Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/13566765.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Underage
  Category:
      F/M, M/M
  Fandom:
      Batman_(Movies_-_Nolan), Batman_-_All_Media_Types
  Relationship:
      Dick_Grayson/Bruce_Wayne, Ra's_al_Ghul/Bruce_Wayne, Thomas_Wayne/Bruce
      Wayne_(one-sided), Selina_Kyle/Bruce_Wayne
  Character:
      Bruce_Wayne, Henri_Ducard, Thomas_Wayne, Alfred_Pennyworth, Dick_Grayson,
      Rachel_Dawes, Selina_Kyle, Original_Characters
  Additional Tags:
      Consensual_Underage_Sex, Age_Difference, Pseudo-Incest, Electra_Complex,
      Bruce_Has_Issues, BDSM, Heavy_BDSM, Fear_Play, Castration_Play, Anal_Sex,
      Power_Imbalance, Predicament_Play, Implied/Referenced_Terrorism,
      Alternate_Universe_-_No_Powers, Aftercare, Alternate_Universe_-_Canon
      Divergence, Swordfighting, Alternate_Universe_-_Sugar_Daddy, (more_like_a
      kept_boy), Dubious_Consent, Marriage_of_Convenience, Foster_Care, Lolita,
      Manipulation, Shower_Sex, Whipping, Unhealthy_Relationships
  Series:
      Part 2 of Blue_Flower
  Stats:
      Published: 2018-02-04 Completed: 2018-02-06 Chapters: 3/3 Words: 14374
****** Blue Flower ******
by RedFlagsAndDiamonds
Summary
     Bruce Wayne is obsessed with his father from a young age. After
     Thomas Wayne's death, Bruce spends his adult life searching for a man
     - or boy - who can offer him the love he feels he was denied.
***** Chapter 1 *****
Chapter Notes
     well - where do I start?
     This is my first time playing in the nolan bat!verse, which is my
     only real contact with the batman canon. If I've gotten something
     glaringly wrong from the comics, that's because this is based
     entirely around the "Dark Knight" trilogy, and I didn't bother to
     research any further. All gaps in the film material were filled with
     my own headcanons.
     Some obvious warnings above in the tags ^^ : in short, Bruce is
     pretty messed up. Don't expect a role model here. In addition, for
     the first and second chapters, there will be some heavy duty BDSM
     scenes, including (in chapter 1) a pretty brutal sequence where Bruce
     is essentially forced into subspace while under the influence of
     psychotropics.
 
“The shock of her death froze something inside of me… but I kept looking for
her, long after I had left my own childhood behind…
The poison was in the wound you see? And the wound wouldn’t heal…”
–“Lolita” 1997
 
 
It’s the first day of spring.
Bruce is nine.
The gardens are a paradise of childhood, ancient, cluttered, and full of hidden
secrets that only the sharpest of eyes and smallest of fingers can uncover.
Some are deadlier than others, as he discovers with a scream when the slats of
an old well give way under his sneakers, and his arm protests the fall by
tearing away from the joint when he crashes to land on hardened, aged moss.
It seems more than plausible that the looming, darkened tunnel only a foot from
his head could contain some monster from the horrors of Lovecraft tucked away
in the library, and his dread is only confirmed when the storm of black, winged
creatures burst from the hole and flutter maniacally around his head. He
screams and tries to wriggle away, buffet them off, but the pain in his
shoulder is overwhelming and he can only imagine that they’ll feast on his
flesh, nibbling away tiny morsels of skin and bone until there’s nothing left
of him…
He can’t be certain how long he lies still, driven into his own mind by dread,
before the creak of a rope breaks through the catatonia and a gentle voice
whispers through the darkness.
“Bruce…”
He whimpers once, afraid to move, afraid of the pain and the thought that if he
moves, the bats will come back – the bats are going to get him, they are –
“Bruce… shh… it’s okay…”
Strong arms scoop him off the ground, and where his ear rests on a firm chest
he can just barely hear the tha-thump, tha-thumpof a heart beating steadily
behind layers of linen and skin.
“It’s okay… it’s all over…”
After that, it’s a blur of colors and light and sensation, fingers gently
working his arm back into place, warm water cradling his body and easing the
intense immediacy of the hurt, and somewhere through it all a large hand
petting back his hair and stroking his brow while his father murmurs
reassurance beside him, and he remembers that the possibility of anything or
anyone harming him is inconceivable.
 
*
 
Given that his primary education is all received through home tutoring and his
contact with other children is limited to the kids of house staff, Bruce grows
up essentially sheltered from what money means. During cocktail parties, when
he slips out of bed and peers between the spindles of the stair rail, stuffy
grown-up conversation drifts up to the landing; from this alone he’s able to
discern that his father is rich, and this means that one day he’ll be rich too,
but the concept is alien. His life is only as he’s ever known it, and he isn’t
unhappy. Not even with his apparently tragic motherlessness, as the old pearl-
wearing women at these parties always seem so eager to point out. He’s never
known or missed her, and anyway, there’s nothing that a mythological mother
could give him that hasn’t already been lavished to excess by his father.
He’s certain that he wouldn’t love her quite as much.
Despite soothing words and careful promises, the nightmares surrounding the
bats never really go away, and it’s around midnight when Bruce slips down the
stairs and creeps into his father’s library, desperate for comfort and the
safety of his arms. There’s a fire dancing in the hearth, and his father has an
arm resting on Miss Earle’s back, just a few inches above her bottom. They’re
kissing.
Bruce’s insides suddenly feel numb, and the soft gasp that he can’t hold back
reaches the ears of the adults, who break apart at last to look over at the
door.
His father smiles gently, with sympathy.
“Another bad dream?”
He nods, relief and a touch of jealous satisfaction rippling through his veins
as his father picks him up and carries him back to his room, leaving Miss Earl
by the fire, looking like she’s tasted something disgusting.
Eventually his eyes flutter shut, while he’s rocked back and forth, the
knowledge that he’s loved – and loved more deeply than any of the pretty women
who come to the house – settling over him like warm eiderdown.
Bruce lets himself sleep, dreaming of the morning when his father will come to
tease him out of bed, laughing, and the promise of blueberry pancakes.
One Saturday, not long after he fell down the well, Bruce rides a bike out to
the edge of the estate, where they keep the old stables. For years, the stalls
and paddock yard have been empty, but the hayloft is fun to play in, and once
he found a rat’s skeleton lying bleached and picked clean beside the fence.
The stalls aren’t empty today.
He recognizes Laurie – his dad fixes their cars – but the other boy doesn’t
live near or on the property, and his face is strange. They’re each naked, or
close to it, and as they kiss with open mouths the other boy is moving his hand
somewhere out of sight, doing something that makes Laurie tremble and coo like
he’s about to cry.
Bruce can’t rationalize what he’s seeing, or the feeling it elicits – like a
chilled prickling all over his skin – and he simply races back to the house,
not sure what to think.
Long hours of obsessive contemplation eventually lead him to the master
bedroom, and the velvet lined case where his father keeps the antique
stethoscope that has always been his pride and joy. The earpieces are too big
and a bit uncomfortable, but he can hear his own heartbeat quivering like the
wings of a hummingbird and wonders, with a faint, childish fascination, if the
boys in the stable had been able to feel their own, beating frantically against
their ribs.
Would his own pulse quicken if it were him under Laurie’s hand?…
“What’re you doin’, kiddo?”
He starts, whirling around, but his father doesn’t glare, doesn’t scold, merely
crouches down on his knees beside him.
“Here…”
He guides the bell to his own chest, one big hand resting over Bruce’s small
fingers, and lets him listen.
“Hear anything?”
Each beat forms a steady pulse in his ears, one that he matches his own
breathing to, steady, shaking in and out, before he replies with a hesitant
nod.
“I always thought it was so amazing, hm? How something so little could work so
hard and for so long?”
His hand presses the bell back to the blue and white knit of Bruce’s sweater,
kind grey eyes locked on his face, and for a moment there’s something unspoken
that Bruce can feel pounding right along with his own heart – a sensation of
being vulnerable and exposed in front of awesome strength – and it makes the
prickling feeling travel all across his skin and pool at the base of his belly.
When he eventually escapes back to his bedroom, red-cheeked and confused, he
wonders why he didn’t ask about the feeling, or what the boys in the stable
were doing that morning. For some reason, it embarrasses him.
Bruce resolves himself to talking it over with his father when he goes to bed
that night, but five hours later Thomas Wayne is dead in an alley, a bullet in
his chest and his last words are whispered faintly to his son.
“Don’t be afraid…”
 
*
 
Bruce wanders aimlessly through the alleyways, wide eyed and shocked, until an
officer with a kind face and glasses notices him and asks where his mother is.
Not long after that, he sits on a hard chair made from gritty black plastic
inside a police station, reporters and investigative cops milling and shouting
outside in the hallway, and simply waits for things to happen. Or not.
When the commissioner tells him with a guarded smile that he has good news,
Bruce actually, babyishly, allows himself some glimmer of hope – that it was
all a mistake, his father isn’t dead, that everything will be okay –
When he’s told that the gunman is in custody, all that flashes through his mind
is simply that it doesn’t matter.
It won’t bring Daddy back.
 
