After some time with Bruce, you’d found yourself comfortable enough to share a detail about yourself you hadn’t actually shared before. Now, comfortable does not mean you couldn’t be nervous. You were, you had no idea what kind of reaction it warranted. What he’d have to say. “Hey, Bruce? Do you have a moment?” You asked him as he sat at the dining room table in solitude. He nodded and pulled out the chair beside him.
“Is everything okay?” He noticed your body language, a bit off compared to how you usually acted around him. He made quick assumptions that you disproved in the coming moments.
“I just wanted to tell you something,” you paused and he stared in anticipation, “I’m autistic.” He raised an eyebrow and waited to see if you’d continue. “That’s all.”
“Oh, okay. That’s nice, thank you for sharing.” Bruce reached for your hand and smiled at you. “Do you want to tell me what it entails? I know it’s different for everyone.” He offered to lend and ear and you felt a sense of relief wash over you.
authors note: kind of a transition chapter, not the best, i apologize. ALSO this fic is obvi not cannon and selina kyle is not in it so i am adapting around that, some events are out of order
PRINCESS OF GOTHAM DEAD
the text scrolled across the screen and you bit your lip.
you bounced your leg as you watched the press release. usually it would be thomas you would be thomas you would be bouncing, but he was making his first public appearance today.
jim gordon was currently standing outside the gotham precinct talking to the reporters where they were all hungry for bruce’s appearance.
everyone had decided it be necessary to have thomas be there as no one would believe you dead if thomas were no where to be found either.
gordon stepped up to the mic. everyone had been in arms about your ‘death’ as you were a far different target than the mayor, the commissioner, and the da.
“it is with great sorrow to announce that y/n y/l/n was tragically murdered last night by the riddler. we know this without a doubt and we are using all of our resources to find him. a tape has been leaked of y/n’s death and we are advising the public not to listen out of respect of her family. now a word from mr. wayne, her fiancé.” jim finished.
bruce walked out of the precinct doors carrying thomas. bruce stepped up to the mic and cleared his throat, “this is the second person the riddler has hurt because of me. first alfred, now y/n.” thomas started to whine, “this is our child, thomas bruce wayne jr or tommy as y/n called him. he’s without a mother now.” you could see the pain in bruce’s face as he spoke these words as they were his biggest fears and he needed to make it seem realistic.
you swallowed hard you were worried about the two of them being in such a public place when the riddler was clearly obsessed with him.
“she was a great woman and an even better mother. i should have made better use of our time together. that’s all, thank you.” bruce said and walked back inside as the reporters went wild with questions.
your heart broke, seeing the pain in bruce’s eyes knowing he meant every word of it. tears streamed down your face as you clicked off the tv.
“would you like some tea, ms. y/n?” you heard the voice around the corner, wiping the tears away from your cheeks.
you stood up, “dotty?” you asked softly. you knew she was around, but you hadn’t seen her during your arrival last night.
“i didn’t mean to interrupt. i made you tea. i thought you might like some.” she said, walking in and presenting you tea, just how you liked it.
“you remembered.” this made the tears come falling again and your knees buckled. dotty had always made you tea when you weee upset when you were a teenager, it had been a staple comfort item and a bonding moment between the two of you.
dotty quickly put the tray down and rushed to your side, “sweet girl, everything will be alright. you’re home safe again. we will take care of you.”
you leaned into her shoulder, just as you had when you were a young teenager, “how can anything be the same?” you whispered.
“well it won’t be and it shouldn’t be. there’s a baby now. and if that doesn’t make you want to work things out with him, i don’t know what will.” she said, stroking your hair.
you sniffled, “i’m just so worried about him.”
“well aren’t we all, but now he has someone to come home to besides just me and silly alfred.”
you hugged her a final time, “thank you dot.”
your phone beeped and you looked at it. it was a text from bruce with a link to a news article titled SECRET LOVE CHILD OF LATE Y/N Y/LN AND BRUCE WAYNE? FIND OUT MORE TONIGHT
you swore, you knew that meant reporters would be swarming the manor trying to get more pictures of thomas, especially after that pressconference. there was nowhere safe for them to go in gotham. you needed to find the riddler and be done with this, fast.
thankfully, bruce and tommy would have a police escort back to the house later, but you had gone down to start analyzing the latest letter. as you were about to shut down the computers a pattern in the code caught your eye of your initials. you erased all of those symbols which pertained and it spelled out perfect, ‘44’.
you felt sick, you never wanted to step foot in the iceberg lounge or 44 below again. your last name was a legend in that club because of your father as he was known to take any hit job no matter the target, no questions asked. a year after he had killed your mother, you went looking for answers and had a horrible encounter with falcone and the penguin. if it hadn’t been for young bruce, you wouldn’t have made it out alive.
but you knew you were the only one who was going to get in, even if you were supposed to be dead.
thomas didn’t know what to think about bruce in his suit. he was obviously frightened over the whole situation so he clung to you the entire ride back to the manor.
you almost couldn’t believe it when bruce drove you into literal cave. “unbelievable, you really are the most extra man i know.” you shook your head with a small laugh. only he had the funds to make an actual bat-cave.
bruce ignored your comment and parked. when he got out, you took a moment to fully admire the suit and all it’s intricacies. once,he took the cowl off again, his dark paint smeared down his face. you finally could recognize your bruce now that you weren’t in a full blown panic.
you got out of the car and held thomas close as bats flew over your head.
when he walked over to his work station, he pulled out his contacts and put them onto a machine where the worst night of your life started to replay in front of you.
you turned away, unable to stomach it again. you hadn’t even shown up on the screen yet, but just bruce’s point of view of him racing to get to you.
bruce noticed this after he was through shedding the rest of his armor. “come on, let me get you both settled.” you nodded and followed him upstairs to the manor.
nothing had changed since you left. it was like time had stood still. when you walked through the stairwell, memories hit you, hard. you willed away your tears and walked to the master bedroom.
bruce didn’t question it. that had always been your bedroom together, but it looked like it hadn’t been used in a while. you turned to ask but he spoke first, “that night you came. in the rain. i stopped sleeping in here. i couldn’t face it. after what i did to you. i knew i had broken you and all your stuff was in here and the room smelled like you. i-“ he took a deep breathe, “i’m sorry.”
you closed your eyes for a moment and settled thomas on your hip. “i love you and i want you to be apart of our lives but how can i trust you won’t do that again?” you whispered, before he could answer you continued, “i’m going to bathe thomas and then myself.”
after thomas’ bath and your shower, you felt human again. bruce had taken a shower in the other bathroom and was in some pajama pants that were familiar to you. he had laid out one of his old shirts on the bed and a pair of your underwear that you had left behind for you to sleep in.
there was also a package of diapers and onesies; bruce had obviously run to the store while both of you bathed. you smiled softly and changed both yourself and thomas. thomas was exhausted and didn’t even need a bottle to fall asleep.
when he was asleep, you went looking for bruce.
you saw the light on in one of the guest rooms and opened the door. he was laying in the bed, reading. “come to bed.” you said softly. it wasn’t a question, but he could say no.
he looked up at you, confusion on his face, “i want you to come sleep in the bed with us. i won’t feel safe unless you do.” you said walking over and sitting next to him. you also missed him but couldn’t let him know that.
you didn’t want him to think that things would go back to normal, but after the night you had, you couldn’t fathom sleeping alone.
he sat up and gently put his hand on your cheek, “i will never let anything like that happen to either of you again.”
you rested against him and inhaled, “just don’t leave ever. that’s all that matters. now come to bed, b.”
you stood up slowly and took his hand. he took it and followed you to the master. you crawled in next to thomas and bruce next to you. the three of you curled into each other’s arms.
your little family was almost whole again. all that was missing in the house was alfred. then things would be complete.
thomas didn’t know what to think about bruce in his suit. he was obviously frightened over the whole situation so he clung to you the entire ride back to the manor.
you almost couldn’t believe it when bruce drove you into literal cave. “unbelievable, you really are the most extra man i know.” you shook your head with a small laugh. only he had the funds to make an actual bat-cave.
bruce ignored your comment and parked. when he got out, you took a moment to fully admire the suit and all it’s intricacies. once,he took the cowl off again, his dark paint smeared down his face. you finally could recognize your bruce now that you weren’t in a full blown panic.
you got out of the car and held thomas close as bats flew over your head.
when he walked over to his work station, he pulled out his contacts and put them onto a machine where the worst night of your life started to replay in front of you.
you turned away, unable to stomach it again. you hadn’t even shown up on the screen yet, but just bruce’s point of view of him racing to get to you.
bruce noticed this after he was through shedding the rest of his armor. “come on, let me get you both settled.” you nodded and followed him upstairs to the manor.
nothing had changed since you left. it was like time had stood still. when you walked through the stairwell, memories hit you, hard. you willed away your tears and walked to the master bedroom.
bruce didn’t question it. that had always been your bedroom together, but it looked like it hadn’t been used in a while. you turned to ask but he spoke first, “that night you came. in the rain. i stopped sleeping in here. i couldn’t face it. after what i did to you. i knew i had broken you and all your stuff was in here and the room smelled like you. i-“ he took a deep breathe, “i’m sorry.”
you closed your eyes for a moment and settled thomas on your hip. “i love you and i want you to be apart of our lives but how can i trust you won’t do that again?” you whispered, before he could answer you continued, “i’m going to bathe thomas and then myself.”
after thomas’ bath and your shower, you felt human again. bruce had taken a shower in the other bathroom and was in some pajama pants that were familiar to you. he had laid out one of his old shirts on the bed and a pair of your underwear that you had left behind for you to sleep in.
there was also a package of diapers and onesies; bruce had obviously run to the store while both of you bathed. you smiled softly and changed both yourself and thomas. thomas was exhausted and didn’t even need a bottle to fall asleep.
when he was asleep, you went looking for bruce.
you saw the light on in one of the guest rooms and opened the door. he was laying in the bed, reading. “come to bed.” you said softly. it wasn’t a question, but he could say no.
he looked up at you, confusion on his face, “i want you to come sleep in the bed with us. i won’t feel safe unless you do.” you said walking over and sitting next to him. you also missed him but couldn’t let him know that.
you didn’t want him to think that things would go back to normal, but after the night you had, you couldn’t fathom sleeping alone.
he sat up and gently put his hand on your cheek, “i will never let anything like that happen to either of you again.”
you rested against him and inhaled, “just don’t leave ever. that’s all that matters. now come to bed, b.”
you stood up slowly and took his hand. he took it and followed you to the master. you crawled in next to thomas and bruce next to you. the three of you curled into each other’s arms.
your little family was almost whole again. all that was missing in the house was alfred. then things would be complete.
thomas didn’t know what to think about bruce in his suit. he was obviously frightened over the whole situation so he clung to you the entire ride back to the manor.
you almost couldn’t believe it when bruce drove you into literal cave. “unbelievable, you really are the most extra man i know.” you shook your head with a small laugh. only he had the funds to make an actual bat-cave.
bruce ignored your comment and parked. when he got out, you took a moment to fully admire the suit and all it’s intricacies. once,he took the cowl off again, his dark paint smeared down his face. you finally could recognize your bruce now that you weren’t in a full blown panic.
you got out of the car and held thomas close as bats flew over your head.
when he walked over to his work station, he pulled out his contacts and put them onto a machine where the worst night of your life started to replay in front of you.
you turned away, unable to stomach it again. you hadn’t even shown up on the screen yet, but just bruce’s point of view of him racing to get to you.
bruce noticed this after he was through shedding the rest of his armor. “come on, let me get you both settled.” you nodded and followed him upstairs to the manor.
nothing had changed since you left. it was like time had stood still. when you walked through the stairwell, memories hit you, hard. you willed away your tears and walked to the master bedroom.
bruce didn’t question it. that had always been your bedroom together, but it looked like it hadn’t been used in a while. you turned to ask but he spoke first, “that night you came. in the rain. i stopped sleeping in here. i couldn’t face it. after what i did to you. i knew i had broken you and all your stuff was in here and the room smelled like you. i-“ he took a deep breathe, “i’m sorry.”
you closed your eyes for a moment and settled thomas on your hip. “i love you and i want you to be apart of our lives but how can i trust you won’t do that again?” you whispered, before he could answer you continued, “i’m going to bathe thomas and then myself.”
after thomas’ bath and your shower, you felt human again. bruce had taken a shower in the other bathroom and was in some pajama pants that were familiar to you. he had laid out one of his old shirts on the bed and a pair of your underwear that you had left behind for you to sleep in.
there was also a package of diapers and onesies; bruce had obviously run to the store while both of you bathed. you smiled softly and changed both yourself and thomas. thomas was exhausted and didn’t even need a bottle to fall asleep.
when he was asleep, you went looking for bruce.
you saw the light on in one of the guest rooms and opened the door. he was laying in the bed, reading. “come to bed.” you said softly. it wasn’t a question, but he could say no.
he looked up at you, confusion on his face, “i want you to come sleep in the bed with us. i won’t feel safe unless you do.” you said walking over and sitting next to him. you also missed him but couldn’t let him know that.
you didn’t want him to think that things would go back to normal, but after the night you had, you couldn’t fathom sleeping alone.
he sat up and gently put his hand on your cheek, “i will never let anything like that happen to either of you again.”
you rested against him and inhaled, “just don’t leave ever. that’s all that matters. now come to bed, b.”
you stood up slowly and took his hand. he took it and followed you to the master. you crawled in next to thomas and bruce next to you. the three of you curled into each other’s arms.
your little family was almost whole again. all that was missing in the house was alfred. then things would be complete.
