them over and over again forever, and try to read them all the while.
bruce doesn’t stir until she reaches his hair. her fingers softly skim over the raven locks of his silk hair, she feels how soft and natural, in a weird way, it is. it honestly looked dyed to her, but now she discovers it’s not. dyed hair always has that too-silky quality and feel to the hand, but bruce’s is naturally silky, and not too much so, so she knows that’s his real hair colour. how interesting… a boy born with black hair, but blue eyes. that doesn’t happen quite often. the black-haired ones usually have brown or green irises, y/n thinks.
her fingers just move to the back of his head of hair when he blinks his eyes open and looks straight at her, even while he’s still feeling quite sleepy. y/n smiles wide at seeing him awake, and seeing him look at her, and she digs her head into her pillow more, her cheeks heating up with a pink tint. bruce smiles at the sight of her. he loves for her to be the first thing he sees when he wakes up. he wouldn’t mind seeing only her for the rest of his life, from morning till night, monday to sunday. he can look at her endlessly.
“morning,” she tells him quietly, and restrains herself from giving him a kiss on the lips. she’d love to give it, and a couple more (perhaps a hundred), but she knows neither of them would be able to control themselves after just a few kisses. it would never stop at that, maybe if one of them intervened. but being caught up in each other, that wouldn’t be possible. no one to stop them.
bruce’s lips tug more upwards in a faint smile, more a grin, and he blinks his eyes a couple times before rubbing his hands over his face and yawning. y/n smiles, finding those adorable movements very cute to his character, but also quite a contradiction to his desired image. that doesn’t matter to her, the image. to her, it’s just adorable that he doesn’t deny himself those kind of morning-routinic movements. “what were you doing?” he asks her in a hushed voice, now blinking his eyes again and looking at her, his face a little more sober. y/n tucks her hands under her cheek, squishing them between the pillow underneath, as she looks at him.
she shrugs. “just… admiring you, i guess,” she tells him in a whisper, especially the last part, “you’re very handsome to look at.” she tells him and even giggles at the end of her sentence. bruce can’t deny the blush that spreads across his cheeks and the smile that stretches his lips. he tries to hide them in his pillows, but y/n has already noticed, and she laughs very cutely at them, at the fact that she’s made the man have this reaction. that means the world to her. and she doesn’t know, perhaps she only suspects, that she’s the only one with that kind of privilege.
“well, don’t stop on my account now,” bruce tells her, then, all calmed down from his hormones—or is he?—and he’s able to look at her again. half his face squished against the pillow, he looks into her eyes, and for a moment, it’s just them staring at one another.
“how can i?” y/n asks in a bare whisper, shaking her head slightly. “someone promised me a whole tour of their home. i can’t possibly stay in bed for a moment longer, especially now that he’s awake.” she tells him. bruce chuckles once he connects the dots, and his laugh is wonderful to y/n’s ears. she has the excitement of a little kid, it’s visible in her eyes.
“never said when it’s gonna start,” he points out to her, a small attempt to keep them both in bed longer, to prolong the time she touches his skin.
“exactly,” y/n says mischievously, “and because i’m the guest, i should assume it’ll start whenever i want.” she says and does a little movement that usually very arrogant women do with their hair. bruce has a laugh at that, as well, since it’s so not like her character, but yet the humour is. she’s just… such a wonderful mix of everything. he can’t stop marvelling at her.
“and you were right to think that,” bruce tells her with a smile. he lifts himself above the mattress, pulling the sheets they share slightly upwards with his body all the while, and he moves even closer to her. once there, he lays a kiss on her forehead that stalls her, makes her eyes blink closed for a second or two, but it also makes her heart do a flip. she adores him, and he adores her. he wants to show her that every moment that he can without intruding upon her boundaries, and he’s succeeded so far. she’s felt held by him ever since she woke up in this riddance bed that one afternoon. she looks up at him as soon as he’s pulled slightly away, as soon as her mind is a bit clearer (but that doesn’t last long), “i’ll take a shower.”
y/n raises her eyebrows in a teasingly surprised manner at him as a response, and watches as the man chuckles and then moves off to the side of the bed, where he sits up. she bites her lip as her eyes skim over his back. she’s just spent the last half-hour or so looking at it, and yet it’s still a masterpiece and something so breath-taking to her. she can’t keep those enticing thoughts away, and she can’t stop pondering on what would happen if she joined him. that would be quite the event, wouldn’t it… maybe she should suggest the idea to him, as well?