* * *
 
It’s the middle of October.
Bruce is nineteen.
The courtroom is cold as a stone, and he wonders, no, hopes that Schill can
remember the little boy that he foolishly left alive in that alley, hopes that
he’ll recognize the reaper when it comes for him –
The press swarms around his father’s killer, screaming inane, expected
questions that have no basis in reality -
“Has there been word from the governor-?”
“Will you be issuing an apology to the Wayne family -?”
And then they’re calling his name, grim, eager surprise in their voices like a
pack of nursery teachers expecting the victim to shake hands and make friends
with the schoolyard psycho, and none of them can assume that six bullets are
loaded and ready in the palm of his hand, so that he can exact his revenge in
front of a watching world.
Only to have the opportunity stolen from him by a nameless, faceless woman
bought for a price by a thug.
There’s the weakest of satisfaction in seeing Schill bleed to death before his
eyes, but Bruce suddenly comes to the realization that the world has dropped
out from under his feet and he’s floating, unmoored, with no reason to look
back or to move forward. The one act that might have cauterized the seeping
wound left behind by his father’s death is gone, and his only choice now is to
watch the infection fester and swell until all that’s left is pain.
He’s known enough pain for one lifetime.
He slips away from the courthouse before Rachel can find him, takes the rotting
monorail all the way to the shipping docks, and somehow finds himself at the
edge of a four-decker cargo pier looking out at the water.
Princeton might not have given him much in the way of life skills, but he
picked up enough trigonometry to work out that from this height, the fall
wouldn’t kill him. It would hurt, excruciatingly, but this is meant to cease
the pain, clamp off the diseased limb, not to prolong suffering.
It takes him an unforgivably long time to remember the unused revolver in his
coat pocket.
“Not a particularly constructive undertaking, Mr. Wayne.”
Bruce glances up, realizing with a twinge of surprise, that the sky is already
darkened and the stars are visible. He’s been staring at the gun in his hands
for longer than he’d anticipated.
Warm breath tingles against the skin of his cheekbone, and he swallows
uncomfortably.
He doesn’t particularly care who this man is, or how he knows his name – he’d
rather focus on the task at hand.
“I’d prefer to do this without an audience.”
“Then I fear you’ll have to be disappointed, as I’ve no intention of leaving
you to commit self-slaughter.”
“What d’you care?”
The stranger sighs, as if explaining the obvious to a particularly stupid
child.
“Let us say that my interest is… professional. I’ve been studying you, Mr.
Wayne – you disguise your own brilliancy with misanthropy and wallow in
impotent grief; a man of your talents could put his anger to better uses.”
For a while, Bruce keeps his gaze on the white-topped wavelets dashing against
the docks, the revolver turned over and over in both hands.
“What do you want with me?”
“To offer you a chance to destroy what killed your father.”
“Schill’s dead.”
“That my be.” The man replies simply, before shoes scrape on pavement,
signaling his departure.
“If you change your mind – the Aladfar, berth three. If you’ve grown bored of
wasting away like a leper and want to achieve something, be on board in ten
minutes. Without the revolver.”
“Why should I trust you?”
“You can’t. Berth three, Mr. Wayne.”
His footsteps faded, and he was gone.
 
*
 
When he boards the vessel, his wallet, cash, and gun all floating away in the
river, Bruce realizes too late that he has no idea where he’s headed – but on
the whole, he decides, it doesn’t truly matter.
 
*
 
The fortress is massive, perched atop a remote peak in the Himalayas, and
separated enough from civilization that what Bruce thought he knew as the “real
world” begins to feel as though it might have been a feverish, half-remembered
dream.
It’s a fearsome place, where only the strong survive, and he’s fairly certain
that he would have proved easy prey for the other (larger, stronger) disciples
in those early months, had it not been for Ducard.
The man commands respect, with a leonine ferocity and kingly grace that few –
none, Bruce privately considers – could hope to match, and being taken as his
apprentice is a quiet source of pride, as is following two paces behind in his
shadow while the other soldiers incline their heads with deference and murmurs
of “Eazim Wahid…”
At first, some lingering, withered sense of morality had done a weak battle
with his growing admiration, as it doesn’t take any real genius to work out
exactly what it is that Ducard and his men do. However, for all Ducard’s
“lessons” on the power of fear, it’s ability to distort and control, he never
mentions the opposite – that infatuation has exactly the same power, and what
is infatuation but another manifestation of fear?
One night he’s shaken awake from a dreamless sleep, and marched by two black-
masked figures to a tightly enclosed room with no windows, a high ceiling.
“You have learned to bury your guilt beneath lies and the scruples of man –
it’s time you were made to confront it, and face the truth.”
It’s while he glances about the room for the source of the voice, Ducard’s
hiding place, that he notices – too late - the incense braziers in the corners
and that both guards are wearing not just masks, but chemical filters.
The dizziness hits him almost immediately, followed by a clammy, sickening wave
of panic as both men begin stringing him up with heavy cord, one blindfolding
him tightly before the other tugs on a pulley, and Bruce finds himself
strangely weightless, dangling by one thigh nearly five feet above the floor.
“Once, in a more… ancient time, men believed that pain was a purifier against
the devil. Pain beyond description, pain so acute that the demons which
inhabited human flesh could bear it no longer and were driven back into the
mouth of hell. From one hell into another, you might suppose.”
Boot falls echo through the small space, though Bruce can’t be certain how much
of the sound is real and how much has been amplified by his smoke addled brain.
Someone is circling him as he hangs helpless from the roof, and he hopes it’s
Ducard, prays it is, that he isn’t alone in this…
“Men would be tied immobile to stakes and wheels, their bodies broken beyond
all recognition… and then of course, the red hot pincers tearing away their
flesh, piece by searing piece…”
Something warm wafts past his cheekbone, followed by the sulfuric odor of
blistering iron, and he jerks back in alarm, swaying uselessly.
“First, emasculation…” A hand rests on his groin, and the jolt of sensation
ripples through every inch of his body, nerves set alight even as he whimpers
unhappily…
“Then the chest… delicate, vestigial flesh…”
Thumbs stroke his nipples, almost tenderly, through the thin shield of fabric.
“And then your thighs, arms, each fine boned finger torn away… your body will
be stripped to the bone until you’ve become truly, trulynaked, and men will
look on you and see at last into your very soul… And yet, Bruce, and yet… still
living - until what remains of your ruined form is thrown to melt on the
flames.”
“Y-you won’t…” he rasps out at last, trembling, while the blood pools in his
skull and the drug heightens every scent, every sound already pulsing across
his skin from the loss of his sight.
“Of course not; if you choose to purify yourself, you can be spared every
moment of that particular horror – speak the truth, and not even these ropes
will tear your skin.”
He flounders in a confused panic, and briefly struggles to free himself.
“Tell me, Bruce… say it.”
“I… I don’t…”
Something thin and rigid cracks against his shinbone, seeming to cut clean
through the skin.
“No! N-!”
“The choice was yours – you chose to be purged, rather than confess. Now – say
it.”
The rod strikes him again, in a new place, and he can’t stifle the sob of fear
as colors and nonsensical shapes dance in a kaleidoscope behind his sealed
eyelids. The blows continue to come down, his sleep tunic shredded to rags by
the curved blades of a vambrace to expose more skin to torment, and when his
ribs are hit, each precisely in turn, Bruce swears he can feel each of them
shatter under the impact.
“Say it.”
Say what?!he wants to bawl, but distraction comes quickly as his trousers are
ripped away and the tunic pulled down to cover his head. He twists in the
bindings, afraid he might suffocate, before something sharp tears a hole in the
slubbed cotton, directly over his lips.
“It wouldn’t do to have any vital words muffled, would it?” Ducard murmurs,
nearby but not close enough to own one of the pairs of hands readying him
dispassionately for whatever is to come, and despite the pain, the way the
spices burning in the corner have his head swimming and his eyes watering, he
feels abandoned.
“Are you ready to speak?”
The two guards finish with him, leaving him to mewl in distress. It dawns on
him suddenly that whatever Ducard is planning, suffocation might have been a
mercy.
“So be it –“
Something squeaks nearby, followed by a flutter of wings, and his body stiffens
in alarm –
One of the guards seizes his unbound leg, holds it tight and immobile by the
calf, and the other braces his hips, steadying him. Muscles jump in his belly
while a sour taste of adrenaline fills his mouth, but when a gloved hand
suddenly begins palpating his testicles, fingers tightening around the fragile
sac of skin and stroking at intimate places on his body that no one – living or
dead – has ever touched, the dread and anxiousness take on a new tone. For the
first time that night, he feels as though he’s being raped, and a little thrill
of anger slices through the haze.
The next few moments come only as a fog of discomfort, while his flesh is
squeezed, twisted, prodded as though both delicate organs are being forced
through a tightly enclosed opening, and he begins to feel a dull, throbbing
ache build between his legs.
“You’ll have little hope of a clear head after this, Bruce – if you wish to
speak, speak now.”
He shudders, trying vainly to lift his head.
“I – I don’t kn – w-wha’d’you want –“
“I want you to admit what you could never bring yourself to face; what your
mind ran from in a feeble effort at self protection. Just say it, and you’ll be
spared what’s to come.”
Several dry, heaving sobs drag themselves from Bruce’s overworked lungs as he
struggles to think – a difficult effort when sharp twinges are increasing in
intensity, and he has to pant to control the pain –
“I’m sorry it comes to this – other options were open to you.”
There’s a quiet ring of metal, a snap of elastic, and without much fore sign
Bruce finds himself screaming in agony, as a needle tight band closes around
his balls like a vise.
He tries to kick with both legs; tries to rush forward – the guards hold him
still, and he might be speaking, pleading with Ducard to just let him die, but
–
“Bruce…”
He stretches out a small hand, hesitant, fearful.
“Bruce… it’s okay…”
Rough hands pluck at his nipples, work them to a flushed agitation before
clamping each one into a heavy pincer.
“Say it.”
Wings fluttering, brushing his skin, every incessant screech ringing in his
eardrums until they become one final death-cry –
“Wallets, watches –“
The man has a gun, there’s a loud noise like a firework, it’s all he can think
of, and his father is lying on the concrete and there’s blood, and this can’t
be real, it’s a dream, it’s a movie, it’s not real –
“Say it, Bruce.”
His body jolts with another broken scream when the weights are attached and
pull mercilessly at his constricted genitals – there’s a disgusting smell,
liquid soaking his chest all the way down to his throat, and he realizes it’s
urine. Lights explode behind his eyes, noises, colors he can’t identify, this
can’t go on, he has to die –
A wet, gloved finger brushes the smooth strip of skin behind his scrotum,
seconds before the spot begins to burn with a wild intensity, and he only has
to time to wonder in fits if they’ve actually taken a flame to his flesh before
his gorge rises from the sensation. Vomit splatters the floor.
“Bruce –“
- He sees himself, he sees a child, a little boy crying, weak, helpless,
because all that mattered was gone and the world had ended-
-Strong arms hold him close, rocking him, lips brush his cheek, the soft skin
of his neck, pet back his hair –
“- say it –“
- Listening to his heart, fingers barely touching the knit wool covering a
quivering, tiny body -
“ – say it – “
“Bruce…”
Something sharp works it’s way between skin and elastic and slices off the
band, allowing blood to rush back excruciatingly into his all-but castrated
organs, and his throat is raw, must be bleeding-
“… why do we fall?”
“ – SAY IT!”
“… I love you, Dad…” Bruce whispers, hoarse and broken, before his head falls
limp on his neck and he only just hears Ducard murmuring before unconsciousness
rushes up to meet him –
“Well done…”
 
