Chapter Text
The accounts offices of Wayne Enterprises is alive with shuffling papers, ringing phones and creaking ergonomic chairs as you strut your way through the maze of cubicles, the incidentals you’ve clutched against your chest still warm from the printer.
“I can’t believe the big man’s still got you killin’ trees in his absence,” an intern chuckles as he passes by. “Those physical reports are good for nothing but keeping his desk warm.”
“I wouldn’t say they’re good for nothing,” you counter, weaving around his mail cart with practiced ease. “At the very least, I can cash my checks guilt free.”
While your paychecks still reflected a respectable 40 hour workweek, your single task of striking up a report and sweet talking your printer into producing the pages only took about an hour. You stopped kidding yourself about this bullshit PA position years ago, having rode out the embarassment of your cushy nepobaby by proxy arrangement with Bruce. Or rather- Mr. Wayne, when you’re at work.
It was easier to stay busy when he was around. Bruce’s presence meant there were calanders to balance, hair cuts to schedule, and your most relatable task: sluething out which meetings he could afford to blow off. But he isn’t around. And he hadn’t been for weeks, now.
He was avoiding you, that much was clear. The man practically jumped at the chance tank bullets and disarm bombs, but his kryptonite had always been the kind of confrontations that happened without a mask on.
The spotless carpet absorbs the sharp strike of your heel as you make your way towards the elevator, muttering half hearted greetings to everyone in your path.
Unceremoniously, you shove two fingers into the ‘up’ button. A small circle of light confirms your request, reflecting in the small gem of your modest engagement ring.
Must be an epidemic of dissapearing men, you muse.
For the past month, you worked alone, ate alone-
Slept alone.
Between both your missing mentor and fiance, you were woefully, pitifully bored. You could at least take comfort in the fact that you knew where Jon was, quarentined in the Watchtower after catching some freaking alien flu during his last trek into outerspace.
Obviously, you were sick with worry for him, but after two years of being together, you knew that if you couldn’t trust Jon, you could trust that Clark- Superman, would look after him. Just like he trusted Bruce to look after you.
That simple truth had once made it easy to compact that worry into a managable size, small enough to be buried deep inside- where it would have stayed had it not been completely dwarfed by another kind of sinking feeling.
Oh god, you squeeze your eyes shut. Don’t fucking vomit.
The mirrored wall of the elevator was grounding, cool against your back even through the structured merino-silk of your designer blazer. With a sharp ding, the doors are cued to crawl to a close in front of you, forcing your reflection upon you.
The lack of sleep was written all over your face.
While your concealer had put up a good fight against the dark circles you rocked, the puffiness under your glassy, tired eyes would not be defeated. Despite the best efforts of your leave-in products, your hair was as dull as it was unmanageable. You still run your fingers through it like it would make much of a difference, but it hadn’t worked yesterday, or the day before that.
Or the day before that.
The digital numbers above the panel of buttons slowly crawl upwards until they run out, capped off with the same stylized W stamped into the band of gold around your wrist. The doors open to a large hallway, a thin navy runner stretching a path from you right to the large doors of the only office on this floor.
Large, expensive paintings and gifts from business dealings of days past haunt the walls above the sparse but plush seating of the waiting area- small, exotic trees growing out of their natural climate, swords and ceremonial daggers and pens professionally hung above the abandoned desk of his secretary.
You run your fingertips across the laqured surface with your free hand as you pass, satisfied when you don’t kick up a layer of dust. This floor may have gone unoccupied for nearly a month now, but you were glad to see someone still bothered to tend to it in Bruce’s absence.
Your fingers curl around the handle of the heavy doors and you yank it open unceremoniously with a huff.
The darkness that stretches before you is cut in half by what little muted light managed to peak through the barely cracked curtians of the corner office. You don’t bother to switch on the overheads as you tread forward to the desk.
It’s surface is overrun with undisturbed piles of paper, which you add to without any desire to organize it thoughtfully.
With that, you turn on your heel and plan to head straight back the way you came until you pause.
Before you can think any further, your feet are moving. You tread off the runner, straight to the fully stocked bar to pour yourself something expensive and dark.
“Drinking on the job?”
Bruce’s dark voice comes from behind you. Not from the entrance of the cracked door- but the couch on the other side of the room.
The grip you have on the decanter turns your knuckles white, but you do your best to tip it towards the glass in your free hand gracefully.
He allows you to hear him shift on the couch as he waits for a response that never comes.
“I see you couldn’t have been bothered to create a system. Just piles of paper, one after another. Most of them undated.”
You don’t even know where to start with him. It’s been three weeks, and he’d just up and disappeared without any notice or clues. After five years as his ward, his PA, his Robin- you’d grown used to his vanishing acts.
This time as different.
“How was skiing in the alps?” It was all you could manage, your throat tight with the burn of the liquor and something else you weren’t ready to name.
“Is that where I’ve been?” Bruce straightens up behind you. “Twice in one year, huh?”
“My dart skews to the left when I’m blindfolded. You were a centimeter away from getting Italian chateux.”
“It’s a waste of post-it notes,” he mutters, moving to his feet. Even though you could only hear him right now, you could tell he wasn’t injured. You don’t know if you’re dissapointed or relieved.