“take a look at those clothes i got, would you?” bruce asks after he’s got up from the bed and is now walking towards the bathroom. y/n has been brought partly out of her stupor with that question of his, and she moves her head to look at him. he’s not facing her, “i hope they fit.” he says and gives her a sly smile, perhaps knowing exactly how he’s making her feel—flustered, hot and bothered, like an inexperienced school girl (that’s quite what she is, actually) —, before he closes the bathroom door behind him. but he doesn’t lock it.
his suggestion reminds her of the conversation they had last night, and the act of kindness—or spoiling, she hasn’t yet decided—he showed her that started that conversation. him spending money on her without her asking, without even technically not needing to. y/n sits up in bed, suddenly sobered up by that question of his. her eyebrows draw together, and then she hears the shower water starting in the bathroom. her eyes flick to the door momentarily, and she knows he didn’t lock it, but she looks at the bags on the table again. that’s right, they didn’t open all of them last night.
and now he’s suggested that she does. y/n sighs courtly, but gets out of bed slowly and makes her way over to the table. her injury hardly says a word to her, and she’s glad for that. she can walk across the room much faster, much more agile now, nearly back to her old ways. god, now that she thinks of it, she can’t wait to get back into action again. back in her suit, swinging around the city, protecting civilians—where is her suit, by the way? what happened to it? is it usable at all now?
she’ll ask bruce later.
when she reaches the table, y/n sits down in one of the chairs. the shower water running provides a nice background noise, almost makes an ambiance, and then y/n picks up classical music on some other… part of this property, too. beautiful piano and violin combination. and the notes they play… amazing. she puts her bets on alfred playing that music and gets to opening the first bag she knows they haven’t opened yet.
the bag is made of paper, and y/n thinks she recognises the logo of the store, but it’s not one she’s seen quite a lot of in the city. she doesn’t really go for brand shops, anyway, her choice is more second-hand shops and the fast-fashion ones she can actually afford, but mostly second-hand stores. she rips up the stickers holding the paper bag closed and reaches her hand inside. it touches upon a cotton fabric, she thinks—it feels like that to the touch—and she pulls it out. quite a large piece, she might say.
when she gets it out and unwraps it from the folding, she sees a jumpsuit. with long sleeves for legs and arms, it looks like a boiler suit; buttons down the front—oh my god! he remembers that. he remembers her talking about wanting to get one, but that it’s impossible to even find a boiler suit around here, or find an affordable one. it’s almost as if they’re some myth piece of clothing that she may even have dreamed about, and don’t actually exist.
but here is one. in dark red, a crimson red, resembling the colour of blood. buttons and pockets everywhere, looking exactly as the one she thought of in her head all this time while searching for it. y/n smiles to herself and closes her eyes as she presses the boiler suit to her chest, and she sighs. what a miracle. happiness boils inside her tummy and chest much like the nausea feeling would, but this is much more pleasant, of course. she can’t believe this. can’t believe him.
but she puts that mind haze to the side, resting the boiler suit in her lap, and moves to the other unopened bag. reaching inside it, she finds three pieces—each one much different from the other—and pulls them out. the jumble in her hands reveals a pair of trousers—black flare pants, exactly the type she wears at work (does he know that? and if he does—how?)—, a button-up blouse in, again, dark red, with long sleeves (must be why he bought her the sporty bra, as well. this man…) and a dark grey hoodie. similar to ones she’s seen bruce himself wear around her recently. but all hoodies are alike, what is she thinking…
she checks the sizes of the clothes to know if she’ll be able to wear them, and she is—they’re all perfectly her size. how could he have guessed all of these? or is that maybe given in the information about her, too, the one that shows up in those lenses of his? and he’s picked the colours very much from his own wardrobe. though she hasn’t seen him anything red. maybe not yet. “are they the right size?” bruce asks suddenly, out of nowhere, and y/n turns to see him in her startlement coming up to her from the bathroom and gently drying his hair with a smaller towel. he’s got a shirt on now, and if she saw herself and him from the side, she’d conclude that they’re dressed very similarly.
she makes an absent smile at him and turns back to look at the clothes in her hands again. she leans her back into the chair and does a little shake of her head, and bruce watches her in slight confusion. has he done something wrong? she looks up at him with that absent smile still on her face, but her eyes tell something else. her cheeks are heating up again with a pink tone, and she moves her hand to hide at least half of that reaction, but bruce has seen it all already and he smiles wide at her.
“yeah, they’re all precisely my size,” she tells him and shakes her head again, “how did you know them? and why…” she makes a nervous chuckle and disconnects their eyes for a second, “why do you spoil me like this?” y/n questions, giggling, and looks at him again, shyly this time. bruce’s smile cracks even wider. bruce shrugs and lays a kiss on her forehead again. he’s acting quite like they’re a couple, or a married one. but they haven’t even talked about their relationship, neither of them really know what to call it. y/n loves what she has with him right now, she’s just confused.
she’s glad he’s this open with her. out-right, expresses his feelings in the ways that he can. she realises now that spoiling her like this, with these things, is the way he knows best how to express his care and affection. no wonder, if he grew up with rich parents, he was spoiled quite the same and even much more every day. she knows how rich kids grew up. and no wonder his sense of how to handle things, on how to express feelings, is a little… bent.
of course, she likes the clothes, and she likes that he remembers things she likes and wants. but it’s the fact that he goes out of his way to buy them, spends money on them, all for her, and they’re not even in an established relationship… and she has no way to give anything back. it makes her feel strange, makes her feel alienated. and perhaps they shouldn’t establish the relationship—perhaps they should just let whatever happens happen, let their feelings and bodies act on their own, and see where that takes them.
she just feels confused.
she smiles at bruce after that small kiss he gives on her forehead, and he looks into her eyes with a cloud over his orbs. she smiles wider at that, and still expects an answer from him. but by the way he’s breathing, by the way he’s looking at her, and by the look of his lips, she can deduct that he won’t say a word. perhaps there isn’t anything to say. he doesn’t look like he’s hiding something. so to give him back something, at least, in the way that she can, she presses a kiss to his lips, having to pull him down by grabbing his shirt to do so.
y/n loves how, even after they’ve kissed a couple times already, bruce still quite physically melts against her when they kiss, no matter who initiated the exchange. and she smiles against his lips when she feels that again. she’d love to kiss him longer, but she can’t, knowing both of their impulses. so she lays a hand on his chest to gently, without offence, push him away. but bruce won’t be moved so easily. he nudges his nose into her hair, laying a kiss on her scalp there, and y/n instinctively cranes her neck up to him.