*
 
When his eyes flutter open again, he’s lying on a blanket of yak fur in a
larger, windowed room he doesn’t recognize. His clothes have been stripped away
at some point while he was unconscious, and a pair of strong hands are busy
rubbing something warm and smooth into his back with firm, gradual strokes.
He tries to speak, but only succeeds in whimpering.
“Hush,” a familiar voice soothes, before his head is lifted gently from the
bedding and a cup appears at his lips. He can taste honey and herbs, and it
feels good going down.
“You were magnificent…” Ducard murmurs as he rolls him over carefully, until
for a moment Bruce finds himself cradled against his chest like a newborn, and
it seems so strange that this utter beast of a man could know how to be tender.
Bruce’s mind is strangely quiet as Ducard bends down and softly kisses his
lips, petting his cheekbone with a large hand, and the blankness continues when
he throws his arms around the man’s neck, not allowing the contact to end,
making desperate little noises he hadn’t known he was capable of before now.
Ducard tugs him away with five fingers fisted tightly into his hair, and tuts
like an admonishing parent before dragging him back into to the furs and
brushing his mouth down the line of Bruce’s throat, over his sternum and belly.
Not a single kiss offered, only a barely-present tease of lips on skin that has
the poor boy squirming in seconds, until Ducard finds some pity and lifts
Bruce’s thigh to his smooth chest.
He flinches back from the first touch, still a little tender, but a firm hand
holds his hips still for the first careful violation, slickened with boar fat.
“You’ll be thankful of it before this night is over.” Ducard warns him
humorlessly, and after a moment’s thought Bruce lets his head drop back with a
quiet moan, because that – he – oh…
For all the tabloid press surrounding his exploits in college, Princeton had
yielded little to nothing in sexual experience – not that there had been any
shortage of willing partners, but because he had chosen to smother down natural
urges like a monk, livid sensuality constrained under clothing that was better
suited to a man forty years his senior.
And while his hips dance, searching a little frantically for that elusive,
teasing point of contact that Ducard had offered him only the briefest taste
of, the thought of what is actually happening, the lightning fast realization
I’m having sexnever enters his mind.
This is simply… something. Just a somethingthat he’s craved unknowingly for the
past ten years, until rediscovering the feeling, if not the name, only hours
ago when it was dragged, bleeding, out of his mind like another cry of agony.
If this is what a few moments of pain can earn him, than he’ll accept it
gratefully, he considers in a sort of bleary, pleasured fog as his thighs are
pressed firmly to either side of his torso and a warm heaviness sinks inside
him.
“Open your mouth,” Ducard hisses against his lips, one massive hand cupping his
face.
“Open it – open it –“
He does as he’s told, their tongues curl together messily, and Bruce can feel
his legs tremble with each firm burst of pressure deep in his body, that he
can’t control or escape from.
It’s frightening in a way, but the fear is tempered with a low, constant throb
of physical pleasure, the hard press of Ducard’s body all around him like an
impenetrable shield, and the hand stroking his brow…
He moans once, long and loudly with another deep thrust into his core, and
outside the open windows an eagle’s scream echoes through the mountains as the
sun begins to rise, bleeding red.
 
***** Chapter 2 *****
Chapter Notes
     Some dialogue in this chapter is taken directly from "Kingdom of
     Heaven" where, let's face it, Liam Neeson basically plays the same
     character.
     More kinkiness this time around, but not to the extreme it was taken
     to in chapter 1
 
 
Bruce has started thinking of the lake as “their” place, more so than the
balcony where they watch the sun come up, and Ducard’s hands rest on his back,
guiding his breathing as they meditate together – or even, more recently, their
bed.
It’s a remote spot, surrounded by craggy blocks of ice-covered rock, and only
accessible through an underground tunnel that spills out onto the frozen water.
On their first visit, Ducard had told him a story, about how centuries before a
great king had been buried beneath the surface of the lake so that he might
guard his land forever.
Laying a gloved palm to the ice, Bruce had looked over his shoulder to the man
kneeling beside him, and for a moment entertained a pleasing fantasy.
He doesn’t really see the point of sword fighting, the world has moved on from
that (by leaps and bounds) but Ducard won’t be swayed, and anyway it’s not like
his methods are entirely old fashioned – Bruce knows for a fact that he has the
scientific division (they call it alchemy) working on some form of radioactive
solute.
On an entirely different perspective, he can’t deny how fucking good Ducard
looks with a sword in his hand.
They spend the early hours of the morning sparring through form after form, and
Bruce notices his frustration building to do a heated battle with newly
awakened desire at every new strategy Ducard chooses to startle him with.
“Broaden your thinking.” he growls once, nearly ramming the hilt of his weapon
into Bruce’s jawbone. “The blade isn’t the only part of a sword!”
He deflects the next hit with his wrist guards, the shock quivering all the way
up to his throat, only for Ducard to seize his arm and hurl him skidding across
the ice as easily as flicking away a fly.
It takes exactly thirty-nine moves until Bruce is able to kick his opponent’s
legs from underneath him, but his smug triumph at besting his hero is short-
lived, once Ducard drops him into a pit of freezing water so cold it burns his
skin. One can almost believe that an unquiet spirit, displeased at being
disturbed, inhabits the place.
Ducard is strict enough to push him through several more practice forms until
he corrects his error in judgment, and then leaves him to chop a mound of
firewood while he fetches a meal. It turns out to be the massive foreleg of a
mountain bear, and despite the harsh temperatures turning his lips and fingers
blue, Bruce can’t help wishing he could have seen Ducard bring the animal down.
He must have been absolutely majestic, every movement feline and sinuous…
“Rub your chest.” Ducard mentions later, once the meat is wrapped and cooking
at the center of the fire. “Your arms will take care of themselves.”
Shivering, Bruce does as he’s told, and finds his breathing becoming a bit less
labored.
“Now to the matter at hand.”
Bruce looks up, startled.
“You still haven’t spoken of him.”
“Who?” he asks shakily, but Ducard isn’t fooled by his pretended stupidity.
“Your father.”
“What does it matter? He’s -”
“Dead? Tell me, could a dead man haunt your every step and thought? Could the
thought of his life being taken so brutally fill you with such an impossible,
unbearable anger, strangling the grief until the memory of your loved one is
just… poison in your veins, until one day you catch yourself wishing the person
you loved had never existed, so that you might be spared your pain…”
His voice grows softer with each word, and Bruce stares at him with growing
realization and a lovesick boy’s longing to comfort.
Ducard won’t meet his eyes as he continues.
“I wasn’t always here in the mountains. Once I had a wife… my great love…”
For a moment he absentmindedly caresses a gold ring on his finger - a snake
swallowing it’s own tail, and a garnet the shade of venous blood embedded in
it’s head - but quickly remembers himself.
“What happened?” Bruce eventually asks.
“She was… taken from me. Like you, I was forced to learn that there are those
without decency, who must be fought without hesitation, without pity…”
He falls silent, and for a time they simply listen to the branches cracking
apart between the flames, until – with a hesitant sickness in his belly that he
hasn’t recognized since he was a child, peering into the library to see his
father in a woman’s embrace – Bruce forces himself to speak.
“… Tell me about her.”
From the look on his face, Ducard seems caught somewhere between wistfulness
and excruciating torment, but he answers anyway.
“I saw her only once before… on a balcony in her father’s palace. She was
wrapped in white silk, her hair unbound… and her eyes…”
He pauses, tightening his jaw, and only continues once he seems to recover.
“There are some who say that love cannot come in a single moment, from a single
shared glance – in that instant, we knew otherwise. The marriage was…
illegitimate by the laws of any nation, but we were content with vows exchanged
between ourselves and before her God. I had only one night to hold her in my
arms, but…”
The change is subtle, almost imperceptible, but in an instant painful
recollection transforms to chilling rage.
“We never learned who betrayed us, and for that every man within that
stronghold suffered the same fate. Vengeance is the only true cure for the
agony we both know so well… and for what was done to her… my Sarit…”
Bruce avoids his gaze, focusing instead on the reflection of the firelight on
the snow.
“Vengeance is no help to me.”
“No. But you can have your satisfaction against the corruption and decadence
that made his death possible. As I swore I would upon her grave.”
Quiet settles again, while Ducard spears the roasted meat on a curved dagger
and offers Bruce a decent portion, dripping with fat. They have to eat quickly,
with their fingers, the juices spilling with each mouthful, but Bruce can
hardly taste it or feel the heat scorch his tongue.
The more foolhardy part of him wants to ask if this Sarit is who Ducard sees
each night while he thrusts inside him, but he’s too afraid of what the answer
might be, and forces out a different question instead.
“The king, buried in the ice? … Did he have a lover?”
Ducard seems unsurprised.
“… Many.”
They begin scraping away the ashes of the fire, drowning themselves in growing
darkness, and Bruce is glad of it, if it means he can hide his face.
 