Synopsis : Bruce arrives just in time to save you from a situation that is a little too close from home for him…
That scene, in The Batman, where he looks at the mayor’s son and just stares for a bit for obvious reason…It stuck with me. And I got the idea of writing this, Bruce making sure what happened to him never happens again. Also, maybe I wanted to write Battinson interacting with a toddler…Hope you’ll like it. Comments and other reblogs always super welcomed and appreciated <3 :
In retrospect, you think it might be fate, who brought you together that night.
What were the chances that he’d be there, at that exact moment ?
He often said it himself, he couldn’t be everywhere. And yet…
He found you that night. Both of you.
How could you not believe in some kind of destiny, after all these years and what you went through ?
Yes. It’s been years since that night, and it’s an evidence to you.
It’s fate, that took Bruce’s steps towards you. Fate that guided him, that made it so he would make it just in time to save you and your son…
Ah. It’s funny, now. “Your son”. His, too. Who would’ve thought, all those years ago, that your “little buddy” would become the most amazing older brother that ever existed ? Certainly not you. You were so sure, at that time, that you would only ever have one child.
And look at you now. Surrounded by family on that clear evening, eating dinner all together. All because once upon a time, on a terrible night, your path crossed the Batman’s…
Oh. How very different it would’ve been, if fate had decided to never do its little tricks.
************
Ten years ago
There’s some days, you just have no idea how you made it this far.
Some days, you’re not sure you can keep going.
Some days you feel like it’d be oh too easy to just let it all go.
But you can’t give up. If you were alone, maybe. But you’re not. You have your little buddy to take care of. And you could never forgive yourself if you let him down. You didn’t care what happened to you, as long as he was fine.
Nonetheless, it was tough, to be a single mother in Gotham. To be honest, it was tough to be a single mother everywhere in the world. But Gotham ? Gotham had its way of making everything worst.
You could live with the constant judgement everyone was throwing your way. People judging you without knowing your story wasn’t anything new. But you had to admit, sometimes, it got old.
It’s almost funny, how a life can take a radical turn in but a few moment…
One day, you’re painting the nursery of your future child, happy, in love, ready to welcome this little life in the world.
The next, someone calls you to say : “There’s been an accident”, and all your dreams chatter.
Your fiancé was working for a building company, and lately had been on a worksite at “The Ice Lounge”. You didn’t like the idea of him working there. Everyone knew what this place really was full of…But the money was good. And with a baby on the way ? Yeah, of course he’d take the job.
“Work accident” they said, giving you a modest compensation thanks to the “Renewal plan” (was this really what the money was supposed to be used on ?). And just like that, in a few seconds, your fiancé was forever gone. It took you a while to even process what was being said to you through the phone.
Couldn’t someone at least come tell you the news in person ?
Apparently not.
You were given no other infos. You did receive a condolences card from the owner of the place, a certain “Oswald Cobblepot”. Although you’re not really sure he even signed it. You heard the rumors about the man…
You didn’t believe one bit he died because of a “work accident”, but in Gotham ? Nobody cared about the truth. Police were in those people’s pocket, as if they were going to search for foul play.
At the end of the day, the result was the same. If anyone was guilty of his death, they wouldn’t have gone behind bars anyway. Everyone knew how the mafia worked, around Gotham. It was a well known “secret”, for those living in those streets. They would’ve found a scapegoat, and you knew your fiancé would’ve hated that. You would too, an innocent person in prison…No.
It didn’t mean that it was easy to accept. But living in Gotham meant you had to live with certain things. And to be honest, once you ended up all alone with a baby on the way, you had to take your responsibilities quickly.
You unfortunately didn’t have time to chase after the truth. But you would, one day, you would.
For now, you had to work two jobs to stay afloat, and that’s how you ended up here. Late at night. Going home with your baby in your arms.
Well. Baby. He wasn’t really a baby anymore, he would turn three in just a few months. Damn. Three years old already ? Wow. How time flies. Especially when your days are a succession of long working hours and trying to survive.
But you didn’t have a choice. As a single mother, you were near the bottom of the food chain in Gotham, and you had to fight. For him.
Because he deserved better. He deserved the world. You would do anything to give him a decent childhood. Unfortunately, it meant that sometimes, you had to take tough decisions.
Like tonight.
************
You knew bringing your two year old son to work that night, was a bad idea. But what could you do ? You couldn’t miss work, you needed the money. And you were certainly not going to leave your son alone because no one was available.
So you brought him with you.
He fell asleep in the back room, in a little makeshift bed your coworkers made for him…They absolutely adored your boy. And you understood them. Maybe it’s because he felt how hard you had it, but (Son’s name) had always been a calm child. He didn’t cry often, he quickly slept through nights…A blessing, really, given how hectic your life was.
Your night job was in a bar. Your shift ran from 7pm to 3 am. Fortunately, the bar you were working in was a “nice one”. One of those “local street” bar with only people from the neighborhood. Hell, you even served coffee…Ah, but there were many insomniacs, down in Gotham City (you were sure it was fate too, which, years later, made it so that this place you used to work at became your son Tim’s favorite place to get late night coffees during his vigilante shifts).
It was late. It was raining. And you were finally going home, with your little sleeping buddy in your arms. The weather was good, when you left for work, so you did not have an umbrella. You were pretty much soaked. Which didn’t matter, as long as your baby was dry and warm, and safe. Wrapped in your coat against your chest, only his little face was peeking out. He was fast asleep, and the most adorable thing you’ve ever seen.
And you’ve never felt so scared of going home late at night than now.
When you were alone, it was ok. You knew Gotham. You knew the streets to take to get home quick, and to avoid trouble. Sure, you were mugged a few times, but it was never ever really bad because honestly, you didn’t have much to give. And most thugs being out that late were just that, street thugs who didn’t really look for huge trouble.
But right now, with your son in your arms ? You had a bad feeling.
A feeling creeping from your toes to your head. As if you were followed. As if something was lurking out there.
And…you were right. As you turned down a back alley where there usually were nobody, someone got in front of you. By instinct, you took a step back.
Damn. Now, he was going to know you were afraid.
************
The man came out of nowhere.
And instantly, all your sense were on high alert.
A group of thugs was less dangerous than a man lone, in Gotham.
Because someone deciding to attack on his own ? It was someone who didn’t have much to loose. Someone who wouldn’t be too happy with the barely twenty bucks in your wallet…
He stood right in your way, blocking it.
“Your wallet, lady. And that ring, too.”
No. Not the ring. It was the only thing you had left of your fiancé…And you did such a good job hiding it too. You had taken it off of your fingers a while ago, putting it around your neck keeping it safe against your heart.
But it seemed as if your son, as he fell asleep, took hold of it and was holding onto the necklace…
You did not want to give that man your ring. But with your baby in your arm, you weren’t about to risk it. The story of one of the most famous and powerful couple in town came back to your head, in that moment…If Thomas and Martha Wayne could get shot in the streets, just like that, then a nobody like you definitely could too.
“Ok. Just give me a second, ok ?”
This wasn’t good. The man looked nervous, looking all around. You knew what he was looking for. Or rather, who. His looks up and towards the darkest areas of the streets told you everything. And oh man, if only The Batman was around right now…
“Buddy, hey, you have to wake up.”
You didn’t want him to see this. You didn’t want him to live this. What, not even three years old and already his first time getting mugged ? This wasn’t right.
This wasn’t the life you wanted for him. He should’ve never been there. If only you had enough money to pay for a sitter…
He wakes up, and as usual, he’s an adorable little bundle right after sleep. He rarely cried, when you woke him up for whatever reason. Deep down, you think it’s because he’s already aware of the struggles you’re going through. You know it’s ridiculous, he’s just two. Yet it feels so many times he makes your life better…
“Mama.”
“Yes, yes don’t worry buddy. I’ll put you on the ground for a second, ok ?”
He nods and yawns sleepily. He didn’t notice the man in front of you, yet. Everything is alright. Everything is good. You’re handling this. You put him on the ground gently, as you need both your hands to reach for your wallet, which is hidden in an inner pocket of your jacket (can’t be too safe in Gotham).
He’s still wrapped in your coat, coat which drags on the floor as your son’s legs are just too short…
“Mama.”
Worry in his voice. Of course, he would notice the scary man in front of him. He hid behind your leg, holding your pant tightly, your coat slips off of him, and by instinct you try to put it back on him when-
“HURRY UP LADY !”
A gun. Was it there since the start ? You don’t know, but it’s there now. In his hand. Pointed at you.
This was bad. The man was too nervous, he could snap any seconds. You knew this, you’ve lived in those streets long enough to recognize desperate people. You raise your hands, and say :
“Ok here, here just take everything.”
You quickly take your wallet, and your ring from around your neck, and hand it to him.
“Empty your pocket, you must have more !”
“Sir, I’m sorry but I don’t, I-”
“DON’T LIE TO ME BITCH ! WHAT YOU THINK I DON’T KNOW YOU’RE HIDING SOMETHING ?”
He grabs you by the shirt, you hear your son scream, you don’t mean to but…you fight back. It’s a visceral reaction. You’re so scared for your son, as that gun faces downward towards him, that you fight back. You grab his arm and-
BANG.
That was a shot, right ? You looked down at your son, thanks god, he wasn’t touched. But he was looking at you with wide eyes. And you felt like you were slowly falling downward.
Oh. Oh you felt, a little light headed.
“Mama ?”
Why couldn’t you feel his hands anymore ? And why everything was so wet ? It takes you a few seconds to realize you fell on the floor.
“MAMA !!”
No. No. You can’t speak. You wish you could scream. You can’t leave him all alone against that man, you can’t let him get hurt. You try to move, but you can’t. Your can hear (Son’s name) crying now, and the man panicking and then-
SWOOSH.
Swoosh ? That was a weird sound.
You turn your head, and- oh. That’s him.
At least, your son will be safe. And that’s all that matters.
Honestly. What were the odds of him being around here, right now ? It’s almost as if fate brought him there, to save you. You feel your son’s little hands holding your jeans tight, crying, and you really want to stand up, take him in your arms and run, but your strengths are leaving you…
************
FUCK !! Will he ever be on time ?? First his parents, then Alfred, and now-
He did not know you. But he knew this situation all too well. This was probably the most triggered he’ve ever been.
Never again. He promised himself. Never again.
Your son’s cry almost gives him a panic attack. He almost freezes on the spot, seeing the scene unfolds in front of him. In just a few seconds everything goes to Hell, there’s a shot…
It wakes him up. It wakes Bruce up.
He has to act. This is why he became the Batman. This is why he became the Batman ! He jumps from the balcony he was standing on, and drops on the man heavily.
He sees you fall, and the little child (he’s not sure if it’s a boy or a girl, wrapped in that coat like that) shaking you.
And he sees red.
He barely stops himself before he kills that man with his violent punches. Never before has he felt so angry, and close to killing. It’s just-
He’ve seen all this before.
He had been that little boy, on his knees, shaking his parents for them to wake up.
“ ’ake up mama ! ‘Ake up !”
The man is taken care of quickly. His gun is utterly destroyed by Bruce, who makes sure it will never be able to shoot another bullet. And then he runs to you. Your eyes flutter, but do not open. It seems like you feel his presence because you whisper :
“My son…”
You were hurt. Badly. Yet your first thoughts were for your son.
A painful reminder to Bruce. He knew his parents’ last thoughts were for him, for his safety. He didn’t have a child, and to be honest, didn’t think he would ever have children (oh the irony) with the kind of life he was living. Yet he felt what you were feeling.
He remembered his mom’s terrified eyes as she took her last breath. His dad trying to say “Bruce” and “Martha”. The fact they were in this alley because of him…
It’s a love so deep you can’t seem to fully understand it up until you lose it.
And right now, Bruce wasn’t ready to let another child live through this. Especially not as young as that little one seemed to be.