“Don’t talk to me about waste,” you scoff, gesturing to the piles of reports. “Besides, blind darting is more fun than making stuff up on the fly.”
Whenever he abanoned you like this, it was always to chase something or someone too dangerous for you. Coming back unharmed just confirmed your suspicions that Bruce had been hiding from you.
Maybe he was disgusted by you. When you think of the buried, filthy desires you’d admitted to that night, you can’t blame him.
Just like that, things fall into silence between you.
You bite the olive in your drink off of the tiny skewer and distract yourself with chewing. It’s only when you hear him take one step forward that the words come spilling out of you, like you could use them to conjure a barrier.
Just the thought of him resting a hand on your shoulder right now, calling you chum in that concerned tone he didn’t even take up with Dick, made you want to pass away.
“I’ll be at the opening, if that’s what you’re sticking around to ask,” you managed, flicking the toothpick in the trash without so much as having to look.
He stops in his tracks.
Bruce fought the prickling of appreciation at the way you’d only slightly twisted your wrist, allowing for a more graceful arc of your skewer into the bin. Despite your usual chattiness and sass, your movements were always serious- a reminder that you’d taken his every lesson to heart, even when you pretended not to listen or care.
You even tossed trash like a batarang, like it was life and death. He’d always loved the small ways your years of training presented itself in your everyday life. He’d told you as much that night, though your throwing arm hadn’t been the subject of his appreciative words.
“I could arrange a different ride for you,” he offered.
“We should arrive together.” You say definitively, leaning against the bar. It takes everything you’ve got to wrench your gaze from the carpet and to the endlessly blue eyes you’d been obsessed with in your weakest moment to date. Guess you had a type.
“If you’d prefer-“
“We’re showing up for more than just the cameras tonight,” you remind him softly.
It was the first time in a while that you wouldn’t be the only Wayne stray in the room. Bruce would never admit it, but he was excited to hang out with his kids without masks or the fear of imminent death and discovery.
You can’t help but think he needs this. Hell, you need this.
The past few weeks, all you’d ever really wanted was to return to the way things were, and this was as good a place to start as any.
“It’s okay, Bruce. Really.”
He starts to form his mouth around the shape of your name, but you’re quick to interrupt him. Being honest, you don’t know if you were capable of hearing it right now.
“We’ve been attending these things arm in arm since I was seventeen. Everyone will be suspicious if we’re all of a sudden taking separate cars,” you reason.
“And then there’s the press. You know that the very second we start moving differently, the whole thing will go totally Streisand.”
You want to add that it wasn’t exactly like the press even needed an excuse to speculate that he was fucking you, but you wisely decide to keep that comment to yourself.
The people of Gotham had always been perplexed by Bruce’s collection of strays.
There were many hangers-on in the periphery of your life as a celebrity, as a Wayne. You’ve often shared space with the likes of Barbara, Stephanie, Duke- and Cassandra floated somewhere in the middle of it all, more like a daughter to him than you ever were, but much more independent.
He also had one biological son floating around, his latest act of rebellion being his disappearance and subsequent reappearance in some Mortal Kombat-style deathmatch on Lazarus Island.
Most notable was the so-called Legal Series, consisting of a silver-tongued circus boy, a young, eager street tough, the son of the late Jack Drake, and you.
Like Tim, Bruce had been more guardian than father to you, having legally adopted you mere weeks before you’d aged out of the system. Unlike Tim, you were a young woman- an attractive one, if your fan sites were to be believed. As far as certain members of the public were concerned, what else could a guy like Bruce Wayne have possibly wanted with a barely legal brat from a remarkably boring middle-class upbringing?
You couldn’t exactly blame them for thinking that way. Billionaires often had skeletons in their closets, and Bruce was no exception; the truth just so happened to be way more bizarre.
It isn’t your responsibility to carry the conversation, but as the silence between you stretches further than you can take, you decide to try.
“Look, we’ve been constantly harping on how excited we were to celebrate the orphanage remodel as a family for like, months. It’s probably the first time we’ve all been in a room together that isn’t in orbit.”
Despite his best efforts to remain stoic, you see the microscopic quirk of his lips. Relief flickers in his eyes. Was he expecting you to be cold towards him?
“I’m going to go home, take a power nap, slather my under-eye bags in a truckload of concealer, and rally.” You step towards him, crossing your arms over your chest to keep your heart from beating out of it. It takes some doing, but you manage to conjure the dramatic, unreasonable side of yourself that never ceased to make him smirk.
“And I swear to god, if you’re not ready to go by the time I’m done rigging myself into my brand new Alexander McQueen, I will burn the manor down with all of us inside of it.”
You meet his eyes, the stormy blue lacking the dilating, unnatural pink pinpoints of light they’d had when you last saw them this close.
Silently, you plead for him to meet you halfway.
You were so certain that all it would take to bury that night was a complete return to form. Things weren’t perfect before, but they were still great. It can be that way again if you work at it. It had to be.
“…What tie should I wear?”
The relief on your face is palpable.
“Silk crepe. I’ll leave it out for you.”
You keep a wide berth as you move past him, reaching for the door. Your ring catches the fluorescent light, silently judging you. The handle turns, cracking the door open to let the outside in. You manage a smile and wave with your right hand, shoving the left into the pockets of your blazer as you call behind you.
“See you at 8, B.”