*
 
“Up.”
With a grunt of discomfort, Bruce struggles back up to his feet, flushed and
sweating from the exertion of the past four hours.
“Now show me what you’re made of.”
Sixteen men, deep chested and barely glistening with perspiration, watch
dispassionately from each side of the training arena as they lean against the
wooden slats or their own weapons, their part in the proceedings finished –
merely awaiting the master’s approval of the student’s progress.
Snatching up his blade from the dust and pebbles covering the ground, he lunges
into a frontal attack which Ducard blocks easily, highlighting the fault in the
move with a razor sharp turn and a smack of the sword’s flat side to Bruce’s
thigh. Had they been in genuine combat, his leg would be lying on the arena
floor.
“Take a high guard – sword raised, like this.”
Horribly conscious of the many eyes fixed on him, Bruce follows his example and
lifts the blade above his head.
“Strike down.”
He tries.
“Again. Sword straighter.”
Another strike.
“Again. Leg back, bend your knees. Sword straighter.”
Anger swells up in Bruce’s gut, and he grips the sword hilt as though he’s
strangling a murderer.
It’s been three days since their morning on the lake and Ducard’s story, and
ever since phantom jealousy and self-loathing have hooked their claws into him,
have him convinced that he’s made an idiot out of himself for thinking, like
any damaged virgin, that the first fuck meant something special – both to him,
and the man he’s come to think of as a second parent.
Ducard is sighing with displeasure.
“You haven’t been a spoiled child in years. Stop behaving like one.”
“Am I likely to be fighting off thugs with a broadsword any time soon?” Bruce
snaps back as the blade clashes against a spiked gauntlet.
“This has nothing to do with swordsmanship. Defend yourself.”
Fury and confusion make him clumsy. He’s on his back in the dirt within three
moves, Ducard’s heel against his throat.
“Disappointing.”
Bruce fumes and tries to worm his way from under the stranglehold, but it
remains firm.
“After al this time, I’d expected more from you. Luccsson.” he barks, chilling
blue eyes never leaving Bruce’s gaze for a moment.
“Eazim Wahid.” the addressed soldier replies instantly.
“The Shanghai operation is now under your command. Report to Grigor for
specific orders. And as for you –“
Bruce forces himself to continue looking back, despite the disappointment at
the self-won punishment crackling under his skin.
“Back to the chamber. One hour’s duration should be sufficient.”
 
*
 
When not in use, all ten beads are kept in a small box of carved ebony on an
alcove shelf, and the worst part of the process is the slow walk to the corner,
removing the lid, and gathering a handful of the shiny black discs, all the
while tingling under Ducard’s merciless eye.
The beads are ebony to match the box, sanded and polished to a satin smooth
finish without a hint of traction, and when applied to the lacquered wall have
no purchase whatsoever – unless held firmly with a fingertip.
Sucking in a steadying breath, Bruce folds his legs into a crouch, as though
sitting on an invisible chair, and begins arranging each disc under his
fingers.
“At the right angle.” comes a stern direction from the other side of the room,
and he allows himself a disbelieving shudder of distress before replacing the
beads, this time balancing each one on it’s rounded edge, a sixteenth of an
inch thick, between his fingers and the wall.
There are times that Bruce has to grudgingly admire the subtle viciousness of
Ducard’s imagination. Press too hard with a finger, and the disc would over
balance, falling flat or rolling out of reach. Too lightly, and it would drop
from his grip altogether.
A single error, and the allotted time would begin afresh, no matter how
fiercely the muscles in his thighs had begun to ache.
As he crouches facing the wall, both arms fully outstretched and every strained
muscle beginning to shake, he can hear liquid splashing near the center of the
room.
Tendons sting in protest all through his shoulders as he twists his neck to
glance behind him, where Ducard is lounging on the piles of brocade cushions
that make up a small conversation area, calmly pouring himself a snifter of
milky chhaang wine as he observes Bruce’s current orchestrated dilemma.
He nods back towards the wall as if to say “go on,” and Bruce turns his head,
quivering with helpless anger and making a desperate search for anything to
focus on but the burn shooting through his legs. Balancing the discs would
offer sufficient distraction, if it weren’t for the struggle to balance his
entire body weight on the balls of his feet as well.
It had taken him four tries to successfully complete the time limit the last
time he’d been punished this way, but then, the allotment had only been for ten
minutes. The question of how he’s supposed to endure this for six times that
length almost has tears stinging the corner of his eyes.
He manages for almost three quarters of an hour before his thumb slips. One
bead drops to the floor with a clatter, and his eyelids flutter.
“Sixty minutes.” Ducard murmurs gently as he picks up the fallen trinket and
works it back into place under the offending finger. “Start again.”
He tries. Another bead falls thirty minutes later, and twelve minutes after
that his foot drops flat, disrupting his balance and his tenuous grip on those
precious discs. They rain down on the floorboards like hail, and he collapses
with a sob.
“You aren’t focusing.”
“I – I can’t –“
“We will not leave this room until you do. Get up.”
Bruce quickly discovers that his legs seem to have no interest in supporting
his body weight any longer, and after a long struggle of arranging himself in a
ballast position to evenly distribute the pressure, he has to wait as each bead
is painstakingly replaced under his fingers.
By now, his face is tear-streaked.
The shadows crawl across the floorboards gradually, and he wonders how much
longer his sentence can last.
Inwardly, he knows he has only himself to blame. If he had remained in control,
if he hadn’t allowed pride to get the better of him –
“Breathe.” a deep voice growls, resonating through his skull, and he does his
best to obey, shakily.
“Breathe.”
His eyes close, and he centers every remaining bit of energy on filling his
lungs with air, exhaling slowly. When his eyes open again, the edges of his
vision seem to wobble.
“I told you, it had nothing to do with swordplay. It was about patience and
concentration. When a student finds difficulty grasping the crux of a lesson
through one form, it becomes necessary to find another.”
Bruce is panting, fighting to control each breath, and the pain has begun to
spread up his back –
“Enough.”
With that one word, it’s as though a thread has been snipped, and he collapses
to the floor on his back, whimpering, his legs tangled in a numb, tingling
heap.
He’s allowed only a moment of relief.
“Stand and go to the bathing chamber. I’ll be there shortly.”
“I can’t move…”
“You could move well enough when you were told to be still. You’re responsible
for your own actions, Bruce, and I don’t ever intend to carry you. Go on.”
The bathing chamber isn’t strictly a part of the building, but rather a
subterranean cavern carved out by axes or perhaps more modern methods. It’s
lead into by twenty-seven steps and the surrounding rock floor is rough and
uneven.
Bruce stumbles twice, gripping at the walls for support, and crying like a
child – not from anger, or physical pain, but rather from crippling shame at
having failed.
It isn’t until he’s crawled to the edge of the underground spring that Ducard
seems to decide that he’s been punished enough, and helps him out of his sweat-
stiffened clothing. True to his word, he doesn’t carry him, but allows him to
lean heavily against his chest as they wade into the deeper water, towards the
center of the lake where water drizzles from an open crater in the stalactite-
riddled ceiling, pumped up from the lake by an elaborate network.
It showers over their heads and shoulders, and as he gulps down mouthful after
mouthful of melted snow, Bruce slowly, painfully begins to notice feeling
creeping back into his limbs.
“’M sorry.” he mumbles later once they’re back upstairs in the main room, and
he’s been settled by the fire with a warm drink.
“You’ll always learn from each mistake.” Ducard replies simply, while he
continues massaging liniment into Bruce’s traumatized calves.
The logs have melted to ash in the hearth before he speaks again.
“Luccsson will still be leading the Shanghai assault. I’m sure you understand
why.”
Bruce hangs his head regretfully, and nods. The order was given in front of the
men, and anyway, there wouldn’t be much point to discipline if the penalty were
withdrawn due to softheartedness.
He’d been looking forward to that mission – specifically, to the glow of pride
and approval he’d find in Ducard’s gaze when he returned, covered in dirt and
glory.
The disappointment chafes like a raw wound, but Bruce tries to put it out of
mind.
“It’s late. Come.”
Obediently, he allows himself to be led across the room, where he slips off his
linen tunic and stretches naked on his stomach across the fur bedding. Moments
later bare, warm muscle covers his back as Ducard murmurs soothingly against
the nape of his neck;
“Now… tell me about your father.”
With a quiet sigh Bruce arches up his hips like a cat in heat, and tells him.
 