“i’ll go and get dressed in my room,” he tells her quietly, “be ready for the tour when i’m back, alright?” bruce now pulls apart from her to look into her eyes again. y/n nods and tries to hide her shy smile, but doesn’t succeed very much in doing so. usually, she’d quip back at him with a teasing or sarcastic remark, but she’s in quite the haze. so she just watches bruce walk across the room and exit it through the doors, once again shooting her a grin and a wink as well this time before he closes the doors.
y/n laughs to herself and shakes her head. he definitely does know what he’s doing to her. or does he? she can’t be sure of anything about him anymore. he’s a big mystery, leaving only clues behind him wherever he goes, whatever he does, not saying much. a mystery to her as much as she is to him. what a pair they make.
since she guesses her time is limited, y/n gets to showering and getting ready before bruce can barge in and have to wait on her. her first shower since she got out of bed, too, but it’s not as difficult as she expects. her wound yells out only when she reaches for the shower head—which has been placed impossibly high for her to reach without a struggle, but other than that, she’s fine. she doesn’t wash her hair, since she already did that last night, and it’s in perfect condition to go on a tour and meet bruce’s godfather.
what exactly is y/n to bruce? and what is bruce to her? boyfriend? partner? friend? acquaintance? she has no idea. and, perhaps, for the time being, she shouldn’t ask a question like that. perhaps questions would ruin it, what they have right now. why the need to clarify when the feelings igniting every now and then are the most wonderful feelings she’s ever experienced?
something explained would ruin the mystery, the chemistry, the intimate connection… she doesn’t want that. as soon as something’s established, there appear to be rules and boundaries either of the people involved can suddenly break and feel the consequences of that. resentment, disappointment, hidden feelings and thoughts… that’s so unnecessary. what they have now is good enough. she doesn’t need to question it or establish anything. she’s good here.
y/n decides to wear the trousers and the hoodie. they fit quite well together, a very modern mix of clothes she doesn’t think she’s ever worn before. sure, she has hoodies and an abundance of those kind of pants filling her wardrobe drawers to the brim, but she’s never really worn them together in an outfit. it’s a little unlike her style, because it’s two of her styles mixing. but she finds it a good mix nonetheless, and will wear it, because she feels it’s similar to bruce’s style, as well.
he has a very peculiar one, she’s noticed. he really dresses like a teenager, too—large shirts, sweaters and hoodies, sweatpants, bare feet. and that cherry on top—his sunglasses for indoors. it’s precisely what boys in y/n’s secondary and high school would wear, not all of them, but a good portion—around a half—of them did. she finds it quite endearing that he dresses like that, but then again, there’s something slightly concerning about it. being stuck in that younger age in a certain aspect.
when she steps out of the bathroom, she sees bruce leaning against the bed frame of the riddance bed, and he’s dressed quite differently. she suddenly feels wrong in her hoodie, thinking maybe she should have worn the blouse instead. because bruce is standing there in formal black trousers and a black button-up shirt, the few top buttons undone to expose a portion of his chest. her breath gets stuck in her throat, and when he looks at her, his head hanging a bit low, she feels all the more nervous.
y/n sighs. “i should have worn the blouse, i knew it,” she tells him and turns slightly away from him, though her eyes still stay on the man dressed so well in front of her. it’s surprised her in the best of ways. that shirt fits him very well, and he’s even more irresistible in her eyes now.
bruce shakes his head. “you don’t have to change,” he tells her assuringly, “it’s just me.” he shrugs. y/n has a laugh and then does a pose she saw in a movie against the door frame, arching her back and bending her knees just the right way, letting bruce see only one side of her. she moves her hand up her leg, she saw that in the movie, too.
“you like me like this, too?” y/n asks him, and she does the pose and voice quite theatrically, in a way that makes them both laugh. and her body falls out of that forced position. she walks over to bruce slowly, her sock-clad feet sliding across the stone floor. once she’s close to him, standing right in front of the man, they both lock eyes.