The boy couldn’t stop crying, clinging to his mom and screaming in distress. The kind of cry where you can’t even breathe properly. He coughed, and started to hyperventilate, unable to process all those strong emotions…
He couldn’t be more than three years old. No kid should ever witness something like that.
Bruce was still holding your hand. Tightly. But he had to act. Fast.
Because right now, he knew your life was on the line. He could still feel your heartbeat. He would save you. He would ! Never again will he let a child witness their parents be murdered in front of him. At least, not in Gotham.
************
He had to take you out of this alley. Without thinking much about it, he took you in his arms…And your son hit him.
“Leave mama !”
Bruce realized that he probably didn’t even see him fight the man who shot his mom, and, ah, what a brave little boy. He was soaked to the bones, shivering in the cold night, and his mom just got hurt, and yet here he was, kicking probably the scariest man he ever saw.
There were very few instances, in which Bruce regretted he chose such an intimidating costume. But right now, faced with that little boy who was head bent on protecting his mother, he wished he chose something a little more colorful. He noticed the Spider-Man backpack the little one had…
“I’m going to help your mama, ok ? Help ?”
Your son was young, but not stupid. He didn’t seem to believe Bruce at first, which was understandable. But then Bruce took a lollipop from his utility belt (even now, years later, he still had candies in said utility belt…not many people knew Bruce had a sweet tooth, and then of course with the kids, it became a habit, oh how many times they emptied his “candy pocket” in one evening), and gave it to him.
Your kid was like most kids. If someone gave them candies ? It meant they were nice…He was still too young to understand this was actually something to be weary of. Fortunately, in this instance, it wasn’t.
Bruce took you in his arm, and got your son to jump on his back.
“Hold on.”
“Mm.” the little one nodded, and Bruce took off running. The Batmobile wasn’t far, and he had to hurry.
************
The people at the hospital weren’t shocked to have someone come in with a gunshot wound. To see the Batman though, with a kid holding onto his back ? That was new.
The police was called, and you were sent to the an emergency surgery. Your son whined a little, when you were taken away, calling you. But somehow, Bruce managed to calm him down.
Your son wasn’t “wild”. He trusted people easily. Too easily, in your opinion. You often worried about it. But right now ? It was a blessing, as he seemed to understand that the doctors where going to take care of his “mama”, and just sat there in silence, on The Batman’s lap.
That was quite an odd image.
************
The sun was rising, and Bruce wasn’t sure what to do.
He couldn’t leave him here, all alone. And the police still hadn’t shown up. And so he just sat there, in his Batman costume, in the hospital, with everyone staring at him.
He heard them whisper, and none of them even hid the fact they were talking about him and the child. It was uncomfortable. He hated when people looked at him. Even under the protection of his costume.
Ever since his parents passed away, he had a hard time standing people’s gaze on him. When they died, everyone kept looking at him. They whispered wherever he went. And they stared, stared and stared again.
He hated, when people looked at him like that.
Finally, Jim Gordon showed up, apologizing. Apparently, it been quite a night out there. Bruce knew. Before saving you, he already took care of quite a lot of affairs.
He didn’t even realized, but he didn’t feel any guilt about missing a few hours of the night patrolling. His entire mind was focused on that little boy in his lap, and his mother still in surgery.
His entire mind was plagued by a question : “what if you didn’t make it ?”. He didn’t think he could handle it. So, what if he skipped three hours of patrol ? This was important.
He told what happened to Gordon, and the detective nodded saying they found the man responsible for the shooting. He was also in this hospital, The Batman did not held his punches…
Jim then turned to the little boy in his arms. Your son didn’t fall back asleep (maybe it was the sugar in the candies Bruce kept giving him ?), and was looking at Gordon suspiciously.
He screamed his lung out when the detective tried to take him from Bruce’s arms, writhing and kicking and crying and yelling “no no no”, clinging to Bruce as if his life depended on it, and the Batman didn’t have the heart to let the little one go. He was reminisced of himself, years ago, refusing to let go of Alfred for hours on end after he came back from the police station and the butler came to fetch him…How could he let go ?
He couldn’t. And so he stayed, and held onto that young child who wasn’t an orphan yet, but could very well be at any instant, if you didn’t make it…
************
His clothes were soaked, poor little thing. And he was shaking a little bit. Naturally, Bruce just wrapped him in his cape. Glad he put some “thermopads” in them (thanks to Alfred really, who was starting to be tired of treating his cold when he spend nights out and it was cold. He just had to wrap himself in his cape and…done).
Gordon was looking at the two of them, probably wondering how the Hell did the Batman got himself in that situation. They had lived a lot of things together, over the past two years, but never this.
“What’s your name ?” the detective asked, and the boy just hid in Batman’s cape, peeking out of it sometimes to see if he was still looking at him, and then hiding again.
“You’re scaring him.” Bruce says.
The irony of the matter didn’t escape any of them. What, Jim Gordon, probably one of the only honest policeman in Gotham, scared that little boy, and a man wearing a bat costume and being purposefully intimidating didn’t ?
There was comedy, in this.
Bruce pulled his cape a little, looked at the boy and asked :
“What’s your name?”
The little boy looked at him for a few seconds, and Bruce wondered if he understood. How old was that kid ? Two or three ? Didn’t children speak already at that time ? Man he wished he could call Alfred right now.
Finally, your son, after pondering whether that weird man wearing a bat costume was trustworthy (because yes; he did understand the question), said :
“(Son’s name)"
Bruce’s first thought was that that name fit him. And his second thought was that his voice was adorable. When was the last time he thought this kind of thing ? He realized, never. Interaction with kids weren’t really his forte. They either quivered in fear, or asked too many question.
But here he was.
That little kid, just looking at him curiously, calm and…collected ? At least for a child that young, who was in a stranger’s arm, and who’s mom was nowhere to be seen. Bruce wondered if that little one understood what was going on…
No. No your son wasn’t really sure of what was happening. But there was one thing he knew, and that Bruce couldn’t know.
Bruce couldn’t know what was going on in that little head of his. Your son was only two, almost three. But he understood that Bruce did a good thing for him and you. He understood that this man saved his mama. Kids in Gotham grew up faster than anywhere else, because of the violence they always witnessed. So someone fighting "the bad guys” ? Instant trust.
“Your name ?”
He asked, and Bruce answered :
“V-Batman.”
Your son smiled widely, making everyone’s heart melt, and repeated :
“Man-Man !”
“No no. Bat-man.”
Unable to hear where he pronounced it wrong, the boy repeated :
“…Man-Man !”
“Bat, repeat after me. Baaat.”
“Baaat.”
“Man.”
“Man !”
“Batman.”
“Man-Man !”
Bruce heard himself chuckle. Wh-What ? When was the last time he laughed ?
He couldn’t even remember.
************
Time went by so slowly. And there was still no news about your condition.
Bruce was still waiting, still in his Batman costume. (Son’s name) was finally fast asleep, clutching one of his finger tight. It was…adorable. Bruce couldn’t describe the feeling he felt, holding this child, wrapped in his cape, holding his finger.
It was an odd feeling.
Finally, news arrived. Good news.
You were in an artificial coma right now, but they said you were out of danger. You just needed a lot of rest, and to stay in the hospital for a while.
The “problem” of your son came quickly. The hospital said that the little boy would be able to stay with you, but only in a few days, once you’d leave intensive care. Someone to take care of him had to be found.
“What is going to happen to him ?”
He asked to Jim Gordon, as your son was still asleep in his arms.
“Well, social services will probably-”
“No.”
“What do you mean, no ?”
“He’s going to be scared. I know how social services work, they tried to take me away from-”
Wow. Two years of making sure Bruce Wayne couldn’t be assimilated to Batman, and he almost said : “they tried to take me away from Alfred once”. Wow. He knew his emotions were in shambles. This case really was too close from home.
If Jim Gordon noticed anything, he didn’t say it. He just continued :
“It’s our only option. Unless someone is willing to take him in. I would gladly do so, but it’d unfortunately be a conflict of interest as I’m assigned to his case. And there’s procedures, the person would have to prove they’re fit to take care of him.”
“Anyone could take better care of him than social services…”
“Maybe, but it’s the only option we have right now. You’re going to have to leave him.”
Leave him ? No…
Bruce didn’t dare to even speak to the mayor’s son when he had the occasion to. So now…It felt personal.
This all thing.
It felt like he had to act.
Batman left, leaving the sleeping boy in the care of Jim Gordon. But Bruce Wayne ?
************
Alfred was still in the hospital, and it ended up being a blessing. Another thing that makes you strongly believe all of that happened for a reason, that it was destiny that brought you all together.
Because Alfred still being bedridden in that same hospital Bruce took you to ? It meant that Bruce Wayne had a reason to be there.
And that’s how he made an appearance as his “real” self, and oh, what a coincidence, encountered the social workers who were currently taking care of (son’s name).
The poor little fella seemed greatly distressed. The only person he gave his trust to, the Batman, left while he was sleeping, and he woke up surrounded by people who asked him too many questions.
The social workers didn’t ask Bruce many questions. They knew who he was. They were surprisingly easy to convince (the truth was, they wanted to end this as quickly as possible, and move on, and honesty, who would blame them to give responsibilities to a literal billionaire ? He could always just hire people to take care of him).
In just a few minutes, (son’s name) was in Bruce Wayne’s custody for the next few days. Oddly enough, the little boy didn’t fuss when Bruce took him in his arms, and Bruce had a suspicion that the kid recognized him.
But it wasn’t possible, right ? He was only two, how could he recognize him when he was masked, changed his voice etc ?
Your son didn’t recognize him. But he felt oddly at ease, in his arms. Reminded of another person’s arm, the man who saved you…So he went with it. He’ve always been a sweet and calm child.
************
“Alfred.”
“Yes my boy ?”
“Where are um-…Where are my kid’s clothes ?”
“Your what now ?”
“You know, the clothes I used to wear as a kid. I know you didn’t throw them away. Where did you put them ?”
There was a silence. Before Alfred finally said :
“Why on Earth would you need children’s clothes ?”
There was worries in the butler’s voice, and for reasons. What was his young master’s latest fad now ??
“There’s this boy. Um. His mother. She got shot.”
Oh. Oooh. Oooooh. Wait, what ?
“A…boy ?”
“Yes. I said I would take care of him for a few days.”
Another silence. If Alfred wasn’t still badly injured, he would’ve stand up and shake his master.
“I’m sorry, are you out of your mind ?? You ? With a child ? All alone ??”
As far as he could remember, Bruce hadn’t seen Alfred freak out as much as right now.
“I couldn’t leave him Alfred. I couldn’t.”
Pinching his nose (a gesture that Bruce will mimic a lot in the future, whenever his children would do something that genuinely would give him headaches), Alfred sighed and said :
“Where is he ?”
“Waiting with the nurses.”
“Well bring him in.”
Bruce went to fetch (son’s name). As if it was the most natural thing in the world, the little boy climbed on Alfred’s bed (with a little help from Bruce) and sat there, calmly.
He exchanged a look with Alfred, and something in the butler’s face made him smile and say :
“Hewwoooo.”
“Well hello there young man.”
“You have booboo ?”
“Yes. Yes I do.”
“Mama do too.”
“Your mama is hurt ?”
The boy nods, and then say : “But ish okay.”
“It is ?”
He nods again, and adds : “Man-Man save her.”
Alfred turns to Bruce, who shrugs and aaah. Of course. “Man-Man”. Everything made sense, now. Why did his master want to take care of this child.
Of course.
************
The least that we can say, is that things definitely got out of hand a lot of time. Bruce had never taken care of a child (crazy that people thought, just because he was extremely rich, he was fit to take care of him). He called Alfred one too many time.
The poor butler, stuck in his hospital bed, was literally pulling his hair because of the worry (an explanation to his premature baldness ?).
“What do you mean you gave him ice cream for dinner ?? That is not appropriate Master Bruce !”
“He’s two years old, of course he has to go to bed before midnight !”
“*sighs* Can you repeat please ? You let him do what with our highly priced and precious collection of Fabergé eggs ?”
“Master Bruce, please, by real food and stop giving him candy. This is why he doesn’t want to take a nap, he’s high on sugar.”
“He does need to wear pants, yes.”
“Master Bruce, with all due respect, that “wallpaper” was a five hundred years old tapisserie from England, and yes I’m a little mad you let him paint on it. It was a relic from the Queen herself that she gifted to your grandfather !”
“NO A CHILD DOES NOT NEED A MILLION DOLLAR WHAT WOULD HE DO WITH IT ANYWAY ??”
Bruce had people babysit him at night, pretending he had “things to do” and honestly ? Nobody questioned it. Everyone knew Bruce Wayne was a little odd. He even heard one of the caretaker whispering something about him being the master of a “sex dungeon”…Good, people were miles away from suspecting he was the Batman.