*
 
It takes a month before they weed out a planted MI6 agent.
The man’s cover might be faulty, but his interrogation resistance training
seems to be bulletproof – enough so that even the careful attentions of
Ducard’s chief rack master prove unable to break him after four days.
Bruce can’t help but find their lack of imagination irritating.
“Give me five hours with him.” he asks quietly, over a late night game of
Senet.
The firelight casts gold shadows over Ducard’s features as he glances up from
the board.
“You’re overestimating yourself.” he replies, before moving a piece diagonally.
“Argyris has nine times your experience in these matters –“
“ – Argyris only has experience in inflicting pain. And enjoys it too much to
focus on results.” Bruce interrupts brazenly, tossing the dice out to a pair
and a six, a flawless continuation of his winning streak. His smug look and
raised brow are a clear double-edged challenge, and from his near indiscernible
huff of silent laughter, it’s a provocation that Ducard accepts.
“Well then, my nestling,” he croons, almost condescending as he rattles the
dice out of the hammered gilt cup. Two, four, and one. Pitiful.
“- what would be your approach?”
Bruce shrugs, affecting carelessness, before rolling another success.
“Fear will crack through the psyche better than anything man could create – you
taught me that firsthand, remember?”
Ducard gives him an indulgent smile, as if humoring a fantasizing child, while
he gathers the dice back into the cup and gives it a brief shake.
“And if I forbid it?”
“And if I ignore you?”
The dice rattle onto the board. Three of a kind. A winning blow.
Ducard shifts another playing piece to the edge of the board while Bruce groans
his defeat through a lip-bitten grin.
“Then I suppose the question is simply… should I be merciful?”
He glances back from the game to his eager-eyed pupil, and the corner of his
lip curls into a smirk.
“Hm… I think not.”
Bruce chokes on an elated gasp as Ducard snatches him by the ankle and drags
him onto his back in the cushions, before ripping open his calfskin tunic with
a titillating show of brute strength.
They both know perfectly well that the unspoken wager was meaningless – Ducard
would have had him anyway.
 
*
 
When they carry him out of the cell on a stretcher two days later, the dog
bites on Bruce’s chest have turned red and sore, his face feels puffy from the
bruising, and the toes connected to his fractured tiba have become concerningly
numb.
According to the prisoner, British Intelligence believe themselves to have
details about the base location of the League, and plans are underway to storm
the fortress in eight days, now that their contact with him is lost.
It’s incredible what a man will reveal to a fellow inmate, after almost a week
of believing he’ll die alone.
If the signal refraction array is working correctly – and it should be, Bruce
helped design it, Ducard’s pleased smile had stayed with him for weeks – then
MI6 will be launching an attack on the peaceful Shaun Hills in Burma, about
five hundred miles away. Such a mortifying failure and the resulting diplomatic
fall out will guarantee that any future attempt at takedown is bottlenecked for
months by bureaucrats, leaving Shanghai ripe as a heavy peach for plucking.
Bruce rasps out the details through his parched throat as the infirmary medics
hook him up to IV bags and begin injecting antibiotic, while Ducard listens
impassively.
After a long moment, he kneels onto the floor beside the pallet, and turns
Bruce’s face towards him with a single, outstretched finger, before backhanding
him so viciously that his head bounces.
Judging from the sting, the blow broke open the already swollen skin covering
his cheekbone, and he swallows back the growing nausea and the fear that this
was all for nothing, preparing himself to take Ducard’s ice-cold fury at his
disobedience like an equal.
A thumb traces through the fresh blood on his face, and a warm palm cups his
aching jaw, petting back his unwashed hair. Ducard leans in close, until their
foreheads almost meet, and his lips brush gently over the corner of Bruce’s
mouth in a ghost of a kiss.
“You’re ready…” he breathes at last, and through the bleariness as others try
to mend the wreckage of his body, Bruce manages a smile and lets his eyes
flutter shut.
 
*
 
With Initiation complete, they strike Munich, and after Munich, Houston. Every
assault requires months of precise planning, and it’s all too easy for Bruce to
lose years in seeking Ducard’s approval – which, when granted, steals long,
luscious hours of flesh and sweat and seed.
He doesn’t have the courage to ask for any stronger emotion.
It’s midwinter, and beyond the shutters, the wind shrieks like a spurned lover
while ice batters the wall. He wonders vaguely if they’ve passed Christmas in
Gotham. Years ago, Alfred would smile over the rim of a rare glass of sherry,
three fingers too full, while Bruce basked in the glow of the flames leaping in
the gilded hearth, encircled by his father’s arms…
Unyielding strength encircles him now as he stokes the fire, and a rich voice
that after all this time he knows as well as his own heartbeat breathes into
his hair.
“You’re only silent when something weighs on your mind.”
Bruce leans back into the embrace, and squeezes one of the black-gloved hands
resting on the curve of his hip.
“Nothing. Just thinking about the past.”
“And now?”
He holds his tongue, drops the blanket draped over his shoulders and allows the
lush press of bare skin to wrapped leather and wool serve as an answer.
Almost an hour later, the storm outside has reached a terrifying frenzy, but
the fire is hot in the grate, while thick furs and the warmth of another man’s
body, pressed close, envelop him safely.
Ducard’s blue eyes linger on his face with an unfamiliar sort of wistfulness,
and he offers no complaint as Bruce touches him idly, tracing fingertips over
his collarbone and the network of scars littering rugged muscle.
“You can’t remain here, you know that.”
Bruce sighs, with a hesitant grin.
“That disappointing, huh?”
“Don’t belittle your own ability. I’ve watched you accomplish in three years
what it takes most men a lifetime to achieve.”
His tone is completely devoid of any humor. It’s abashing.
“Then wouldn’t I be more useful to you –“
“Bruce… when I found you on that pier you were lost – but I believed in you. I
thought if I could take away your repressed fear, you could rise above it and
attain something extraordinary. I… underestimated human weakness.”
“Then I have failed.”
“Not failed – only smothered the pain of a broken heart by offering it to
another man.”
“Henri…” he breathes, his mind stuttering, but Ducard only pets his hair away
from his brow and continues.
“True belief in a creed like ours cannot be engendered – it is present from
birth, like weakness or sanity or courage. You were meant for the world, not to
be hidden away in the mountains, masked and cloaked.”
“So why keep me here?”
He laughs softly, in a rare show of self-deprecation.
“Selfishness, perhaps. I don’t suppose you’ve noticed, but you are
heartbreakingly lovely.”
His palm strokes Bruce’s thigh, rose-gold in the firelight.
“You can’t ask me to leave, not now.” he protests, trembling – because the
universe can’t be that cruel, God, if there is a God, couldn’t tear his father
away only to dangle happiness so cruelly inches out of his reach, like
Tantalus’ fruit.
Bruce curls his fingers around Ducard’s jaw, thumbs caressing the sharp angles
of his face and the lines that shadow each frigid eye.
“Henri, I lo-“
“Hush.” He’s interrupted brusquely, before an arm snakes under his knees and
topples his balance, weighting him back into the piles of fur and cushioning.
“Were you a woman, I would give you a child… “ Ducard murmurs into the shell of
his ear, strangely mournful even as blunt fingernails claw down the muscles of
his abdomen.
Blood rushes to the surface of Bruce’s skin at the thought, and he moans.
“… But you must content yourself with a memory.”
For an indescribable moment, Ducard almost seems uncertain, until he finally
slips the garnet ring off his finger and presses it to his lips like a
benediction, a ghost of ancient passion and suffering crossing his face.
“This was given with ardent love to me. You have been my joy, little one.”
The band is a loose fit as he eases it onto Bruce’s thumb, before twining their
fingers and pressing his hand to the bedding.
“… May you find another just as worthy.”
They don’t share many words after that, only moans and gasping and half-choked
names while Bruce’s lover works him raw.
Lover, father, elder brother, friend…
There’s a burn of friction with the first thrust that makes him scream, caught
between alarm and overwrought arousal, but it dissipates quickly once clever
fingers rediscover a tiny erotic spot down the side of his ribcage. With a
flash of inspired boldness – and perhaps revenge for his humiliation on the
lake, all those years ago - he overturns Ducard onto his back with a twist of
his legs, and oh, being taken was sweet, but this little flutter of power –
rocking his hips inch by succulent inch, forcing every movement against that
perfect place tucked up inside him, and every lip-bitten quiver of pleasure
caught by Ducard’s unbreaking gaze – this is ecstasy…
Bruce shivers wildly the moment it all crests and breaks over him, and then
he’s being turned on his knees, oversensitive, not allowed to rest…
“Drink.”
There’s a chalice offered by the hand not riding his hip, tugging him back
against warm, flexing thighs, and as he gulps down the wine Bruce notices the
pattern of one of the brocade pillows imprinted into the skin of his palm.
A watery red droplet trickles down his throat like blood, and even though
there’s no wound to soothe Ducard runs his thumb along Bruce’s lower lip, like
a mother pressing a kiss to a bruise on her child’s knee.
He’s taken three more times before falling asleep, hazy from the drink, and it
isn’t until he wakes up in a peasant’s hut at the base of the mountains that
Bruce realizes he should have recognized Ducard’s impassion as a farewell.
 
*
 
Whoever was responsible for doing the actual work of turning him out, happened
to be kind enough to pack an essentially useless antique cellular phone in the
duffel bag he’d found next to him, but there’s just enough satellite reception
for Bruce to transmit a short encoded message – tiny and obscure enough for any
idle listener to ignore, except the intended recipient.
At least this proves once and for all that Alfred’s stories about Bletchley
Park and code breaking didn’t go unappreciated.
A gentleman’s gentleman through to the bone, Alfred asks no questions when he
shows up with the private plane and all throughout the flight, but Bruce knows
damn well that he won’t get away with silence forever – four years can’t be
entirely empty.
Besides, his appearance doesn’t exactly proclaim innocence. He gets his first
glimpse of himself in a mirror for several months when he slips into the
onboard washroom to clean up, and it’s a bit of a shock – his hair has grown,
just brushing his shoulders now, and there are bruises half-hidden under the
crusting of dirt that could (and a few do) have some violent connotations.
The bed sheets are too smooth to bear sleeping on, so Bruce paces back and
forth in the cabin, restless and fighting to come to terms with the fact that
his – whatever it was he shared in the mountains – is actually over.
For a short while he considers turning the plane back, beating on the gate
until Ducard relents and accepts him back, but a gently chiding voice in his
mind that sounds suspiciously like Rachel keeps reminding him that he’d only be
setting himself up for more heartache.
 