“i like you however,” he tells her honestly with a genuine tone of voice. those words make y/n’s heart flutter in her chest, feeling like it’s about to burst through it and take flight, “as long as you’re comfortable.” bruce says, and y/n nods. with that nod, bruce gets the message that she is comfortable. the nod and her eyes tell him that. he takes her hand between his own and shakes it up and down gently, like a child would with his parent’s hand just to play, just to see what happens. “shall we?” bruce asks her, flicking his eyes from her hand to her beautiful eyes and the look in them again.
y/n nods and off they go. with her hand in his, bruce leads her out of the room through the door, closing it afterwards, and she finds herself in a hall. one that has stairs in the middle of it. and oh, the gothic interior… y/n’s heart nearly stops, she squeezes bruce’s hand in her hold, and he looks at her. the hall is something she could only call an archway. there’s wooden railing to create a safe border between the path that goes around the hall and the thin air above the stairs, and it’s made very gothically, as well. y/n adores it. the wooden lace, she can call it, there’s no other name fitting enough for how they look.
bruce watches her marvel over the interior while he leads her around the hall, past the few doors on this floor. her eyes are going everywhere, trying to catch everything, and so he walks especially slowly with her to give her enough time. he could never have that same wonder that she has about this place, because he was born in it, and he’s lived in it ever since, every day. minus his years abroad, of course, but he’s looked at these walls and rooms for so long they’ve lost colour, form or any aspect of matter to him.
y/n, on the other hand, is wondering how it’s possible for them to be so high up in this kind of building. she doesn’t know what it looks like from the outside, she can only guess. a victorian, gothic building. she didn’t even know gotham had those kind of buildings. how old is this city? how old is this building? what does it look like from the outside? surely she must have noticed a gothic building in this year to year and a half that she’s been here. but she can’t recall one.
“this is alfred’s room,” bruce motions for the first door on their left, the first door since the one they came through. y/n nods, and she sees the handles on the doors are gold, and have the letter A engraved into them in a beautiful font. interesting. bruce’s father must have had that initiative, and alfred must have been close to the family for him to do that. she reckons he still is. bruce leads her further down the hall, and they reach another pair of doors. the last one before the stairs, the last one before a pair of much bigger doors, which are locked with a chain around the handles, y/n sees. “and this is my room.” bruce motions for the doors closest to them. these handles have the letter B engraved into them. y/n smiles, “but…” bruce squints and shrugs his shoulders, feeling nervous and not happy about the idea to visit the room now, “i don’t use it that much.”
y/n turns to him, eyebrows drawing closer together in confusion, “but it’s your room. where do you sleep?” she asks. “when you’re not with me.” she says quieter, and it makes bruce look at her. he’s slept with her in the riddance bed all these nights she’s spent here, and he usually stays with her in her apartment after fights until she falls asleep. mostly, he makes sure she’s fallen asleep fine, and leaves immediately after. she’s nearly always got work the next day. the times she doesn’t, they both stay up until sunrise, just talking. though y/n has always been more sleepier than him, and would always keep nodding off until bruce convinced her to get to bed.
“i don’t sleep that much, either,” bruce says, shrugging the topic off, and guiding y/n alongside him down the hall to round the corner. y/n would have wanted to look, or at least peek into his room, but she won’t force him if it’s that private. he’s quite the guarded man about his life, his past, his biography. she can only guess that the doors they’re now passing to walk down the stairs, without stopping by those doors, lead to his parents’ room. it doesn’t look like someone’s gone in there in some time.
“you sleep like a bear with me,” y/n points out, a slightly questioning tone in her voice. bruce gives her a momentary glance, but keeps looking ahead afterwards. he does, yeah, it’s true what she said. something hides behind that. he can’t sleep normally on his own, not without some drug, spirits or medication—he doesn’t use those, instead he welcomes the insomnia—but with her he sleeps fine. quite deeply, as well, much like a bear does. bruce grins, and y/n sees that. she also sees his hesitance to respond to her, but she decides to move past that, and turns away to look ahead of her. the sight before her steals all her thoughts and attention, and only then does bruce dare to look at her again.
there’s a huge landing they’re on, one that has stairs and hallways descending from it on all sides, in all directions… the farthest staircase leads downwards, and y/n has the urge to run down to it and stare ahead, but she keeps herself intact because there’s so many more directions to go, so many parts of this place to see. “to the right is my father’s study,” bruce motions to the side with their entwined hands, and so y/n looks there. two closed doors yet again, but no lock or chain this time, “none of us use it, so we just… keep some relics and what not in there.” y/n’s eyes linger on the door.
“what did your father do?” she asks him in a quiet voice yet again, nervous about bruce pushing her away, not answering her question.
the question does catch him off guard, mostly because he’s never been asked it before. everyone who he’s talked to already knows what his father did, or they knew him and his work while he was still alive. and so he’s never had to answer that question, either. “uh, philanthropy,” bruce answers with slightly furrowed eyebrows, “and he was an excellent surgeon. ran for mayor, as well.”
y/n’s eyes naturally widen in pleasant surprise. “wow, that’s quite the resume,” she says and her eyes land on the closed doors again, “was he well-known around here?” she asks. bruce nods.