Having that many people home though made him uncomfortable. It was a painful reminder of when his house was full of help, during his parents’ time, and how so many of them tried to sell pictures of a crying Bruce right after their death…Alfred fired all of them.
But he couldn’t leave (son’s name) alone at night. However, one evening, as it was time for (son’s name) to go to bed, Bruce heard him whimper. It wasn’t a full on cry, just a sob, barely noticeable.
“Mama…”
He was calling for you. And Bruce didn’t have the heart to leave him alone. For the first time in two years, he took a night off. The Batsignal wasn’t shining anyway. And he stayed with that lost little boy, who was calling for his mom and who reminded him of himself…He was such a brave child.
Bruce never thought he would one day console a crying kid. Hold him in his arm until he was asleep. Stay to make sure he was ok. He felt…Was this how Alfred feel when he stayed entire nights in Bruce’s room to wake him up if he had a nightmare ?
*************
(Son’s name) only stayed with Bruce for three days, but it meant something for him. Never before had an experience change him so much…Well, if you don’t talk about his parents dying right in front of his eyes of course (yes, I think I’m funny).
The boy was curious, eager to learn, sweet, a little stubborn, and he did have one massive tantrum (over the silliest of things : he really didn’t want to wear pants and only hang out in his PJ) but just like any kid, really ?
Bruce was really impressed by how your son handled this entire situation. Being thrown into a stranger’s house, surrounded by strange things…Of course, being so young, your son didn’t always realize what was going on. And thanks god children don’t really have any notion of time, because he always would be satisfy with “tomorrow” as an answer to him asking “when will I see mama ?”.
************
You woke up in a panic. But were quickly reassured that your son was alright, and taken care of. By instinct, you went for the ring around your neck, forgetting that you had given it to the ma- No. It was there.
Who put it back around your neck ? The Batman ?
It didn’t sound like something he’d do, right ? Yet…The ring was back around your neck. And someone put it there. Nobody else but the Batman and your son were in the alley that night. So…
You had to remember to thank that Batman one day, if you ever saw him again.
************
Four days later, you were able to receive visitations. And of course, the first person was your son. And…Bruce Wayne ??
Nobody even told you HE was the one taking care of your child. What the fuck. This was..unexpected. How did that even happen ?? You would only truly understand that years later, when you’ll find out he’s The Batman. For now, it was really strange, and nobody seemed to really know how and why Bruce Wayne was here.
To be fair, everyone assumed it was all a coincidence. That Bruce came to see Alfred, and heard the story of that little boy, that reminded him of his own story and…it made sense for everyone. And it was partly the truth. Yes; the entire thing was close from home for him.
And it did make sense he would decide to help a boy going through the same kind of experience he did (except, thanks the gods, you survived).
First thing first, you hugged your boy. Tightly. And then… :
“What the hell are you wearing ?” you said, as you looked him up and down. Was that a..SUIT ?!
“Um, sorry. I didn’t have much clothes left from where I was a child. Only…tuxedos and polos, apparently.”
You were feeling much better now, after a few days of rest. Turned out, the shot you received went right through you, and didn’t touch any important organs. How lucky.
And here your son was. With Bruce Wayne. Wearing a “tuxedo for children”. This was all too much. Too strange. You burst out in laughter, unable to stop yourself even though each laugh hurt.
Your son quickly followed, with his cute little laugh. Him too, was unable to stop.
And before he realized it, Bruce too, was laughing. Like he hadn’t in years. The nurses even had to come in and tell you to keep it down because all three of you couldn’t stop laughing…which only enhanced your laughter.
It took you ages to finally stop.
************
Fate. Fate reunited the three of you together. You were sure of it. How else could you explain what happened next ?
************
After Bruce left the hospital, saying his “good byes” to (son’s name) (who cried, and it was heart wrenching), Bruce felt oddly empty. Like he was making a mistake, leaving you two behind without another word. It’s as if destiny was telling him to go back. To ask for your number. To come back later to ask for news. But to not just turn the page on this chapter.
He should move on. He saved you. Made sure your son still had his mom. His mission was over, his goal to never let happen what happened to him again was over. Yet he felt like he had to go see you again. Like if he didn’t, he would forever regret it…
Why couldn’t he take you out of his mind ? And (son’s name) ? Why ?
And you ? Why couldn’t you stop thinking about this Bruce Wayne guy ? You didn’t even know him, yet it felt like you did. Things clicked between you, you felt it. And even better, things clicked between him and your son. Clearly, those two were meant to get along.
************
It took a long time, before you and Bruce started to date.
You still had some healing to do. Both physical and mental. And he still had a lot of issues to resolve. Ah, that could be a story in its own, really, how you came to finally be together (A/N : yes you guessed it, I’mma write it…this one was just getting too long to put it here haha).
Funny enough, it’s your son, who opened his heart to Bruce first. You don’t know what happened between the two, but obviously, the few days they spend together had straighten a bond that will never break.
Bruce already felt, deep in his heart, that (Son’s name) changed him, that now, nothing could ever be the same. And he kept coming to check in on you, and on (son’s name).
As Batman, he reopened the case of your fiancé’s death, finding out the truth (spoiler alert : it was not an accident). Working with Jim Gordon, he discovered that many people who worked on the “Below 44″, such as your fiancé, mysteriously died of “work accident” during the years of its building, and they uncovered a large conspiracy. But more importantly, they gave justice to your fiancé, at long last. And by doing that, finally gave you closure.
Closure that allowed you to truly move forward.
Forward…To him. With him.
************
The rest was history.
Bruce wooed you (and it was the most awkward thing you’ve ever seen, you couldn’t believe that later on, before your relationship would go public, he had the guts to take a “playboy” persona given how bad at flirting he truly was).
It took some times, but he managed to finally have what he truly wanted, for the first time in years. You. And by extension, your son.
His son.
************
It’s crazy, to think about. Years passed, but the feelings were still as strong. You loved that man. You loved your children, of course.
Ah. Children.
(Son’s name), of course. Who grew up to be such a good man, and oh how different his life would’ve been if Bruce hadn’t been there that night ? The man he quickly started to call “dad” definitely saved him too, that fateful evening. Your early years of dating, when he was still a toddler, were quite something.
Dick came in quickly after Bruce and you officially got together. Barely a few years older than (Son’s name), he fit right in. He had always wanted to be a big brother, and (Son’s name) ? All he knew was that now, he had a partner in crime. And that was great. They bond was instantly strong.
Then Jason followed. Lost little street kid who reminded you of yourself at his age. So eager to please, and to have a family. He would never admit it, but he still loved it when you and (son’s name) especially treated him like the baby of the family, even if he technically wasn’t.
Tim. Too smart for his own good. Made (Son’s name) loudly say : “What the fuck ? Alfreeeeed !”. You all instantly felt very protective over that little boy who was definitely way too clever. And what a surprise to him, to finally be at the center of everyone’s attention. To find his place in a family…
Cassandra. Your only daughter. Adored by her brothers, by her dad, and of course, by you. Suffered so much, and yet the kindest young woman you’ve ever met.
Damian. What a shock, when he came in your life and you all learned of his existence. He was conceived before you met Bruce, and raised by the League for ten years…It was difficult, at first. But none of you would give up on him. Never. Ah, the change in his behavior could be a story of its own (wink wink).
And finally, recently, Duke joined your family. It was now time to make sure him too, would feel at home.
Yes. One can wonder what would’ve happened if Bruce didn’t came across your path, and saved you.
Well I hope you liked this ! I think I might write other fics there and there about how Bruce wooed reader specifically, and just use more of that little toddler in other stories about this alternative Batfamily (AU from my own timeline at least). Comments and reblogs are always welcomed of course :) And motivating and all, ya know the drill. Thank you <3.
Synopsis : Tonight is the night. Tonight, you’re finally too tired to continue, it’s enough. Your decision is made. This is the end. Finally. Except, your path crosses The Batman’s, and he’s not about to give up on you. He won’t ever give up again. Can he really save you, though ?
TW : Suicidal thoughts. Spoilers for the movie (about Bruce’s character development, but no major plot points or events).
************
Bruce, atop one of his favorite building (Old Wayne Tower had always fascinated him, even as a child), was perusing Gotham city.
His city.
And, he realized, he did not feel the usual rage inside him, that overwhelmed him whenever he looked at those streets.
Those streets which took his parents away from him.
How novel, to not feel this resentment.
To look at what he once only saw as grim, and a way to avenge his parents mindless murder, in a new light.
To look at those streets…
Those streets which took too many parents away from their children. Too many children from their parents. Too many brothers, sisters, lovers, friends…
Yet. Yet here he was. Looking down there, with a new sense of purpose. Without this need for vengeance. This pure hatred and grief turned into violence, that was all too familiar…was gone.
It was both odd and amazing. It was both exhilarating and a little scary. Because, being “Vengeance” was easy. He could just pounce on villains, and use his brain to foil their plans. Destroy. Hurt. Ravage. Easy.
But being a sigil of hope ? It colored everything in a new way. It meant he had to be more careful, to be the one who will give Gotham City’s inhabitants a new ray of sunshine. Difficult, when you were a night vigilante.
Bruce couldn’t help but chuckle to himself. To think he realized, after two years “on the job”, what he really stood for, was still a little strange.
Yet it happened. Finally, some might say (some being mainly a certain Alfred Pennyworth). And although the pain inside his heart would never truly go away entirely, it wasn’t a source of vengeance anymore, but of hope. And love.
Because in the end, what drove him to become the Batman ? Was it the need to avenge, or the love for his parents which turned into pure hatred for crime ? A love so strong that once it was torn apart by their death, it was also distorted into something dark and unbearable.
Yes. It was love which drove his every decisions. Love for his mother and father, for Alfred, for his city and its inhabitants. (And maybe a little love for punching those who deserved in in the face, without fear of repercussion).
Another chuckle. What would the Bruce from two years ago think ? And the one from over a decade ago ? Ah, but those Bruces were ones that were still stuck in the “anger” phase of grief. And the Bruce from now ?
Acceptance.
Acceptance to be more than his pain. Acceptance to be a beacon of hope. To be more than that kid who witnessed his parents’ murder. Acceptance to be truly and fully, The Batman, the one that city deserved and needed.
The pain of his loss would never truly go away, but now…Now there was a silver lining amongst the clouds.
And he felt -no- he knew there was a future, after all. One not constantly dimmed by an endless amount of hurt.
Maybe it was fate, that just as he truly processed all of that, as he realized there was always hope even amongst endless nights, that he met you.
Someone who looked utterly lost, and all alone in the world.
Someone who had the same inkling of pain and despair in their eyes, the one Bruce could recognize anywhere because he saw it every day for the past fifteen years every time he looked at himself in the mirror.
Someone standing way too close from that building’s edge…
************
Climbing on the little wall “securing” the rooftop was easier than you thought.
What if it was too high ? What if you couldn’t lift yourself up ?
You told yourself that if it was the case, then it was a sign that you shouldn’t do it. That you shouldn’t jump. It was always like that right ? If everything wasn’t perfectly aligned, then you wouldn’t do it.
This wasn’t the first time your suicidal thoughts overtook your entire being.
The first time it felt like nothing mattered anymore, not even you. The first time you felt like a burden pulling everyone down with you, and honestly, wouldn’t they be better without you ?
This wasn’t the first time that you felt dead inside, like you’re just a ghost living in a body you don’t recognize. When look in the mirror, you see a stranger. A pale, tired, miserable stranger that kind of looks like you.
This wasn’t the first time.
What once made you happy is now tedious, and what once made you just a little bummed out makes you want to die.
You scrolled through your phone contacts that night, as this moment of deepest need started to rise. But you were sure that there wasn’t a single person who would help you without resenting you. Have you been lying to yourself all along about how much you matter ? Yes. Yes you have, haven’t you ?
Everything was so dark and hopeless. And you get that all too familiar tunnel vision surrounded by pain and the only way out is to end it all. The numbness is so deep and excruciating it overwhelms and drains everything out of you. Words can’t even describe how lonely and terrifying this is.
You’re tired.
This isn’t the first time. And you’re so tired.
When will this end ?
It’s as if you don’t even exist. You feel useless, worthless, unworthy and like you’re a burden. It’s like an elephant is sitting on you, holding you down and keeping you from living (but also keeping you from dying ?). It’s as if you watch, lifeless and numb, as everyone carries around unaware you even exist, unaware of your constant fight inside, unaware…
You did try to talk about it.
A few times.
To friends. Or, at least, people you thought were friends. Because when you started to finally talk about your never-ending suicidal ideas, they shrugged it off as you being too stress. Or said things like : “you need to seek professional help” and HOW ?!
Your health insurance wasn’t covering therapy sessions. You barely scraped by, like many in Gotham City…how could you afford professional help ? You knew they were right. You did need to see a therapist. But you also all knew that their suggestion was unfortunately impossible.