*
 
Coming back from the dead isn’t easy.
There are social security forms, and bank statements and a Federal Bureau or
two that need to be satisfied, and while his attorneys are able to field most
of the paperwork, it’s Bruce who has to handle the competency hearing, the
medical exam, and several court-mandated legal interviews – because when a
multi-billion dollar trust fund is at stake, Wayne Enterprises, or more
specifically, Richard Earle, will want to be certain that he isn’t a damn good
surgically altered imposter.
Alfred, by comparison, is a bit more lenient, and gladly hands back ownership
of the house, though the promise of a roof over his head isn’t much comfort.
The place still feels like a tomb.
But despite all the technical details still waiting to be resolved, the news
that Gotham’s crown prince has been apparently resurrected is lapped up eagerly
by the media, and it’s within thirty minutes of GCN’s breaking news coverage
that Rachel comes dashing into the mansion foyer, drenched from the rain and
red-cheeked.
Bruce isn’t able to say a word before she smacks his cheek, and flings her arms
around his neck, holding back relieved sobs that they both know she’s too proud
to let out.
“Four god-damn years – and you couldn’t call once just to mention you were
alive?!”
“I… needed some time to clear my head –“
“I had to speak at your funeral!” she hisses, fingers squeezing the back of his
skull.
“I – we allhad to grieve, and you weren’t able to spare a thought -!”
He lets her vent for nearly six minutes – she deserves that much – but once
she’s collected herself the over-conscious smile he knows a little too well
comes back, and she chuckles, embarrassed by her own emotion and refusing to
meet his eye.
“I’ve gotten you all wet…”
“I think I’ve got a few spare shirts stashed away somewhere.” he quips, trying
to put her at ease.
“Not if Earle has his way – he’s been suggesting to every press outlet who
listens that you’re a scam artist from Bremen.”
“I’d heard Yugoslavia.”
They make their way up the hall stairs and into the library, and it isn’t until
several hours and a bottle of scotch later that she finally brings it up.
“…I’m seeing someone.”
For a few moments too long, Bruce isn’t sure how to respond, but eventually
settles for pouring her another drink and hoping that the sudden rush of envy –
for her happiness and shared intimacy – isn’t immediately obvious from his
expression.
“Is he good to you?”
She smiles a bit wistfully, her eyes bright from the liquor, and leans back
into the couch cushions.
“A knight in shining armor.”
 
*
 
It’s Alfred’s groan of disapproval that wakes him up a week later, but the rush
of sunlight that floods the room when the curtains are violently pulled back
definitely seals his fate.
“Did I miss breakfast?” he grumbles from under a pillow.
“Four hours ago, sir.”
When it becomes obvious that the butler doesn’t intend to go anywhere until
Bruce shows some signs of life, he shoves back the covers before dropping
abruptly to the floor and launching into a round of one thousand push-ups. Old
habits are hard to break.
“At the risk of sounding an utter fool, do you have an agenda for the day?”
“I don’t feel like it.”
“With respect sir, you’ve been holed up in this room for longer than is
strictly healthy. People will start wondering if Bruce Wayne actually returned
from the dead at all –“
“Let them talk – we both know I can take gossip, it’s a family talent.”
Alfred carefully settles himself on the window seat, and watches the last few
exercise cycles with an unimpressed scowl.
“You’ve been trying to put on a good show, and I understand that, sir – I’d
probably do the same in your place. But wallowing in self-pity gets you nowhere
–“
Bruce opens his mouth to fire back an indignant retort, but is cut off by a
snapped finger that apparently still has the ability to scare him into silence,
ever since childhood.
“- and take it from an authority on these matters; the best way to tend a
broken heart, is by finding distraction.”
For a moment, Bruce tenses in alarm, afraid he’s been caught out, but suddenly
realizes that Alfred must think he’s mourning Rachel. Who else could he know
about?
“So, what do you suggest?” he mutters, crawling off the floor with an air of
conceding defeat.
Alfred seems satisfied with the performance, because the tension gradually
evaporates between them.
“Now that your identity is officially restored, I thought you might want to
take an interest in your father’s legacy.”
“I thought Earle had driven that into the ground?”
“Not entirely – there are still a few charitable organizations headed by the
Wayne Foundation that he seemed to feel… beneath his dignity. Food pantries…
retirement communities… the childrens’ refuge… and besides, a billionaire
playboy who appears interested in good works will do a far better job of
rehabilitating his company’s image, than one who barely deserves the title.”
Shrugging on a t-shirt, Bruce sighs and relents as much as his dignity will
allow.
“… I’ll think about it.”
 
 
*
 
Blowing through a bit of cash proves to be even more effective than talk
therapy, not that Bruce really has much experience with either.
In any case, it offers the right impression – and a great photo-op - to the
tipped off press when he pulls up to the local boys’ home in a jet black
Bugatti and a tailored three-piece that’ll probably make Giorgio Armani dizzy
when he sees the revenue account.
There are kids squeezing up to the chain-link fence while he’s shaking hands
with the caretakers, all anxious and shoving for a good look at him. It reminds
him forcibly of a prison yard, and there’s an unpleasant awareness that were it
not for the sheer fortune of birth, he would have spent his childhood rolling
in greying mulch along with them.
If Bruce didn’t already despise Richard Earle for his sister’s tryst with
Thomas Wayne, then the way this place has been left to decay would certainly
seal the man’s fate. The Arkham inmates get better food in a day than
motherless children do in a week, and the fact that they all stare at him like
some sort of benevolent god is strangely telling.
He’s happy to be a god for them, the way Ducard had for him – taken a lost
child and given him back the desire to live, even if he can’t give every little
boy inside these walls the chance to feel what real, guiding love could be, the
way it was taught to him when he had no one else…
Bruce is already in the process of writing an astronomical check, despite the
half-hearted protests of the priest-in-charge, when something brushes the small
of his back.
“Sorry –“ a child’s budding voice mutters deferentially, and when he turns to
offer a reassuring word Bruce finds himself struck dumb.
The boy’s eyes are downcast as he drags off an aging portable television, but a
rosy flush is already dusting his cheekbones and the tips of his ears, and it’s
endearingly lovely…
“Don’t worry about it…” Bruce manages after a moment, before beckoning him
over.
“…What’s your name?”
He looks up, and offers a hesitant smile that Bruce remembers all too well,
loaded with those first, nervous flutterings of undeveloped desire –
“Richard.” he mumbles, and in that flawless second Bruce realizes that it’s
crystalline clear – he’ll be the one.
 
 
***** Chapter 3 *****
Chapter Notes
     this is a completely OC version of Dick Grayson that I invented to
     fit into the nolan canon.
     Fair warning for a pretty fucked up relationship dynamic.
     With thanks to Vladimir Nabokov, and to Mary Harron for the shower
     scene in "American Psycho."
 
 
It’s November ninth.
In two days, Richard will be fourteen, and the fostering arrangement will be
finalized.
It’s a happy coincidence for the PR office, who already have the local news
networks buzzing about “an orphan’s best birthday gift” and the usual
saccharine nonsense that’s only cranked out to give morning commuters something
to allegedly smile about – comical, when most of Gotham is too busy drowning in
their own cynicism to smile about anything.
 
There are voices drifting up from the front hall when Bruce pauses on the
staircase early in the morning, still in the process of buttoning his shirt,
and it’s a credit to persons he’d prefer to forget that he’s able to listen
around the corner completely unnoticed.
Invisibility is only patience and agility, he’d been told once.
“… not so long ago, I would have been honored to call you ‘Mrs. Wayne.’”
“Alfred…” Rachel replies softly, as if she’s afraid of what’s about to follow.
“ – But I think we both know that day is past.”
“He won’t miss me. He’ll be too busy playing house to think about it. So will
you.”
“Well… it may be pleasant having a child in the mansion again, but I can only
hope –“
“Rachel!” Bruce cuts in, entrance timed carefully as he fastens his cuffs.
“You’re a bit early if you wanted an introduction – he won’t be here until
three.“
“Actually, I came to say goodbye.” she interrupts, her tone careful as she
offers her hand for a friendly clasp, but he doesn’t doubt that he’s meant to
notice the flash of a diamond on her finger.
“… I guess I owe you congratulations?”
She colors a light peach.
“It was… sudden, but – we’re going to Detroit for a few weeks, Harvey has
family there, so –“
He can tell that the smile on his face is too wide to be considered disarming,
but perhaps it’s just as well. It’ll seemingly confirm what the two of them
already suspect – that he’s putting on a brave front to hide his lingering
feelings for a childhood sweetheart.
“Give him my best – he’s a lucky man.”
“You have no idea.” Rachel giggles, shaking her head as though the subject is
well-worn, before rising onto her toes to give him a chaste peck to the cheek.
“Good luck, Bruce.”
“You too.”
She smiles, and walks out the door, the collar of her peacoat pulled up against
the autumn wind.
 