“still kind of is,” he tells her, and she can hear that there’s something more for him to say. something about his father or something about himself. something about being well-known… and she squints at him for a second, before she turns away again. if he doesn’t want to tell her, he won’t, and she won’t press him to talk. instead, she lets bruce’s hand go and walks over to the doors, just to see their handles. no letter engraved on them, she sees, just pretty ornaments. she figures that work places don’t need to be assigned for this house.
looking to her left, she sees another pair of locked doors. she guesses they belong to that same restricted study, and she grows a bit disappointed that now there’s two less rooms for her to explore. y/n spins around on her heels and looks at bruce again, just standing there, in a waiting stance, in his all-black clothes. all-black look, because of his black hair, dark eyebrows and eyes. but the look on his face is warm and light as soon as he turns to her, as soon as their eyes connect. and he gives her a smile. one that makes her melt against the doors behind her back.
bruce chuckles now. “come on,” he nudges her to his left to continue their tour, and y/n peels herself off the wall quite hesitantly under his friendly command. she follows by his side as he strides across the wide landing to the open area of the place, “this is alfred’s study and… our library,” he says, motioning around with his hand. the library catches y/n’s eyes, and she’s sad to see it without its—usual, she assumes—inhabitant. but oh, my, the quantity of books… the size of the library make her gasp and cover her mouth with her hand, “this is where he plays his music, too. i think you’ve heard it already,” bruce smiles as he says that.
y/n wanders off from him to inspect the library shelves more closely, but she hears what he says. and only now she realises there’s no music playing anymore, as there was before. now she doesn’t know when it stopped playing, “yes, i did hear it,” she tells him as her fingers skim over the backs of the many books, “god… this must be your little library of alexandria, huh?” she asks him rhetorically. bruce only laughs as he adjusts the vinyl on the record player. its needle has been put to the side, but he wants to play some music again. it seems y/n likes classical music, too, just like alfred. and when he looks up from his hands to see her again, he gets stuck on watching her.
she’s skimming over all the books in the shelves, pulling some out to see their titles or authors, and then she’s climbing the step-ladder to look at higher shelves. y/n must love reading as much, too. what a person she is… verging on miracle. now she sits on the top of the step ladder, on its very top, square step and browses through a book, placed in her lap. bruce leans against the bookshelf’s side and keeps looking at her as he skilfully places the same vinyl on the record player, only now flipping it to the other side, without even looking. her eyes are deep into the book, she hardly feels his stare. only when she closes the book and puts it back in place, does she look back at him.
a warm, shy smile adorns her lips while she looks at him, but soon her eyes wander off behind him, above him, below her, where she can see the other set of stairs leading downwards, a bigger room at the bottom of them, and she can see all the interior details and pieces from above over-all. the arcs, the frames, the railings, the roses, as well as metal and glass lace decorations on the windows. everything vertical, much like it was during the gothic times, every detail so intricately made, with extreme precision… she adores this place. and she wonders who built it this way.
bruce puts the record player needle on the vinyl, adjusts it just right and then presses play. though alfred loves old-fashion things, and especially original relics made much, much earlier than now, he does appreciate a record player with a better sound and easier buttons to use. the piano music starts playing, and bruce looks to find y/n again. she’s began to climb down the step-ladder, he sees, and he immediately goes over to be there for her at the very bottom. he holds out a hand for her to take, because he knows that very bottom step of the ladder is high above the floor, too high for comfort, and so he offers his hand to her for support.
y/n smiles at him in response and takes his hand, too. his strong grip and the support she knows he’s ready to give her at any moment with his full body do help, and she jumps to the floor with ease. she sighs once she’s landed and looks around the library again. “this place is incredible,” she says quietly, and then her eyes wander up to bruce’s, where they share an earnest, intimate look. he’s still holding her hand, and now he pulls it towards himself, upwards, where he kisses the very top of her palm.
she tries not to show that it takes her breath away, such a simple act of affection, and gives him a wide, blushing smile instead. bruce wraps his fingers around that hand then, and rests it by his side, between them both. y/n smiles cutely as she turns her eyes away, but she nudges her shoulder against bruce’s. that makes his face light up with a smile of his own, and he takes that as a sign that they can move further. not in their relationship, but in the tour.
y/n’s eyes really drop out of her head when bruce has taken her to the bottom of the stairs and is letting her go around the huge hall at the very outer corner of wayne manor. he lets her hand go, knowing by now that she’ll like to marvel at everything on her own, and he just stays by the table alfred always make sure to put just off the very middle of the room’s stone floor. he leans against the table, resting a hand on the surface for support, and watches y/n’s every move.
she can’t believe what she’s seeing. this room… is the most beautiful one, she’s sure. well, she thought that about the library, too, but my god… this is a sight for sore eyes. how can something this beautiful still exist nowadays? all these wooden arcs, pillars, railings and even statues—some made of stone, too—just take her breath away, and they don’t seem real at all, and yet they are. when she touches them, when she knocks softly on them to find out, she really does deem them real. yet they’re still a miracle.
once she’s rounded the room, inspected every piece of furniture, every detail of interior decoration, every piece of décor in general, she slowly comes to the windows. they have gothic wooden frames, as well, stretching high up above her head. and from this window, she can see the city, too. cars and buses riding around, people going about their business, some causing trouble, some begging for money. and y/n is up here, watching it all. like alfred and bruce are every day, she assumes.
y/n sighs quietly, and hears footsteps coming up beside her. she glances at bruce, and then leans against the man with her head, laying it on his arm. their height difference is stark, but not too uncomfortable. she sighs longer now that he’s here. his presence makes quite a difference in her, she doesn’t know why. “can’t believe you live here,” she says, “to you, it’s just home, but to me, and i bet some visitors that must come here, it’s quite the place.” y/n assumes.
“don’t tell me the gothic one is your favourite art period,” bruce says with a light smile. y/n laughs at his small plea.