Because you didn’t have the money. Because this was “the American dream”, and you didn’t even have time to do any self-care. When you weren’t working, you were sleeping. And vice-versa. Or quite literally, you would end up not even being able to pay to survive (and was it so bad ?).
And so here you are. All alone again. And you feel like you’re drowning in the middle of the ocean, and Death is a floating raft. All you can do is to keep wading until you completely exhaust yourself, or finally climb aboard it…
Nobody could help. Nobody would help anyway.
You were sure of it.
Because you already tried to talk, and the answers were all the same. Friends ended up drifting away from you. Couldn’t blame them. After all, who would want to be around someone who could sometimes just be a total buzzkill, and rant too much about how they felt everything was wrong ?
When you so often felt suicidal, rejection from others was normal, you thought.
Others too, had to take care of their own mental health. Being around you was a curse. That’s how it felt. Talking to you drained people. And your countless call for help ended up isolating you even more.
Why ? Did they not understand ? Was it too much for them ? Was helping someone like you…just impossible ? An unbearable burden ?
Yes. Yes. That was it.
And this was it.
The wall was easy to climb. You didn’t meet anybody on your way up to the rooftop, and there was not a soul around to even try to stop you. Everything was aligned, that night.
And here you were, on the edge of the building.
And strangely, you weren’t scared. There was even a sense of peace. Because it was all going to be over soon. This endless pain. It was going to be gone. You just needed to take one small step forward.
And you did. Closing your eyes, and feeling both relieved this was going to end soon, and scared of what was going to happen afterward.
It was too late to think about it. Because you took that step. And you started falling. And-
Stopped.
Right in your tracks.
A hand took hold of your arm, just as you were falling. You turn around and…
************
That, you didn’t expect.
You were ready. Everything was aligned. And then-
A hand. A strong one at that. Pulling you away back on the edge.
And then arms wrapping around you, to make sure you’re not going to resist and try to jump again.
You’re too surprised to resist. You turn your head, and…
Batman ?
THE Batman ?
What the fuck.
************
“Um. Can you let go ?”
“Can I ?”
“I’m not going to jump.”
“Promise ?”
“What the- Are you a child ?”
“I’m sorry. I cannot let you go if you do not promise.”
“What even makes you think I will keep my promise ?”
“A feeling.”
A feeling that is right. You hate people who break their promises. Maybe because too many people broke theirs to you ?
You nod. When he doesn’t make a move to let you go, you groan and say out loud :
“Yeah yeah. I promise.”
“Alright.”
He releases you, and doesn’t take you away from the edge. Why ? You’re not sure. Maybe because he knows he can just stop you again if he has to ? You can see a grappling hook, on that belt.
Not like you were going to jump anyway. You promised. You weren’t going to. At least, not right now.
There’s an awkward silence. What is going to happen now ? You’re not sure how long this goes on, this weird staring at each other.
You look at him, he looks at you. Neither moving. Neither speaking.
Too awkward. You have to say something. And so you do :
“Um, are you just going to stand there ?”
“Until I’m sure you’re safe, yes.”
“Don’t you have people who actually wants to be saved to, you know, save ?”
“I cannot leave until I’m sure you’re safe.”
A dry chuckle escapes you. One full of sarcasm, which he clearly understands. You’re sure he’ll eventually leave. Once that bat signal turns on, he’ll leave.
Everyone leaves eventually.
And then everything will be aligned again, for you to do what you came here to do. Because what if he stopped you ? He couldn’t change what was in your heart. Nobody could. And you just wanted the pain to stop.
Death was the only hope.
Ah. Funny. “Hope”. Because what was going to happen next, revolved entirely around hope, right ?
************
He stayed. What else could he do ?
Early in the morning, he had a few meetings at Wayne Enterprises (he only just recently decided to fully commit to his job there). And now, there was maybe other people to help. But he couldn’t leave you.
What could he do, but stay ?
He knew that force wouldn’t work. That if he, let’s say, put you in a cell for the night so that you had no mean to kill yourself, it would make things worst. Once upon a time, to be fair, he probably would’ve done that. Put you somewhere he was sure you couldn’t harm yourself, maybe tie you up or something, and leave to go beat up criminals who needed a beating.
But that was him before. And he couldn’t leave. The bat signal wasn’t on anyway. No emergencies. Except for this one, right in front of him.
Except for you, eyes devoid of hope and looking lost.
A kind of “lost” he understood oh too well.
When he was younger, he had felt so desperate that he wanted to die. Just for the pain to stop. And if Alfred hadn’t been there, he’s pretty sure he would’ve tried to end it all at one point.
But during that time, Alfred was annoyingly (but fortunately) always there. He never let his dear “Master Bruce” out of his sight for too long, because he knew how the boy felt.
At the time, Bruce didn’t believe him. But Alfred knew. Bruce just didn’t care enough yet to ask about the majordomo’s past life, before he became the faithful Wayne family’s butler…But that was another story.
Long story short, Alfred understood. And so he made sure to be the boy’s shadow for years (and even Bruce never realized how much that was true). Up until Bruce’s despair turned into the need for vengeance, and he left to train, coming back years later with this “Batman” idea…
Although he didn’t have those thoughts anymore, Bruce knew how it felt. Knew how it was, to be overwhelmed by this sense of isolation. Like nobody understands, and you don’t want to bother them anyway.
He felt this before. When the pain inside you has so far exceeded your threshold, that your only option left is to give up, or give into it (which he did, as he turned to violence for an ounce of relief). It’s like you keep trying to swim back ashore, but isn’t getting anywhere closer, and you’re just slowly wearing out as if caught in a riptide, drifting further and further. Screaming at people on the shore, but they can’t hear you. After a while, you feel like the world and everyone in it will be better off without you.
Bruce told Alfred, once. When he was ten. He told him that he probably would feel better without him. That he was a burden and stopped him from living his life properly. Alfred, in that moment, did something he still regrets up until now, but that shook Bruce to the core.
He slapped him. He slapped him and said : “never say that again, a world without you in it, Master Bruce, would not be worth living for.”
Did the Alfred think like him, then ? Without his parents, it didn’t feel like he should go on. Only ten, too smart for his own good already, and matured too fast. It stuck with him though. This slap. And Alfred’s words.
A lot of time, he genuinely thinks it’s because he kept thinking of the man who became his father figure, that he didn’t end it all. And because he turned his grief and despair into hate, which wasn’t the solution either.
Yes. Bruce knows. He knows what it is to be at the end of the line.
So he stays. Right there. Next to you.
There’s a silence. A long one. And he just stays.
He doesn’t guilt trip you for your thoughts and behavior, he doesn’t try to argue with you about the morality (or immorality ?) of suicide. He doesn’t do what so many people did before him.
You don’t feel ashamed, somehow.
So many people belittled you, although not on purpose, for feeling the way you felt. And he doesn’t. Even as you thought this was exactly the kind of man to do that.
He doesn’t. And he’s here. He stays.
Naturally, you both sit down on that dangerous edge. You don’t think about jumping though, too taken aback by this man sitting next to you.
“Do you want to talk ? It’s ok if you don’t.”
For so long, ever since you were rejected by a few friends when you talked about it, you found yourself unable to tell anyone your true feelings. You were unsure how to speak about it. Concerned they wouldn’t understand. Fearful of being judged and shunned. Worried you’d upset them.
But here is that man, dressed as a bat, who’s pastime you knew was to beat up criminals…sitting there. Asking you if you wanted to talk to him. And telling you it was ok if you didn’t.
And you found yourself beginning to talk.
About how you were born in Gotham’s slums, and you knew nothing else. How you thought it was normal, to constantly be abused because that was the only life you knew. How you first broke down, and nobody was there to help.
You tell him about things he already knows. He’s aware how tough life in Gotham can be, and how it affects people’s mental health. Gotham had one of the highest suicide rate in the country…
He tells you you’re not weaker than some people. He tells you resilience isn’t always a quality. That everyone breaks, at some point. And that reaching for help is ok. That it’s hard, even. That it took him a long time to understand that.
And your suspicions are confirmed. He also went through what you’re going through.
And you continue. You talk. And talk. And talk. And he listens. Truly listens.
“This city took everything from me.” You say. And he answers :
“I know.”
That’s when the tears start. And don’t stop for a long time. You barely notice an arm around your shoulder, making you feel oddly safe.
And you cry. God. You needed that.
He doesn’t tell you your feelings are wrong. He doesn’t tell you “you don’t have good enough reasons to feel depressed, and lost, and alone, and pain”. He doesn’t tell you you have to change. He doesn’t judge you.
It’s not your fault you have those thoughts. It’s not. And by not making you feel small because you hurt (sometimes without knowing the reason why), he already helps. It’s ok. It’s ok. Your feelings are valid.
They are valid.
The sun comes up. And he’s still here.
“You’re really not going ?”
“I’m really not going.”
“Won’t people be suspicious if you’re not around today ? In your real life, I mean ?”
“I doubt that. So, I’ll stay. Just for a little longer. Okay ?”
Silence again. Up until you turn your head to look at the horizon, and answer :
“Okay.”
************
All it took was someone reaching out. All it took was finally truly saying “yes” to this help.
“I was blinded by my emotions. I couldn’t see past those hopeless feelings. Now, things are clearer to me. Suicidal thoughts aren’t permanent, things do improve. You can find your motivation to live again. Please, reach for help.”
Bruce was so proud. You went such a long way, since he met you that fateful night. Things weren’t always easy. Hell no, quite the contrary.
There were times he was sure he was going to lose you, if he only closed his eyes for once second. That you were going to make that jump…
He never left though. No matter how hard things were. Because he promised himself he would never again let despair overtake him, and because you were too good a soul for him to not try everything possible to keep you away from that dark pit.
After that day and night, when he stayed with you up until you promised you would stay safe, he kept on checking on you.
Every single day. No matter how little time he had. He came by, even if for just a few minutes. And he was the first step to you recovering from your suicidal thoughts.
“Build your support network”, was one of the first advice your therapist gave you (therapist you were able to see thanks to an “anonymous benefactor”, not suspicious at all…As if you didn’t immediately guess it was him). A precious advice. Because it truly was primordial. Up until then, you realized you just weren’t around people who were good for you. The toxic environment didn’t help your thoughts, and it wasn’t normal that some people made you feel worthless and as if it was your fault you weren’t feeling well.
Surrounding yourself with positive influences and people who made you feel good about yourself was the key. And who else but him, made you feel the best ? You would’ve never thought that The Batman was so funny, and witty. You always had that image of him being super scary (which is the feeling he wanted to instill), but he wasn’t. He could even be really sweet (he did came by EVERY SINGLE DAY).
The more you invested yourself in other people, in your community, the more you realized you had to lose. Which helped you ground yourself in reality. Because yes, now, you did have things and people to lose. And it helped you stay positive and onto recovery.
Because he was around so much, it became easy for you to guess who he really was. You could see “Bruce Wayne” getting more and more invested in bettering Gotham…how could you not recognize that jawline ?
You waited for him to tell you first though. Which he did. And that was another thing : trust.
Trust in others. Recovered. Thanks to him (and to him, thanks to you).
He did tell you. One day when he wasn’t feeling well, and needed your support. This is why you work so well together. When one falls, the other one is always there to catch them.
You helped each other to identify your “triggers”, and other situations that lead to feelings of despair. The anniversary of his parents’ loss, your first mental breakdown, sounds that were too loud, drugs…You made a list. And made sure you would be careful, not getting upset at others if they triggered you. Because how could they know ? You were responsible for your triggers.
But you two ? You knew the other one’s weaknesses. You knew what could send them over the edge. So when a situation arose, you were always saving each other.
You also developed “self-care days”, or moments, if you didn’t have much time. Ate right, never skipped a meal (Alfred made sure of that), and got enough sleep (not “plenty” unfortunately…but enough). Exercised a lot too, which released the right amount of endorphins…Not like Bruce didn’t exercise before. Maybe doing it with you now, did help ?
Somewhere along the way, your relationship naturally bloomed into love. A kind of love you never felt before. A kind of love worth living for.
“Life is worth it, and I’ll prove it” he once told you, near the beginning of it all. You were skeptical, and told him “sure”, rolling your eyes. But he did.
He did prove it to you. Every single day. Even before you fell for him, and he for you. He showed you the things worth living for.
Helping others, making the suffering of people smaller, a simple smile could brighten someone’s day. As The Batman, he often encountered situations that were desperate, and he couldn’t always save everyone…
But hope never died. That’s something he showed you. Every day.
One, two, three…one hundred, two hundred, three hundred…The number of days he kept trying increased. Love slowly build itself.
A love worth living for.
And there were so much more, worth living for.