*
Richard – or Dick, as he prefers to be known – settles into manor life with all
the greed of an impoverished teenager who’s suddenly been thrust into Ali
Baba’s cave. If Bruce had been expecting a difficult transition – offering to
help with household chores to the point of exasperation, waking up over early
with the assumption of work to be done – he’s a bit disappointed. Dick lounges
about the house like an odalisque, leaving a marked trail of oreo containers
and sprite cans behind him.
Alfred has to hire additional help before the end of the first week.
Not to say it goes by without a single problem. It doesn’t take terribly long
before Bruce works out that Dick is stockpiling food and knives in his bedroom,
but that’s probably indicative of a long series of issues that only a
psychologist could untangle, and Bruce isn’t interested in putting the boy
through that. If Dick wants help, he’ll ask for it.
 
*
 
“I can’t sleep.”
Bruce glances up from the building plans scattered over the library carpet, and
finds Richard leaning heavily against the arched doorframe, dressed only in a
pair of loose pajama bottoms, his dark hair bed-mussed.
“Bad dreams?”
He shakes his head and flops into one of the wingback chairs, long legs
dangling over the arm.
“Mm-mm. Just wanted t’ see you.”
Something flutters in Bruce’s stomach, but he chooses not to reply.
“What’re you doin’?”
“Just some calculating, ‘see if we can add some space onto the city penthouse.”
Dick snorts.
“Nerd. Let’s do something fun.”
“It’s two in the morning.”
“So? You’re still up.”
A one-sided smirk curls over Bruce’s face.
“Actually, I might have an idea…”
He climbs to his feet, and offers a hand to the boy slouched carelessly in the
chair, who snatches it with an eager giggle.
In a few minutes they’re sneaking through the marble hallway, the tiles ice
cold under bare feet, and past the baize door into the servants’ hall and the
kitchen just beyond, playfully shushing each other like misbehaving children.
Dick watches with bright eyes and a full pink lip caught between his teeth,
while Bruce grabs a tin off the top shelf and a pair of spoons.
“I used to sneak down here all the time and eat this stuff when I was your age
–“ he half-whispers as they settle cross-legged on the kitchen floor, and he
pries the can open.
“Are you serious? Condensed milk?”
Bruce pushes a spoon towards him with a teasing grin.
“Just try it –“
“You are so weird!” Dick snickers.
“C’mon, just once?”
Groaning a little, Dick eventually relents and scoops a drop or two of the
stuff onto the spoon, before carefully licking it off, and the twists and
flutters of his little pink tongue really shouldn’t be having such an intense
effect on Bruce’s insides.
“Holy shit -!”
“Told you so.” he mutters, smirking as Dick proceeds to shovel spoonful after
spoonful into his mouth, almost whimpering at the taste.
“I fucking love you, this is amazing.”
They’ve almost emptied the tin when Bruce notices a spot of cream-colored
liquid at the corner of Dick’s lips, and can’t keep himself from reaching over
to smear it off with his thumb.
Dick freezes, leaving Bruce to wonder for a horrifying moment if he’s
completely misjudged the situation, but then Dick taps gently at his own lower
lip.
“You’ve got a little too. Right there.”
“What? No, I-“
He brushes his fingers over the spot, and they come away clean.
“There’s –“
Suddenly Dick’s fingers are smearing sticky, thickened milk all over Bruce’s
mouth, with an impish expression.
“See? Right there.”
Then he jumps forward and Bruce has a lapful of slender, pulsating teenager,
who’s pressing their mouths together and running his tongue along the seam to
Bruce’s lips, demanding entry.
He whimpers quietly, and concedes.
Dick’s soft and warm and squirms like a kitten, his fingers tightening in
Bruce’s hair as his hips rock to and fro, and… well, he’s not entirely soft,
that’s for damn certain.
“Wait –“ Bruce gasps, a little frantically, while he tries to wriggle out from
under the boy’s grip.
“Hold on, not – not here.”
Dick pouts, but lets go long enough for them both to scramble off the floor and
make their way back to the hall, hands clasped.
“I need to grab a few things – meet me in the garage in three minutes?”
If Dick’s confused, he doesn’t show it – he only nods once before giving Bruce
another firm kiss, loaded with anticipation, and scuttles away down the side
passage.
Three minutes fly past, but by the time Bruce reaches the carport, a black
duffel bag swung over his shoulder, Dick is already hopping up and down with
the impatience of a much younger child.
“Are we taking the bike?”
“Yeah. Hold on tight.”
It’s difficult to concentrate on setting up the Agusta correctly while the
fourteen year old snuggles up against his back, but somehow he manages to
disengage the safeties and get them zooming over the property trails,
illuminated by security light.
The mansion may have undergone a few renovations over the years, but the old
stables haven’t been touched. Call it nostalgia.
They both hold out long enough to yank the blankets out of the sack and spread
them across the loose hay in one of the stalls, before jumping each other with
an enviable urgency.
Sweatshirts and pajama pants are yanked off indiscriminately until they can run
their hands over bare flesh, and for a fraction of a second Bruce wonders if,
from the anxious look on his face, Dick hasn’t suddenly lost his nerve. But
then the moment’s over and Dick tumbles underneath his body, tugging and
shoving until he has Bruce aligned exactly where he wants him. There are no
florid statements of devotion or lust-drenched demands, Bruce simply slicks
himself up with a handful of Vaseline, and gingerly eases inside.
Despite what most of Gotham society likes to believe, it’s his first time
penetrating anyone, and from the first mind-mangling thrust it’s obvious that
this is going to be over embarrassingly quickly – but Dick’s stamina is no
better, and after one particularly hard push that jars a spot he was likely
never even aware of until tonight, he wails, clamps down hard,and that’s all it
takes to have Bruce gasping against his neck.
Once they have their breath back, he lies down with a silent, indulgent smile,
and lets Dick run slim hands over his chest, pick straw out of his hair.
Playing with him, naturally curious.
His fingers skate along one of the thickened lines of scar tissue that curve a
few inches under Bruce’s nipple, and abruptly that troubled look is back.
“What’s wrong?” he whispers, and Dick swallows, clearly uncomfortable.
“Nothing, it’s just… no, nothing.”
The kid’s shit at lying. If they’re going to keep this up – and Bruce isn’t
exactly planning to put on the brakes, after tonight – then that’s something
they’ll need to work on.
He sighs, and lifts one corner of the blanket, letting Dick crawl underneath
and snuggle up against him. Their feet tangle together between the covers.
“Talk to me.”
It takes a minute, while Dick is still caressing that damn scar with his
fingertips, but eventually he speaks up.
“… I had an uncle. He, um - he drank a lot too.”
Despite the heat making sweat bead on their skin, Bruce suddenly feels cold. He
considers keeping his mouth shut, letting the boy continue to think he’s found
a kindred spirit, a fellow survivor, but ultimately he doesn’t want to get
caught in a lie.
“Actually, it was a dog.” He mumbles.
Dick sits up, staring at him, while the blanket pools around his trim little
hips.
“What?” he giggles disbelievingly, and the tension is over.
“It was a bigdog.”
Dick’s eyes narrow over his grin, and Bruce guesses that he’s chosen to take
this as deflection. No matter; it’s his decision to interpret the truth as a
lie.
“What about this one?” he croons, tapping an almost perfectly circular pad of
scarring on Bruce’s shoulder.
“Got shot at in Houston.”
“Got shot, you mean.” Dick sasses, and Bruce flicks his hip with a fingernail.
“And here?”
Ah. This one will be difficult.
“Um… it was a… hunting whip.”
Dick raises a brow, and smirks.
“Kinky.”
Mercifully, he doesn’t ask about any of the others – instead focusing his
attention on the marks left by a Tibetan mastiff, running his lips along the
raised skin and skimming it lightly with his teeth, before swirling his tongue
playfully around an erect nipple.
Bruce doesn’t keep his control for much longer after that, and it’s only a few
more minutes before they’re both moaning again.
“I love you…” Dick eventually pants, hands looking for purchase on sweat-slick
skin, and Bruce squeezes him close.
“No, not yet… but soon.”
 