“it is,” she says, “it always has been. have you seen the churches in france? absolutely unbelievable.”
bruce recalls them, yes, from travels. both with his parents and without. “i have, yes,” he responds, “walking inside them felt like walking around home, in the weirdest way.”
y/n shakes her head. “it’s not weird,” she assures, “you’ve grown up in this place. no wonder a gothic church feels like home to you.” she says with a light shrug.
“i guess you’re right,” he says, “are you hungry or anything? we haven’t had breakfast yet.”
y/n shakes her head. “no, not yet,” she answers, “we hardly ever eat breakfast, anyway. why do you ask?” she looks up at him.
“wanna take you some place, and something tells me we’ll be down there quite a while,” he says with a slight grin. in what way does he mean they’ll be down there quite a while? y/n turns her face away from him to hide her slightly confused, slightly excited expression.
“i’ll be fine,” she says, “take me there.” y/n looks up at him again, that giddy smile on her face making her more and more endearing to bruce all over again. he nods, a smile on his features, too. he holds out his hand for her to take again, and she does, and he leads her across the room to the other set of stairs, hidden behind these ones, that will take them further into the building. y/n wonders how they haven’t come across another person yet here, since there are two more definitely living and working here.
“we usually have lunch and dinner here,” bruce tells her, and she can tell he means the room they just left. now they’re going down a dark, narrow hall, “me and alfred.”
“youalways have those meals with him?” she asks.
“well, not every day,” bruce answers. y/n grins.
“so scarcely, then?” she clarifies. bruce shakes his head with a grin, knowing what she’s getting at.
“you know me so well,” he congratulates her, to which y/n giggles. she can hardly take in the interior of the hall and room they go through, because bruce is tugging her with him in quite the hurry. he must be excited to take her to this place he mentioned, and she lets him be that excited. who is she to rob him of that? he must rarely have anyone to show all this to, or anyone at all. he hasn’t mentioned friends or partners before, and by his lifestyle, y/n can guess she’s the only person of that kind in his life.
after that narrow hall, and across that room with a stone floor, hardly any decorations and a low ceiling, they reach an elevator. an old one again, with the metal grid you have to pull closed after getting in—yes, that old. y/n adores it. the metal decorative pieces on the grid are very beautiful, and she can’t help but skim her fingers over them before bruce pulls the other door closed, too. he loves how much she adores everything here. he never expected she would, but then again, how much does he know about her and her tastes? not much. she’s never talked about art periods before, either.
bruce presses the button for his cave, and now they stand side by side in the metal elevator, holding hands still. as they descend lower and lower, y/n feels her ears getting lightly blocked here and there. “you’re gonna be glad you wore that hoodie now,” he tells her in a faint voice. y/n turns to him and raises her eyebrows for a brief moment.
“oh,” she says in response, “you’ll be sorry to be barefoot, then, huh?” she assumes teasingly. bruce chuckles.
“quite so,” he says, “but it doesn’t bother me.” bruce says, and suddenly feels those words were very unnecessary. why?perhaps because she knows his pain and discomfort tolerance, and his humbleness about it all. he can take about anything and everything without whining and groaning, without showing that it really affects him. that’s part of his idea of an ideal man, an ideal hero. but heroes bleed, too. they both know that. and y/n hopes bruce keeps that in mind.
towards the end of their elevator ride, y/n starts to feel a chill in the air. and the stench of wet stone that hasn’t been washed, as well as slight gasoline odour and… a lot of metal. have they arrived in a factory of some sort or something?
bruce opens the door once the elevator has landed in its place, with nowhere deeper to go, and steps out before y/n. he stands at the elevator’s side and holds his hand out for her again to take, and once she’s out, she does take his hand again. but her eyes are on their surroundings. christ… can this even be called a room? this looks like… a whole arena, only a horizontal one.
and there’s that constant, quiet noise from up above. she suddenly remembers it, because she has heard it before. that night… she heard the sound for the first time, and she couldn’t tell what it was. now she has the ability to look up, she’s not nearly paralysed or helpless, and so she moves her head and eyes up in curiosity as to what’s making that noise. above her, she finds a high ceiling, dark, and full of… bats?
an unexpected laugh bursts out of her, just out of sheer surprise, and bruce looks up, too, at the place and sight he knows practically by heart now, to see what’s amused her so badly. perhaps some bats have pulled a funny gimmick—they tend to do that sometimes. but no, they’re hanging out as they regularly do, and bruce just smiles. he looks at y/n, her head tilted backwards, nearly perpendicular to her neck, and she has the look of wonder and surprise on her face. “well, ladies and gents, the rumour is true,” she says jokingly, though her voice is laced with wonder and awe as she twists her head to see all of them, “you are batman.” she points at bruce and says the words theatrically. they make him grin, and he hides his blush by hanging his head low. but his initial reaction doesn’t escape her sight.