You developed new interests. Being with Bruce gave you the opportunity to volunteer a lot, and your life took a new sense of meaning and purpose when you were finally able to build foundation for others. Such as the one you created now, to help those in need who struggle with mental illnesses. And hey, when you’re doing something fulfilling, you always feel better about yourself.
Yes. You both help one another tremendously. Although you will always felt he helped you more, and he was the reason you slowly found a new taste for life. All it took, was the impulse he gave you.
His endless pain turned into endless hope. Given to you.
“I know the fear of loss because of you” you once told him, and this was a good thing, although it sounded like it wasn’t. Because being afraid of losing what you loved, or thinking of him once again losing someone he loved…
“Life is worth it, I’ll show you.”
He did. He did show you.
You couldn’t help but think there was a little “luck” factor, that you saw as destiny. Fate. You met the right person, at the right moment. Every rejection you went through, every toxic relationship, lead you there.
On that rooftop, on that night.
You met the right person, at the right moment.
You both did.
You, because you were saved (although this didn’t came with a snap of the fingers, you actually WORKED hard on yourself to finally feel a little better…The support did help).
Him, because it was right at a moment he needed to know there really was hope. And convincing you to not jump, that day, was just that.
Pure hope.
Which fructified.
Because look where you both were, now.
You, talking about the important issue of mental illnesses, and opening your first very own organizations to help those who need help but cannot afford it.
And him, still being The Batman, but one who achieved and found his purpose.
Both of you, becoming beacons of hope in a city that desperately needed it, and that was slowly rediscovering the sunshine.
_________________________________________________
This story is very personal and close to my heart. I poured all my feelings into it. This is a therapeutic story, to close a really bad chapter in my life. I’m doing great now so please don’t worry, but felt like I needed to write this. I hope you liked it. And a few more words :
If you feel suicidal, please call your countries’ lifeline (it does help). Or talk. To anyone. Do not stay alone. The hardest step is to reach out, and I know it’s hard, especially since there WILL be people who reject you for how you feel. My DMs are always open, if you need to talk. And unlike many, I really mean it. I went through this, and am one who luckily survived. Writing this story was like purging myself from the “experience” (my English is lacking to find the right word), and I know how it feels to be fully consumed by those thoughts. Reach out. Please. This is your sign to not give up just yet.
Synopsis : Two years ago, you were “saved” by the vigilante they know called “The Batman” from joining up with a gang. At the time, you saw this as the only escape from the tough life you lived down in Gotham’s slums. But he beat up those who wanted to recruit you and a bunch of other lost kids, and changed your perception of life. You started to train to become a cop, wanting to help better the city. Wanting to tackle the corruption right at its core. Ah, to be a youngster full of dreams
TW : mention of cheating, and there’s a NSFW scene. 18+, minors do not interact. Some The Batman spoilers. Strong language. Violence.
For real, if you are underaged, or uncomfortable with this kind of content this story isn’t for you . I have many SFW work available for you to read over on my masterlists blog :@ella-ravenwood-archives. Please. This is smut with feelings and an actual story, but still it iz wat it iz. Be aware of that (I will also mark it once it’s coming in the story, to be fully safe).
“Crimes are always the highest in poor neighborhoods”, said an article you once read, when you were in high school, in your “current event” class. It made you chuckle, as you looked around you and saw a decrepit “school” full of teachers afraid of their students, and students terrified of their teachers.
You know what was even scarier ? The fact that so many of you just decided that : “that’s just how it is”, and settled to have a life of misery, fighting every day for survival down in Gotham’s slums.
No change had happened in such a long time, every single person living under the line of poverty just decided to live with the fact it was never goingtochange. And that’s an awful thing to think about. At the same time, if you expect nothing from life, you can only be pleasantly surprised, right ?
Yeah. No. Because even when you expect nothing, a place like Gotham City always had “surprises” that you definitely could do without. Like the local mafia taking hold of the neighborhood’s electricity, and you had to pay them to keep the heater on. And in Gotham in winters ? Saying it was cold was an euphemism. It was either finding the money, or freezing to death in your room.
Finding money.
Was this life ? A perpetual fight to keep your head above the water, to be able to eat at least a meal a day ? What a nightmare.
Naturally, as you grew up, you slowly drifted more and more towards a world you never thought would be yours. A world in which there was “easy money”.
Crime.
It felt like it was the only exit to misery, in certain part of Gotham. Joining up a gang, it was indeed easy money and protection, you know ? Not very enviable, yet it really felt for many young people down in the worst places of the city like it was their only escape.
A chance to become someone, and to actually live, even if it meant getting your hands dirty.
It was either that, or turning into shells of people. Like their parents. Like your parents. Working their asses off every day, not earning enough money, living in unsanitary conditions with a rent too high for those shitty apartments, and literally risking your life every day by simply going outside.
There were areas in Gotham that were “no go zones” for anyone who could avoid them. The Bowery, The Narrows…Dirty, slender places with flickering lights at night, and too many dark alleyways you best not venture in.
Your very own Skid Row. The West coast definitely didn’t have to envy you on that point…Hey, at least you had a roof over your head, you know ? What a grim silver lining. Your room was leaking when it rained anyway…
What were your options, really ? You didn’t want to survive, you wanted to live. What was the point of merely going through days with no hope, nor sun ?
That’s when you saw him for the first time. At the deepest of your despair for a better future. And he “saved” you from making the worst mistake of your life.
************
You were about to reach a point of no-return. To join up with a notorious small local gang, affiliated with the Maroni Family. You hadn’t been able to pay for college, and were working three shitty job to keep you afloat.
What were your options, really ?
You saw what this city did to your parents. And to so many people around you.
You were not about to end up like them. Grinded to the core, turned into a “zombie”, barely living really.
You suddenly finally understood that article you read all those years ago. Of course crime would be more proficient in poor neighborhood. People had nothing to lose, and sometimes joining up with what most viewed as bad people were their only way to have a “family”, a community, a support they wouldn’t have otherwise…This was why gangs were so appealing to disadvantage kids. Such as yourself.
It was a double edged sword, of course. Sure, joining a gang seemed appealing in many ways, but you knew you’d have to leave part of your humanity at the door. And at this point, you were ok with this. Because living in Gotham City’s slums already made you feel barely human anyway.
You were now in an alley, and everyone could guess what was about to happen. An initiation. New comers in a gang that plagued the city, yet the only escape for many of them.
And here you were. And here He was, too.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
The hell was this noice ? Where did it came from ?
The dark. This dark that always instilled fear into your heart, because you never knew what was in it.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
Boots on the floor ? Yes. And…who the hell was this dude ?!
“It’s not Halloween yet, you freak. Get going or you’ll be in trouble.”
You always found the boss of this gang intimidating. Scary. And boy you definitely didn’t want to be that weirdo disguised as- what was it ? A bat ? What a freak indeed. He was going to get his ass-
What the actual fuck.
Beaten to a pulp in a few seconds, and it wasn’t the one you were betting on. That bat-guy got rid of the boss in a few punches. Hard punches, and the sound of his jaw breaking made you shiver.
Quickly, the others started to attack him, and he got rid of all of them with apparent ease. Who was this guy ??
Then, he turned to you. You and the other “kids” who were about to have your initiation (a scar on your harm in the form of a crow, thanks god Batman came before you endured that, because it was something you could never get rid of once it was branded on you..) just stared at him.
And then, they all ran away. Except for you. Because you felt mesmerized by this dude, who just dropped in, beat everyone, took their guns, and…He was leaving now.
Your eyes crossed his, for a few seconds. It was clear he had no intention to fight you or your friends, he just came to beat the gang up (probably had it coming). And that’s when it clicked in your head.
How could you think that joining the very problem would make anything better ? When did you lose hope so much, that you thought being part of a gang, the very thing that made Gotham City such a terrible place to live in, was a good idea ?
In that short time your eyes crossed the Batman’s, you felt a resolve in his look that you’ve never seen before. This. This was someone who wanted change.
This was someone who wanted to make an impact.
It inspired you. Greatly. You really hoped that one day, you could see him again so you could tell him he was the reason you made a drastic decision that night.
************
At first, it wasn’t easy. Finding the money, working two jobs while following classes…But in the end, it wasn’t actually that hard to join the force.
Who would’ve thought becoming a cop was so easy ? Shouldn’t they have more training ? Maybe that was why so many of them were so trigger happy…
You still believed there were good cops though. And you were motivated to become one. To help better this city, truly. And to stand up for what was right.
You obviously couldn’t become a night vigilante. But you could try to make this place a better one, from the inside. You had ambition. You had will. Motivation.
You were going to be part of the change.
************
Was the only good cop in Gotham city Jim Gordon ?????
You knew this city was wretched to the core, but to that extend ? You never imagined it. You kept being assigned to new partners, as you adamantly refused any sort of corruption. You knew at some point, they would try to get rid of you. That they were going to make sure you’d get a desk job, or worst.
Thanks god for people like James Gordon, who still believed in what a “cop” was supposed to be. Those were so few.
Corruption, racial profiling, use of excessive force, bribes to look the other way or to scare someone…
Every flaw you could think of in a cop ? You could find them in way too many officers of the GCPD. But you held on. Because you had renewed hope. And this was a hard thing to kill, especially in young minds.
Gordon was working with the Batman, who was highly disliked amongst the police rank (for obvious reason, he beat up his share of dirty cops…oh the satisfaction you had when you saw one of your “colleague” come back to the station with a broken nose, and keeping himself in line for a while because he was too afraid of the dark knight).
You really wanted to take part in everything, to help out. But Jim was afraid you were too eager, and that it would get you into trouble.
Into danger.
And, to be fair…He was absolutely right.
************
If someone would have told you a few weeks ago that you’d save the goddamn Batman, you probably would have laughed in their faces. After two years on the force not seeing even his shadow, you kinda lost hope of seeing him for real again (unless you turned to crime again).
And yet, it happened. And it was fucking awesome.
************
He was fighting a bunch of thugs in a back alley, when you came by. You weren’t even gonna intervene, you knew the man, he could definitely handle himself…But then, you noticed one of the guy he was fighting taking a few steps back, and drawing a gun. It was pointed right at the bat’s head and he was going to pull the trigger in a matter of seconds !
You didn’t think, you acted. You jumped in the alley, surprising all of them, and with an expertly done high kick (or so you thought, truth was, it was wobbly and you almost dislocated your hip), you got the gun out of the man’s hand, knocking him down with a mean left hook. Damn, you turned into a total badass under the adrenaline ! You were super proud of yourself.
Your hand was definitely broken. You didn’t even feel it.
Batman quickly got rid of the last few thugs, and turned to you. Suddenly, you didn’t feel that excited anymore, the man was impressive. So tall. Large. Muscular. Yeah ok, he was totally sexy, even the little bit of face you could see was appealing.
You shook your head, no wasn’t the time. But damn.
He turned his gaze on you (was the dude wearing a massive amount of eyeliner around his eyes ??), and, with a low voice that made your knee weak (or was it the adrenaline wearing off and your body realizing it was hurt ? Excuses excuses), asked you :
“Are you alright ? This was very foolish to jump in like that, I didn’t need your help. You could have been ”
“Yeah I’m alright” you said, and then added, quite annoy at that dude you technically should’ve arrested anyway : “And like Hell you didn’t need my help, I totally saved your life just now ! You should learn to be more thankful !”
“…”
“Wow. Ok. So you’re an ass. It’s true what they say, don’t meet you hero and all that.”
“The ass can give you a ride to the nearest hospital, you’re bleeding.”
“What ?”
He pointed to your arm, and…oh. Yeah. You got shot. Damn.
“I didn’t even feel it…”
“Must be the rush of epinephrine in your blood. Come on, follow me.”
You did. What else could you do ? You were starting to feel a little weak, as the “epinephrine” was slowly going away. And a weak cop in Gotham City’s street ? Felt like you wouldn’t see the sun rise.
“Wow. The fuck is that ?”
His vehicle was…peculiar, to say the least. You’ve never seen something like that. It didn’t really feel safe.
“My car. Hop in. And do not touch anything.”
You had a few seconds of hesitation and then thought : “Eh, what could go wrong anyway ?” Famous last word…although for once, nothing bad actually happened.
He drove you to the nearest hospital, without saying a word, and almost threw you out of the car. Ass.
Your wound wasn’t deep, a bullet just grazed you and you only needed a few stitches. And a cast on your hand. You were out two hours later. You went home by foot, because walking always cleared your mind, and damn it needed to be cleared right now.
You just saved the Batman ! YOU JUST SAVE THE BATMAN !!
He didn’t even say anything about you calling him your “hero”, but he definitely was ! Ever since that night he saved you from joining up a gang. Did he remember you ? Probably not. Why would he anyway ? It was so long ago, and you were just another face amongst many.