*
 
Autumn sludges on into winter, and while Dick struts around the mansion with
the timeless, lewd grin of every teenage boy who’s joined the oldest club in
existence, Gotham continues to churn like a fucking meat grinder.
Carmine Falcone dies unexpectedly (and somewhat ironically) from an alcohol-
induced stroke, and the immediate resultant infighting between his many
caposprovides a spotless opportunity for the newlywed power couple at the
District Attorney’s Office to close in with all their might.
With his customary public geniality, Bruce offers to hold them a congratulatory
evening at the penthouse, and doesn’t take a polite refusal for an answer.
People tend not to suspect you of any wrongdoing if you seem eager to get
prosecuting lawyers under your roof.
The household relocates to the city home several days before the event, to give
the social secretary time to arrange things, and they grab the opportunity to
explore the wealthier corners of Gotham, that still see daylight.
Dick seems to take all of the pampering as nothing less than his due, and
perhaps it’s this newfound sense of entitlement that brings him into the marble
tiled bathroom early one morning.
Like the bed sheets in the next room, he’s still languid and rumpled from sex,
and a white t-shirt hangs overlarge on his delicate frame.
He’s formed a habit of reclining on top of the sink vanity so that he can watch
Bruce in the shower, an oddly possessive smirk on his flushed little face as he
looks his fill, but this time, instead of merely watching he climbs off the
shelf and slips under the spray with him.
Delicate, soft kisses are placed deliberately along the his shoulder, before
Dick noses at his hairline, lips brushing the nape of his neck as his fingers
tease cleverly over the dip of Bruce’s hips.
“You like me touching you, huh?” Dick purrs, overly seductive, but Bruce could
care less, as long as he keeps kissing that spot on his neck, just below his
earlobe, and God, his hands are so close…
“You want more?”
He plasters himself against Bruce’s spine, both palms massaging the tendons
that work through his groin and down into his thighs, pulling more and more
blood up to the skin until he’s hard enough that it’s a struggle not to
whimper.
“So you know how my allowance is five hundred a week?”
Confused and a little too turned on to think, Bruce nods.
Dick slides both hands between his thighs, the skin still slippery with shower
gel.
“Well, I think it should be a thousand.”
He’s gripping him now, working with firm, steady pulls that suggest he’s been
paying a lot more attention in bed than Bruce has given him credit for.
“Am I right?”
He jacks him faster, and the rhythmic motions almost distract from his free
hand curling around Bruce’s throat.
“I said, am I right?”
All of Dick’s fingers start tightening their grip, and even though he’s holding
on to the kid’s wrists, trying to maintain some semblance of control, Bruce can
see spots dancing at the edge of his vision – though he can’t be sure if that’s
because of that lack of oxygen, or an impending climax.
“Seven-fifty.” he chokes, a half pleading compromise, and he knows without
looking that Dick has started to pout.
His grasp slackens, and while air rushes back to Bruce’s head, he’s still
painfully aroused and doesn’t seem likely to get any relief.
“Mm, I really do think it should be a thousand.”
“Richard, please –“
“A thousand?”
“Yeah, ok –“
“Every week?”
A fingertip swipes across the head of his erection, where he’s already leaking
precum like honey –
“Alright, ev – every week, jesus –“
Dick shoves him back against the shower wall with a puckish smile, and Bruce
has only seconds to appreciate the t-shirt smothered against the boy’s torso -
transparent from the water and only just revealing the pink tones of bare skin
– before Dick is straddling him, offering a blatant invitation which he
unquestioningly accepts, not a single thought in his head for the consequences.
 
*
 
Wayne Family occasions have always been less about hospitality and enjoyment,
and more an opportunity for Gotham’s rich and shameless to claw their way into
prominence among the social circle of the city’s first family.
It seems that no one took the time to warn Harvey Dent about this fact, Bruce
notes with a twinge of secondhand embarrassment as the lawyer actually attempts
to engage some of the other guests in an intellectual conversation, after a
round of polite but pointless introductions. For a man they’ve taken to calling
Gotham’s Scourge, he really is sadly out of place once he leaves the
courthouse.
Bruce, meanwhile, continues to affect what he’s started calling his “simper,”
for the benefit of all the taloned dowagers who used to throw themselves at his
father, now displaying their daughters in front of him like racehorses.
After all, most of them suggest, with the barest veil of subtlety, a young boy
needs a mothering figure for a proper upbringing.
He doesn’t doubt they used the same line on his father as well.
An interminable stretch of time passes before he’s able to escape from the
endless parade of Crystals, Terries, and Tabithas and their oh-so charitable
plans for volunteer work in some suitably impoverished region of Africa, and
slips onto the balcony for a breath of air.
At this altitude, Gotham is deceptively beautiful – like a bright red flower
blooming in the center of the desert sand, before you notice the scorpion in
the shade of the leaves.
The familiar clipped step of stiletto heels tugs him back to the present, but
the meticulously prepared show of air-headedness evaporates – somewhat – when
instead of another harpy painted with layers of foundation, it’s Rachel.
Her arms are crossed, and her lips have tightened up in that manner which,
Bruce knows from experience, means he needs to tread lightly.
“Your protégé is currently throwing calamari from the second floor landing.”
she mentions matter-of-factly. “I asked him to cool it, he gave me the finger.”
Bruce rolls his eyes.
“He’s looking for attention, just ignore him.”
“Or maybe you could lay down a few boundaries.”
“I have.” he mutters, swirling what’s left of the bubbly in his champagne
flute, because it’s true – Dick still had the welts on his thighs from that
morning several weeks ago when he’d backtalked at Alfred over breakfast, and
Bruce had quietly but firmly needed to lay down the law with a riding crop.
For all his enticing naivete, Dick can be an utterly exasperating little brat.
“Then I would say your methods aren’t working.” Rachel fires back, but there’s
a humiliated shine to her seagreen eyes that goes past the expected frustration
with a rowdy teenager.
Just as he notices, the gleam spills over into several tears.
“Rachel –“
“How long have you been sleeping with him?”
His shoulders stiffen, and his vision seems to tunnel while flicker-images of
Dick riding his naked hips in the afternoon sunlight, a sweat-hungry fly
landing in fascination on a pink-brown areola, flash unbidden through his head.
Who has she talked to?
The cleaning staff are paid handsomely for their discretion, and Alfred can’t
know – Bruce has no doubt he’d already be booked and arraigned if the butler
had the slightest evidence to back his own suspicions, and he’s been too
careful for that, or so he’s thought. Dick is always sent back to his own room
by the morning, and Bruce is careful to rearrange the bedcovers to suggest a
restless night of sleep, rather than carnal enjoyment between a sweet-faced
criminal and his pubescent whore.
Confusion and shock cloud his judgment, and he mentally chokes on his own
stupidity when all he’s able to say is;
“Did he tell you that?”
Whatever lingering hope was left in Rachel’s face shutters.
“No. But you just did.”
She turns to leave, but when he grabs for her arm, she wheels around and shoves
him off, both hands raised as if in surrender. A champagne glass shatters on
the tile.
“Rach-“
“I was a victim’s advocate for three years, Bruce – I know how to recognize
what I’m seeing, even if I’m not looking for it. And that – child, isn’t
exactly subtle.”
“Rachel, please –“ he half-begs, eyes wide, but she shakes her head, staring at
him as though he’s gradually morphing into something horrifying, and her
actions hurt him far deeper than he could have anticipated.
“I don’t know what happened to you, out there – I don’t want to know."
Her gaze fixes on the gold ring riding his thumb.
"When I heard you were back, I… but you never came back at all, did you?”
“… Are you going to tell Harvey?”
Her eyes flutter shut. She wets her lips.
“… We were friends once. Maybe we could have been more, but – all I wanted was
for you to be happy.”
She turns on her heel, only to pause, one tapered hand resting on the door
handle.
“Bruce… if I saw it, someone else will too.”
The spotless glass door swings shut gently behind her, and he’s left alone on
the balcony.
For a moment he’s tempted to run after her, demand a direct reply, but he’s
afraid that if he’s swept into that glittering, airheaded crowd, he’ll only see
glares of suspicion in effusively attentive faces.
Hours pass and the evening deteriorates, but when the mantel clocks chime two
am and Dent still hasn’t stormed onto the terrace with cops in tow, Bruce
hesitantly considers that he might have been granted a reprieve.
His legs are stiff, and the bright interior lights are almost blinding at
first, after hours of confining himself to what little illumination bled
outside, but he manages to navigate around the catering crew as they try to
repair the evening’s damages. He’s only just laid a hand on the banister, mind
fixed on a certain door upstairs decorated with a handmade sign, black marker
scrawled unevenly onto lined looseleaf –“keep out!!! this means YOU!!!” – and
the hard-won spoils beyond, when Alfred startles him from a side door.
“Excuse me, sir – we seem to have a slight problem –“
“For chrissakes, it’s been a long day, can it wait un-“
“I think not; we’re being burgled.”
The turn of phrase turns Bruce up short.
“’Being?’ Right now?”
“Well… almost.”
 
*
 
The person handcuffed to the chair is smaller than Bruce expected, and once
Alfred has left the loft to phone the police department, he doesn’t lose time
in surrendering to curiosity and tugging off the black knit balaclava. A pair
of large brown doe eyes are abruptly staring back at him with so much loathing
he’s amazed that he isn’t already an ash mark on the hand-painted wallpaper.
Her hair is knotted up messily at the nape of her neck, ruffled from static
electricity, and Bruce would be willing to bet his trust fund that the baggy
black sweats she’s wearing are hiding a figure that most of Gotham’s debutante
glitterati would commit en-masse slaughter for, but what really intrigues him
is the pair of night vision goggles dangling around her neck.
It’s none of the models put out by Wayne Enterprises, and isn’t sleek or sexy
enough to be Stark Tech. In fact, the imprecise welding on the plating almost
points to it being a homemade job. Bruce is no genius, but he’s not exactly
average intelligence either, and even he’s not that good.
“Pretty fancy for a sneak thief.”
“I make do.” she grumbles, not breaking their shared glare.
Bruce hasn’t smoked since Princeton, but he’s suddenly craving a burst of
nicotine as the first seeds of an idea begin taking root.
“What’s your name?”
“Not one you’d know, Mr. Wayne.”
Several different voices from the evening twine together in his head, Rachel’s
thin-lipped expression of disgust and betrayal superimposed over top…
People may look, but unlike her, they’ll see only what they want to see. And
Dick will be safe. Hewill be safe…
“Looking at you, I’d say this isn’t your first evening out on the town –“
“Very perceptive –“
“- so what if I were able to call off the cops, guarantee you zero jail time,
in exchange for a… mutually beneficial favor?”
She sighs, long and overdrawn, and rolls her eyes.
“That’s a proposition?” she asks silkily, but he drums his fingers against the
sideboard, shakes his head.
“Not exactly.”
 
*
 
“The police will be arriving presently, sir –“
“Change of plan, Alfred – grab some of the leftover dom, and, um… six glasses?
We’re celebrating.”
“Obviously.” Alfred replies drily. “To what purpose?”
Bruce shrugs, and begins peeling off his evening jacket.
“I’m engaged.”
 
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