bruce slowly takes step after step towards his long desk, and y/n, still amazed and in awe of the quantity of animals in the ceiling, hesitantly follows along. she can hardly take her eyes off the ever-moving creatures, but when she does, she’s in awe again. only of nothing natural, but instead of what the rest of this… hall is filled with. a huge tv on the wall to her right, the screen black, with nothing playing on it. and to her left, a long row of desks, and on them – all types of devices, gadgets and many different computer screens. she thinks she sees a printer, too, that eye lense reader of his that he brings along on missions, especially when she’s heading somewhere without him—to keep an eye on her and help her any way he can. there’s keyboards, keys, buttons, all sorts of stuff…
and then there’s her suit. bruce is standing not very far from where it lays on one of his desks, he’s doing something in one of his monitors. y/n glances at him for a second before going over to her suit, just to see if he’s working on the suit precisely or if he’ll protest her looking at it or touching it. but he makes no move, doesn’t say a word, keeps his attention on the monitor. so she takes the suit into her hands.
y/n realises she’s missed the feeling of that fabric against her skin now that they’ve finally connected again, and she can’t wait to have it on, no matter how much it makes her sweat, no matter how exposing and sticky it sometimes is, too. perhaps she doesn’t miss the suit as much as she misses the associations with it. her mission, her night work, the lives saved, criminals put in their rightful place… she guesses that must be it.
she lifts it up and folds it out—bruce, she assumes, had neatly folded and laid it there, on the desk—to see if the knife penetration did a lot of damage to the spandex. god, it did. there’s still blood around that area. as well as a hole there. not one she could see without really stretching the fabric out like it would stretch when she’d have the suit on. y/n rests her chin in her hand, having rested her elbow on the desk, and is now wondering how to save it. she can’t have a hole in her suit. could stitching up do it any good? no. it’s a hole, not a straight-cut line. well, she’ll probably have to make a new one now. it will be some few nights until she can go out on the streets again.
“your suit’s pretty damaged,” bruce tells her, having noticed her attention on it. he knew she’d look at it, it’s her suit, obviously it concerns her. y/n nods once bruce turns his head to her, “i’ve… made some options.” he says to her quietly, shyly, and then turns his computer screen to her, so she could see. she squints her eyes, but then sees colour variations of suits that look nearly identical to her own. she skims over them with her eyes, taking in every detail she can. “told you about impregnating the fibers, so i tried it.” bruce bends over himself, nearly crawling under the desk, to reach a certain box. y/n just keeps getting more and more surprised, but she decides to endure it, and see what the man has to offer.
bruce lifts a piece of cloth up in his hands, a shimmery dark blue and red, with silver and black details, and lays it out across the desk. of course, he has to push his keyboards and devices to the side to do that, but that only takes a few seconds of his time. y/n stands up straight on her feet to look at the suit properly. it looks just like her current ruined one, the colours are a little darker only, and there’s the black accents, as well as the old silver ones. it looks very… professional and expensive. she looks up at bruce, who she knows is just dying to tell her every little detail of the suit he’s probably made himself.
he takes her look as green light and breathes a short sigh as he begins to talk. “i impregnated the spandex fibers with adamantium for protection against weapons,” bruce begins to explain. adamantium? that stuff costs a fortune to get. y/n keeps finding this man’s devotion to her pretty questionable, “and partial wool fibers for warmth,” he says and gives y/n a slight grin. she nods, remembering that conversation of theirs, and she faintly smiles at the fact that he remembers that, too, “i’ve also made your eyes into my reading lenses, the whole eye—both of them, so you can get assessed information about anyone you see,” he adds, tapping that part of the suit, “your mask also has an earpiece that you activate by pressing it into your ear. and… that’s about it.” he finishes, and presses his hands into the desk out of nervousness.
“wow, that’s…” y/n stares at the suit in disbelief, “that’s very kind of you. thank you. you didn’t have to make it,” she then says to him with a seriousness in both her eyes and voice that scares him a little. bruce’s eyelids falter as disappointment appears in his orbs. y/n rushes to save that, “i really appreciate you doing this. it’s just…” she shakes her head, “i told you money matters to me.” y/n whispers. “i feel bad that you’re spending… god knows how much on me for no…” reason.
bruce shakes his head. “it’s not for no reason,” he tells her, now able to nearly read her mind. his eyes are strong when she looks into them, “it’s for your safety, your protection.”
y/n is relentless, she shakes her head in frustration. “that was just one time, bruce,” she tells him, “mistakes happen, but it’s not always your responsibility to take care of the consequences. it was me, it happened to me!”
“itis my responsibility!” bruce tells her in response, fury at her not understanding the obvious motives he acts on. how can she not see? “you’re my partner, y/n, i have to protect you! we… we look out for each other! i’m supposed to protect you, i…” bruce shakes his head, as he suddenly doesn’t know how to finish that sentence. y/n sighs, closing her eyes for a second, her fist resting on that fine piece-of-ass of a suit that’s caused this slight argument between them. she wouldn’t really call it an argument, and bruce wouldn’t either. but this is the first time he’s really said her name. a milestone in their relationship, another milestone.
she knows there’s something he wants to say, but he can’t figure out what it is. it happens with her often, too, and so she doesn’t wait any longer on him to say something. “you’re right,” she tells him eventually, “you’re right, bruce. but you have to understand that the way i live and how i look at money is very different from how you live, and how you look at it.” she looks into his eyes. “okay? it’s hard for me to accept everything that you give me, because… because of the way i am. because of how i grew up, and a lot of other things.” she shrugs, looking away, not saying everything that’s there. “you can’t give me… gifts like this and expect me to take them so easily.”