After a quick shower, you were finally calm, and decided to do some laundry, as your small apartment’s floor was littered with dirty clothes. While emptying your pockets, you found a note in the pants you were wearing today.
“Thank you for saving my life,
- The Ass who drove you to the hospital (or “Your hero”, pick one)”
Ha. A thank you note. How lame. And yet, you kept the little piece of paper, because you felt it wasn’t every day that the famous Dark Knight (made even more famous recently when he saved many during Gotham’s flood, and foiled The Riddler’s plan) wrote thank you notes, and it was a collectible.
************
After that, you ended in Batman’s way a lot. You weren’t doing it on purpose. Not at all. You decided to be a cop because you wanted to help people, and not because you had a death wish. Constantly getting in the way of criminals and Batman wasn’t really in your intentions. And yet, it seemed Destiny really wanted you guys to work together, because every time you were on patrol (you mostly took night shift…I wonder why), your pass crossed the Bat.
On the dock, while a drug deal was going on. You saved him again, but, to be fair, he also saved you after you got knocked out and fell into the freezing water of Gotham’s bay. Another ride in the bat mobile, another silent trip, and another note : “Thanks, but you also owe me one. I hope I won’t see you again.” Wow. Ok. Ass.
In front of the most famous bank in Gotham, during a robbery. You saved the hostages while Batman was kicking some ass. This time, no hospital, and no notes either, just a nod from him, and many thanks from the people you saved.
************
“(Y/N), please. Stop this.”
“Stop what, exactly ?”
You knew what Gordon was talking about. But pretending not to was funner.
“You know what I’m talking about. You just like to pretend you don’t to have a little laugh.” Oh a always so attentive. You smirk at him, and he sighs deeply before saying :
“Please. We’re still so few not corrupted, even after what happened with The Riddler. I would hate to lose someone like you.”
“Listen Jim, I appreciate the concern, but I can handle myself.”
“I know. Doesn’t mean I can’t be worried. Plus you have to admit it’s quite a “coincidence” you always get yourself in trouble like that.”
It was, quite a coincidence. Except, not really.
“I’m just doing my job. You know I answer calls ignored by…Some of us.”
“Yes…Just. Please. I couldn’t bear to lose another of the good ones.”
He was referring to just last week, when one of your colleague you knew was clean was found dead in a ditch. With absolutely no lead about who killed him…Of course, you and Gordon had your suspicions that it was an inside job, as he was handling a rather delicate affair that got filed away.
************
In the sewer, going after Killer Croc. Granted, it was a terrible idea, his threat was still unknown and new, and from what you heard the “man” was terrifying. And yet. You and Batman took him down. Well. To be fair, Batman did. You just served as bait…ugh, what an asshole. Well. At least it worked. Again, no hospital nor notes, but a smirk on his face, and a “see you later ?”.
It just kept happening, wherever you went during your patrol, wherever you were called on, he was there. It became a habit. He already knew thanks to Jim Gordon that having someone valuable and trustworthy in the police was helpful, so another “good one” ? Yes please. You found that having the Batman on your side was FUCKING helpful. No matter what some of your superiors would say (you still hadn’t been assigned a new partner, something recurrent with good cops according to Gordon…after all, when you were alone, you had more risk of ending up dead with no one taking your back), the Batman was a blessing for this city.
************
Bruce couldn’t quite explain it, but he found himself irrevocably attracted to you…He tried to resist, because in his line of work, there was no place for a relationship (his sad encounter with Selina Kyle, and how it ended too soon was proof enough). But you were so brave, beautiful, optimistic, intelligent (you had so many flaws he couldn’t even see)…And one day, he found himself “meeting you for the first time”, “randomly” while you were going home from work (and him from his nightly patrol).
Alfred is the one that convinced him. A woman like you, fighting so fiercely for your city’s safety, and not judging one bit his Batman persona (except that you still thought he was kind of an ass) ? Well, you didn’t find a woman like that at each street’s corner. Unlike Selina, you had no intention of ever leaving Gotham, no matter how tough life was in it. And, didn’t Bruce deserve happiness ? He thought he could never have it again, but when he was around you…
Yes. Alfred could be very convincing. Bruce had to give it a try. And what could he loose if it wasn’t working out ? (Everything. The answer was everything, but he didn’t know that for now, he wasn’t in love yet).
And so, as Bruce Wayne, he wooed you…and you couldn’t help but fall for his charming ways. Who would’ve thought that the “most eligible bachelor in Gotham”, who barely showed his face and who constantly looked like a depressed puppy, could be so appealing ? Smart, sexy, funny ? And most of all, he shared your dream. Very recently, Bruce Wayne had come back in Gotham’s scene, and decided to use his money for good, like his parents did. After the Renewal debacle, and what The Riddler uncovered, Bruce said that it was time for him to continue his parents’ legacy.
How could you a guy like that ?
************
At night, you fought by the Caped Crusader’s side, sometimes getting injured, but it would never be life threatening. He would never let you be in a life threatening situation anyway…He made sure the cases you helped him on required mostly brain work, and few fightings. And when fights there was, he always kept an eye on your back. Against his better judgement, he started to fall for you…And you for him.
By day, whenever he had a day off, or even a few hours free in the afternoon (as you were sleeping late in the morning, you know, night shifts…and that was good, because him too was sleeping late), you were with him too. Only, you didn’t know it was him. For you, it was Bruce Wayne. And you felt guilty that you slowly started to fall in love with him too…Fuck, in what mess did you got yourself, falling in love with a night vigilante, and a billionaire philanthropist ?
************
Another six months passed, and things were going great. The Batman seemed to trust you, which was something right ? You’ve been helping him (whether he wanted it or not) for the past year, and that got you a promotion as a detective. How fucking awesome was that ?
You knew James Gordon had something to do with it too. He was your mentor, after all. And after The Riddler’s debacle and how the police department’s corruption went public, he gained more and more power amongst the force.
Oh, and you started to date Bruce Wayne seriously. Like, it was official. There was pictures of you two in the paper and all, and he didn’t deny you being his girlfriend. On the contrary. It felt great to be the one who caught the great Bruce Wayne’s heart. You still wondered what he saw in you though, the first time you met you were coming back from work, without any make-up and disheveled, highly unattractive…and yet, you ended up giving him your number. Incredible.
Little did you know that he fell for you while under the Batman’s cowl…but of course, could only make his move as Bruce Wayne.
************
You were a bit more tired than usual that night, and so, a bit distracted.
You didn’t see those men jumping out of a dark place to corner you. Ah. You recognized some of them. They were all masked, but their eyes couldn’t lie. You saw the hate in them, and you knew they were some of your police officer “friends”. The dirty one.
There was still a lot of work to do, to clear the GCPD fully of its “bad apples”. Especially when their methods of getting rid of the good ones were more drastic. It was easier to get rid of someone literally, killing them, than to slowly work at dismantling this rotten and rotting system.
That night, the Batman wasn’t fast enough to stop them from hurting you pretty badly.
Damn it. He did start to track you after a while (as most sane person do, of course…). He always kept an eye on you, although he couldn’t be everywhere. It seemed you were a magnet for trouble anyway.
The rest of the night went by in a blur. You had terrible nightmares. Of Bruce getting badly hurt. Of the Batman dying. Pain gave you hallucinations you honestly could’ve live without…
When you finally came to your senses, you saw the Bat’s face first, and you couldn’t stop yourself from hugging him. In your hazy mind, too hurt Safe. He was safe. Everything was in your head. He hugged you back…
************
And so, that’s how you found yourself in the bat cave, your tongue in the goddamn Batman’s mouth, his hand slipping under your shirt. You couldn’t deny anymore that there was some sort of attraction between him and you, and he…Well, he was also Bruce, and kissing you was just a habit of his. He just forgot that you didn’t know who he really was…
But his way of kissing you, of touching you, reminded you of your Bruce…it was impossible however, you must be wrong. Anyway, Bruce was on a business trip in France. And he wouldn’t have lied to you. They wouldn’t have lied to you.
And suddenly, you felt awfully guilty. Your tongue and the Dark Knight’s were wrestling each other, and all you could think about was your boyfriend. You pulled away, and took his hand out of your shirt.
“Hum…”
“Is something wrong ?”
“…Yes. I can’t do that. I…I’m in a steady relationship right now and…Well, I love him.”
“Ah. Bruce Wayne ?”
“Your benefactor.”
“Yeees…”
It was awkward, you had to leave. He understood, and drove you to your apartment. In silence. When you existed the car though, you almost thought you saw him smile. Not just a smirk, a full on smile, and somehow, this smile reminded you of someone, you just couldn’t pinpoint who (years later, you still wondered why you didn’t recognized that jawline ! Maybe it was because their behavior were so widly different, that it seemed impossible for you that Bruce was also Batman…Lois Lane would make you feel better about all that, because for the same reason, she didn’t recognized Clark for years and honestly, wtf ?)
You said your goodbyes, and that was that. Well. A chapter of your life was over. And you just couldn’t be that bummed out with Bruce in it…You just wished the Batman would have his place in too.
************
A few days passed, and you avoided Batman. It was better like that. You took care of other things at night. It was better like that. So why your heart kept tightening whenever you thought about never seeing him again ?
Bruce’s hand slipping in yours got you out of your daydreams, and erased any worries. No. It was better like that. You and the Batman would have no future, but you and Bruce ? Things could happen. Right ?
“Hey you.”
“Hey, I missed you.”
“You were only gone for…what, three days ?”
“When every day without you feels like a year.”
“Oh you motherfucker, so cheesy.”
Bruce’s personality slowly unfolded in front of you. And in front of the public, too. He used to be recluse, refused to speak to reporters etc. Now, he was more open, and involved in Gotham life (the Riddler’s misadventures made him realize he needed to keep an eye on Gotham’s finances, to follow his parents’ legacy, and that Gotham needed Bruce Wayne as much as it needed Batman, if not more).
“You love it.”
“Maybe…Come here my Bruce.”
His kisses were the best. Soft or rough, tender or hungry…They were just the best. The flash of a camera cruelly brings the both of you back to reality.
“Damn fucking paparazzis…” you growled.
Ever since he finally came back in the public eyes, it felt like they never left him alone (Bruce used this at his great advantage, making sure his picture would be taken while the “Batman” (really, thanks Alfre) was out). But it really bothered you.
“You’ll have to get used to them if…”
“If ?”
“…If you’re as seriously involved in this relationship than I am. Because no matter what I can do, paparazzis always follow me. Comes with the package of being a Wayne…”
“Oh.”
“Oh ?”
“If it comes with the package, then so be it.”
And you went back to kiss him…until another flash almost blinded you.
“Let’s get out of here, ok ?”
“I thought you’d never say it.”
You took his hand, and guided him with you through Gotham city’s street to your apartment. It was definitely official now. Bruce Wayne had a steady girlfriend. He was taking walks with her, hands in hands, very publicly. It was on the headline of every newspaper the next day, with a picture of you two, looking ridiculously happy, walking hands in hands down the streets.
************
This night was going to be the night. You weren’t working, and Bruce said he could stay with you.
This night was going to be the night. The night you were going to sleep with him for the first time. You made him wait, just to be sure he was serious, and he wasn’t considering you like another random conquest (a background of womanizing behavior suddenly emerged, along with many tabloid articles about his past, when he was away from Gotham). But you waited enough, tonight…Was gonna be thenight.
You were still scared shitless though. What if he left you after that ? What if you guys weren’t actually as serious as you thought ?
As he was sitting on your couch, you straddling him, his tongue in your mouth, those thoughts plagued your mind. He felt something was wrong, and pulled away from you.
“What is it ?”
The concern in his voice…Too sexy. A moment of silence went by, and then you replied :
“What are we doing Bruce ?”
“Well, I was hum…kissing you I believe.”
You roll your eyes. This was a side of Bruce you discovered along the way. That guy could be quite cheeky, when he wanted to.
“I’m not talking about that, I mean…”
“What do you mean ?”
“What are we ?”
“I thought you already knew what we were.”
“If I ask the question it means I’m not so sure no ?”
“I guess so…Well, what do you wanna be ?”
“I asked first.”
“Oh ok, so if you don’t think the same thing than me, I’m gonna be the one with a broken heart…Alright, well, here we go. I never wanted anyone in my life as bad as I want you. Here. I said it.“
This was a part, you found later, you could see in Batman too. His quick retort, right to the point. But for now, you didn’t know the truth quite yet.
“Oh…”
“Oh ?”
//THIS IS WHERE THE SMUT STARTS. PLEASE AGAIN, 18+ ONLY//
Your mouth crashing on his was an answer enough. You whispered in his ear how important he was to you too, without using the words “I love you”, still not ready, while your hands were opening the button of his dress shirt in a frenzy. His strong arms wrapped around you, and once again, you couldn’t help but be surprised at how buff he was. The man was working out a lot…His muscles were probably as big as Batman’s ! Wait, stop. You couldn’t think about Batman right now, only Bruce was important. Because it was true, you did love him. But…No but. Only Bruce.
His hands slipping under your shirt were enough for only him to occupy all of your thoughts. To fill you with lust and want. His shirt was off, and you dragged your nail on his well toned chest. Again, the man was working out. A lot. His calloused (why did he have calloused hand ? As far as you were concerned, his job was mostly signing paperwork and participating in boring conferences…) palm wrapped around your waist, and squeezed. Not enough to hurt, not even enough to leave marks, and that wouldn’t do. Your mouth left his, and he whined a bit (oh, that sound), but when he felt your tongue gently licking his neck, sucking on his pulse point, he kinda lost control. His hand tightened their grip, now it was enough to make some marks. Perfect.
He tore away your shirt, ripping it to pieces.
“That was my favorite shirt.”
“No it wasn’t, you were wearing your favorite shirt the day before yesterday, I’m guessing it’s in the laundry right now.”
“Buzzkill.”
“I certainly hope not.”
And your bra was off. Has any man worshipped your breast as good as him ? Probably not. His mouth and hands made you feel like a goddess.
“I havent-”
He stumbles on his words a bit, and you look at him, curious. You knew what he was going to say, of course. But who said you couldn’t toy with him a little ? His fake bravado vanished as you looked at him, waiting for him to admit it.
“I haven’t done it in a long time…”
Ah. Here it was. And was this really a problem ? No.
“It’s okay my Bruce, just…let it go. Follow the flow. I’m sure you’ll manage.”
You wink somewhat mischievously, kind of amused at his revelation. Not in a mocking way, but because…You already knew. That man was always busy. And he lived far from everyone for so long. So, yeah, sex was definitely not on his list in the past few years, you had an inkling of that.
And how, you were right. You didn’t know yet he was the Batman of course…but yes. Bruce hadn’t think of “doing it” in quite a while. It’s only when you kissed him so passionately, that a fire build inside him. He realized though, it was useless to pretend he was the “sex machine” tabloids pretended he was when they speculated on his whereabouts when he left Gotham…
And he wanted this to go right. To treat you right, and to be honest ? To be treated right, too.
“It’s all going to be okay. Just let it go.”
Your fingers went to caress his back, and with clumsy movements, he removed your pants and panties, laying you down on your couch, placing himself over you. Your fingers deftly unmade his belt and threw it somewhere in your small apartment, to then undo his button and zipper, and poof, fancy that, his pants were off too. You could clearly see the outline of his dick through his boxers and fuck he was hard…it aroused you more than ever.
He trailed kisses from your forehead to your lips, down your jaw, your neck, collar bone, breast, stopping there to lick softly at your nipple, flicking the other one with warm fingers. And then he kept going, until he reached your thigh…He wasn’t going where you wanted however, kissing everywhere but the point where you were burning up. He must have left a hundred love bites on you that night, and you couldn’t care less. Your police uniform would cover all of them anyway, and you hoped to God that he wasn’t going to invite you anywhere where wearing a dress was required in the next few days.
You took a grip of his hair, and guided him where you wanted. Taking control of the moment. You felt him smile on your skin, but damn, you hated being teased. One hand on each thigh, he spread your legs open, and looked back up to you. Fuck, eye contact was such a turn on, you were pretty sure you never got that wet ever in your life before. He noticed, two fingers running gently up and down your fold…And then, without warning, his tongue was inside you. Flicking, swirling, his nose rubbing against your clit. You never felt anything like it. What the Hell was that ? How could he make you feel so good so fast ? You came before you had time to say : “Bruce Wayne is a champ at oral”, and you were almost embarrassed that you orgasmed that fast. But damn, what that man could do with his tongue…
He kissed his way back up, licking his lips off of your arousal, and you caught his mouth with yours again.
You wanted to return the favor, you wanted to make him feel good too, but when you grabbed his erection through his boxers, and started to rub lightly, he caught your wrist and pinned it above your head.
“Another time maybe, right now I…I just want to be inside you.”
He was blushing a bit. And his expression was so needy. How cute. What a good boy he was. You told him so, as you nodded and you guided him to your entrance.
“Ready ?”
Yes. Ready.
When he pushed slowly inside you, you lost your breath too. He was…impressive. In every sense of the term. And he stretched you to the maximum, hurting you a bit, as you weren’t use to such a size. He stilled, letting you adjust to him. He saw you winced when he penetrated you, and hurting you was the last thing he wanted to do. Hell, he never wanted to do it. So he waited for you to be fully ready.
You wrapped your legs around his waist, squeezing him against you, pushing him even further inside, as if it was possible…And with a kiss on his shoulders, you breathed out :
“You can go…”
He looked in your eyes, and once he was sure you meant it, he slowly exited you, almost entirely, before unhurriedly pushed back in bit by bit. He found a slow and sweet pace, that allowed him to feel your entire being under him. Your breath, your heart beats, your little moans and cute squealing.
He couldn’t stop himself from going a bit faster , as he felt his cock thrusting in and out of you easily, slickly. You pushed him deep within you, your heels digging in his back, and he almost lost control.
You wanted it faster. Harder. And you voiced your need. Thanks god. Because he was pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to retain himself to pound into you mercilessly much longer.
Again, this was the first time you felt that way. The only few men you had sex with never felt like that, never felt that good, and that perfect inside you. As if you were made for him, and him for you. More importantly, none of them seemed to care for you as much as he did, being careful with you, and following your desire first, his second.
He was sucking on your neck lovingly, and your nails scratched his back, as he relentlessly hammered into you. You dragged his head to your face, and kissed him. Hard. He responded obviously, as his hips expertly rolled against yours.
You met him thrust for thrust, and your movement made him groan in pleasure. He might be a sex god (or so you thought), but you weren’t too bad yourself. You had some moves. And you used all of them on him. At some point, you felt his hands stilling your waist, and his short breath on your neck.
“Stop, or I’m not going to last.”
“Stop what ?”
“You know damn well what I’m talking about (Y/N), stop this thing you do with your hips.”
“You mean…that.”
And you reeled your hips against his, making him take a deep breath, and suppressing a loud moan. Oh that wouldn’t do. You wanted to hear him, it was not fair if you were the only one screaming his name. You did it again, making him gasp.
“Fuck…No one ever…No one ever did that to me…Stop…”
“Does it feel good ?”
“Yes, fuck, it feels too good (Y/N).”
“Then why stop ?”
And he was gone, jack hammering hard inside you, his pace faltering as his release was close. But he would not come first. That wasn’t gentlemanly. Leaving an arm by your head to support his weight and not crush you, the other one went to your core, and he flicked two fingers at your clit, rubbing furiously because he was too damn close…You came, his name on your lips, your body shaking uncontrollably, and he followed you soon after, pulling out just in time to not spill inside you, but all over your stomach.
He collapsed on you, unable to hold himself, but it was alright, his weight on you was somewhat comforting. It felt safe under there.
“Do you have a cloth or something ?”
“First drawer in the bathroom.”
“Be right back.”
And indeed, a few minutes later, he came back with a wet cloth to clean you up. He was already clean, and he raised you in his arms to lay on the couch, you on top of him.
“Wow.”
“Wow indeed.”
“What the Hell was that (Y/N) ?”
“You mean, the hip thing ?”
“Yeah, the hip thing.”
“I don’t know, discovered a while ago that men liked it, kept doing it.”
“Well, I confirm. Men definitely like it. Damn.”
“You weren’t bad either. Actually, no one ever made me feel like that before.”
“Oh, and I’m not done honey, after all, we’ve got…all night right ?”
Your thoughts went to Batman for a bit, hoping he was alright, and not in danger. Little did you know “Batman” was with you right now, and was about to take you multiple time, on your couch, on the sink in your bathroom, under the shower, and in your bed, in a wide array of different positions, until the morning rose and you fell asleep, exhausted.
************
You woke up to an empty bed, and for a moment, felt a panic rise in your chest. But only for a moment, as you saw a note on the pillow Bruce fell asleep on. It read :
“Hey, I swear this isn’t me running out on you (Y/N), I had important affairs to attend to at Wayne Industry. Let’s have dinner tonight,
Love you,
B.
PS : Last night was great. Wait, that’s insufficient. Last night was life changing. ”
Cute. So damn cute. And he said “love you”. Of course it was written hastily on a note but, still. And last night was…”life changing” ? Wow. And so you smiled…But your smile soon disappeared.
Wh…What ? OH MY GOD ! How could you have been so oblivious ? So stupid ? How did you not notice anything ? Weren’t you suppose to be a cop ??
You ran to a drawer at your desk, the one you put away Batman’s note he gave you almost a year ago…The same handwriting. The exact same. The way they were curling the letters, the point on their “i”…Holy shit.
HOLY SHIT.
But of course.
They were the same person. Batman, was Bruce, Bruce, was Batman. You couldn’t help the fit of laughter that washed over you. Of course they were. It all made sense ! So that’s why the Dark Knight’s lips felt so familiar, you were right, your guts weren’t lying to you !
Instead of being mad at him for not telling you the truth, you were relieved. So you weren’t in love with two men, since they were the same one. Pfiooo. Yes. It did make you a bit sad though, that he wasn’t trusting you enough to tell you who he really was…You decided to go see him right now, to have a bit more explanations. You weren’t going to let him go.
************
Alfred answered the door as you rung the bell.
“Oh, Lady (Y/N), good to see you. Master Bruce wasn’t waiting for you until…”
“Where is he Alfred ? I have to talk to him, it’s urgent.”
“I’m afraid he…”
“I know he’s Batman.”
“Oh. Well that changes everything. Follow me if you please.”
************
Under the Manor. That’s where the batcave was. When Bruce saw you, he found himself speechless, and extremely nervous. Back to the puppy eyed face that used to be plastered on Bruce Wayne, before he started to get out there again. When you explained to him your discovery however, he seemed more relax. You weren’t mad, you understood, and you were actually glad that Batman and him was the same person, loving two men wasn’t really your thing. But you were a bit saddened at his lack of trust…He wasn’t lacking trust. He trusted you with his life. It was more…Being afraid of how you’d react, afraid you’d leave him, and that, he couldn’t bear. Silly man. Of course you weren’t going to leave him, you were fucking in love with him.
“…I love you (Y/N).”
First time he told it to you vocally. He wrote it in notes before, but he never told you right in your face. It was great. The kiss he gave you that day, after you whispered in his ear “I love you too”, was full of promises to never keep anything from you anymore. And that was it.
Finally, you could see it.
The brighter future which perspective was open when you first saw him, and he “saved” you. That future that felt more and more confirmed as you saw his feat around Gotham. And then, when The Riddler’s plans were foiled and Bruce Wayne finally came out of the dark.
That brighter future you saw in Bruce’s eyes, that first night.
Who would’ve thought it would’ve brought you here ?
Certainly not the you from years ago, desperate to survive. Ah. Proof to never give up, right ?
Ok. So. If you’ve been here since A LONG TIME, you might’ve feel like you read something a little similar before…This is a COMPLETE rewriting of a 2017 story I wrote, and thought deserved to be redone with Battinson in mind (I reworked it quite a bit, like many things changed but the basic plot of cop/bat is the same). Also honestly, haven’t seen anyone like or interact in any way with that old story in like, over a year ? So I thought : “Feels like many people, especially new to the fandom, probably didn’t read it”. + Like I said, I just felt like the story deserved a second breath. And I poured again quite a bit of work in this, so I hope you like it ! :D
And that it’s not too cringy. My greatest fear haha.
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.
I have a headcanon that bruce’s love languages are physical touch and acts of service (receiving), but the funny part is that he absolutely Despises everything leading up to receiving said love
he doesn’t do touching for the sake of touching
he’s not one to actively seek it out, and if he’s making physical contact with someone, it’s usually in a fight or to restrain
when it comes to affectionate touching… well
you want to give him a hug? tough luck, this man is gonna duck and weave like he’s on the football field so good fucking luck trying to grab him
people coming up behind him without announcing their presence are going to get elbowed in the face point blank
the most he’ll comfortably allow is a handshake in the beginning stages and even then, he prefers a polite nod as a greeting
but when he’s soft enough to allow it, he really cherishes it
slowly approaching, asking him if a hug is alright, bruce will just awkwardly move his arms out of the way so you can wrap yourself around him
except when you actually are touching him he just. goes all in
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!
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: Listen I’ve already written almost eleven chapters of this nonsense and having a blast. So I’m keeping the momentum going and posting another chapter! I’ve been seriously having so much fun writing this. Enjoy this nice, long chapter. 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!