bruce realises his wrongs. it’s her words, and the trueness of her feelings in them that do the trick. she makes him understand that not everyone can be as easily spoiled as he, she makes him understand that money is a different aspect to different people, and maybe not even two people in the whole world look at money in one identical way. bruce sighs and shakes his head. he reaches his hand over to hers, and runs his fingers over her palm. it makes her look at him, though anxiously so. anxiously because she just wants him to understand, and she’s afraid he won’t. “i’m sorry,” he says, “i didn’t know.”
y/n nods. “no, it’s okay,” she says, “you’re blind to some horrors of the world, and exposed to others.” y/ shrugs and sniffles. nor she nor bruce noticed until now that this heated conversation between them has brought tears into her eyes and made her quite emotional. “just… take this into account for the future, okay?” she asks and wipes the few tears in her eyes out of them. “i don’t want to seem ungrateful, because i really do appreciate everything you’ve done for me, everything you’ve given me, but… it’s hard to accept it all sometimes.” she says. “most times, if i’m being honest.” she adds, and bruce is glad to hear her chuckling at the end of that short remark. at least her humour is there. bruce smiles.
“i understand,” he tells her in a soft whisper, one that makes his voice sound like a kitten’s purring, “you’ve made me understand.” bruce admits in an even quieter whisper, and it makes y/n look up at him. has she really made him do that? she has that kind of… influence or effect? maybe even power… she hadn’t realised. bruce caresses her hand again, and waits a few more beats until his next proposition. “you wanna see something i’ve been working on?” he asks quietly.
looking into his eyes, y/n finds genuineness, excitement and a silent plea. a plea to forget his slightly damaging behaviour and attitude, maybe just put it away for a while, or maybe forget it forever, and to just let him show her another project of his. but that plea doesn’t have to be there. he doesn’t need to apologise for something that is a part of his behaviour because of how he was raised, or because of the trauma he’s been through. he should change it, of course, if he can, but he shouldn’t apologise for it. she doesn’t want him to apologise or feel sorry for what he’s said or how he’s acted simply because it’s such a sticky part of him. something he probably feels bad about already by himself, and so to make him feel worse about it would be even more damaging.
she understands him, because she also acts a certain way because of all that’s happened to her, what she’s been through, how she’s been treated. perhaps it’s not so much harmful to others as it is to herself, but still, some kind of disorder is there, when it shouldn’t be. but that’s not her fault. and it’s not bruce’s fault that his trauma has a certain way of living in him, of making him react to certain things in certain situations.
point is, neither of them are to blame for how they’ve turned out. but it’s a good thing to acknowledge that disturbance of behaviour, it’s a step forward. and if they can help each other with that, can help each other understand some things they’ve never experienced better, that’s all for the better. it’s progress, and though they’re dependant on each other in that aspect, neither of them are the worst choice to be dependent on.
so to answer bruce’s proposition, y/n nods. a faint smile plays on her lips as she does so, and stretches wider afterwards, but sadly her tears are still there. bruce hopes they will dry soon, and he hopes they will do so by his hand. he wants nothing more than to make her happy, to make her feel good, at peace. he never wants to cause her pain, make her doubt herself, or experience things equally as bad as that or even worse ones.
on one hand, he feels like a little boy asking a little girl if she wants to see something he made out of sand or maybe if she wants to see a cool toy he found. in some way, he really does still feel like a kid in many aspects, and he hopes that will fade soon. he doesn’t want to seem childish to her, doesn’t want to be too close for comfort to her, cross any boundaries and such.
so far, he hasn’t. and she doesn’t notice if he behaves childishly. y/n thinks we’ve all got an inner child to heal, especially if bruce lost his father when he was young—she doesn’t know when he died, but by his behaviour, she guesses it must have been quite early in bruce’s life. how horrible to lose someone you should always look for guidance to, someone who should always be there for you, especially while you’re growing up. she’s felt that same pain. and though years have passed, and it may not bother her now as much now as it did before, it still hurts. she’s still angry. she’s still not over it.
but when she gladly takes his hand, when she looks into his eyes, when she feels his presence and feelings towards her, when she’s with him, that wound seems to heal. even if just for a while—a short or long one—it works wonders. and bruce can only say the same about her.
a/n:I wanted to make this scene in his cave longer here, based on bruce’s proposition, but because I’m literally falling asleep and this chapter is already long enough, I’ll leave it for the next chapter. hope you find that agreeable :D thank you for reading. next chapter will be up somewhere around this weekend. I’m really dragging this series out aren’t I lol.
summary: y/n’s life changes immensely, starting with the Batman falling out of the sky right in front of her and ending with a promising new job at Wayne Manor. As her life intertwines with that of both Batman and Bruce Wayne, she begins to figure out that there’s more to both than meets the eye. No spoilers for the Batman movie.
a/n: Is it weird that I get excited every time I post? Also, this post is scheduled because, at the time it posts, I’m out of town! So if you asked to be tagged and weren’t, it’s likely because I haven’t seen it. But I’ll get to everything some point soon! I thrive off reader feedback so please feel free to drop a comment, ask, or even yell in the tags if you reblog! Also let me know if you would like to be tagged in future updates. Also if you don’t see your tag and requested one, some won’t work for me!
