Work Text:
The thing that people tend to get wrong is that, when they think of Batman as a great detective, they think of the literal Batman. Bruce is amazed at how even Leaguers who have known him for close to a decade somehow think that he works exclusively in a cowl and cape, stomping across Gotham in steel-toed boots and a growl in his throat.
It’s inaccurate, and frankly, it’s ridiculous that he gets guff for being a billionaire who’s removed from Reality when the other heroes don’t even know that the vast majority of what he does is just variations on the theme of paper pushing.
It’s working through endless crime statistics and going through endless cold cases and following up on endless leads, and while there seems to be a general consensus that he likes going out on patrol because he enjoys striking fear into the hearts of the criminal population, it’s also because he has on average spent the last 6 hours hunkered down in an ergonomic chair going through 400 pages of the Falcone’s accounts, a process that couldn’t be automated because not even the best software he’s come up with can read the atrocious handwriting of Luciano the crooked chartered accountant, and all he wants to do is run around and stretch his back a little.
Bruce doesn’t tell anyone the truth of things, of course. A lot of what keeps Batman alive is people being disproportionately scared of his mystique, and there’s not a lot of mystique in giving in and getting gel wrist rests for the keyboard at the BatComputer because Alfred has sworn bloody mayhem if Bruce gets Carpal Tunnel before he turns 45.
The truth of things is that much of the work he does is cowl-free, and that’s how it is today. He’s not even Matches, who for all his usefulness has too much Character. He’s just some guy sitting in a booth at a diner that’s tried and mostly, gently failed to socially distance the tables. It’s 11 PM on a Thursday and everyone in this little eatery is tired or depressed or both, and with some ugly Clark Kent-inspired clothes and a messy brown wig made from yak hair, so is he.
He doesn’t even bother with a cover name or backstory, he’s just here because it’s the furthest you can be from the Iceberg Lounge and still covertly backdoor your way through the WiFi network to the Penguin’s procurement man’s hilariously unprotected cellphone.
God bless Oswald for splurging on a top-end WiFi extender, even as God should see fit to damn him for all his many shitty sins.
Bruce is downloading the entire content of Michael’s (SwagBag360, and isn’t that a shameful reminder to never name your device something dumb) Google Drive when somebody slides into the seat opposite him, and Bruce startles with picture-perfect realism.
“You can’t sit there, that’s not far enough-” he says, because the man he is tonight still cares about pandemic prevention measures, thanks, but he peters off because-
Because it’s Jason, even if he’s got on dark contacts, straight-cut bangs, and a greasy ponytail, and Bruce clocks him before he even realises it.
“Hey, babe,” Jason drawls like a man with greasy hair would, and Bruce very carefully doesn’t scowl as he assumes the absolute worse.
“Hey,” he says, as he discreetly looks around to see if there are any immediate threats. When the greatest concern is just the waitress who’s got the look in her eyes of a woman who will pour boiling hot coffee on your hands if you push her too far, he looks internally.
Did he miss a meeting? It’s a Thursday, but not a particularly important one, and he’s sure his schedule is clear through to tomorrow morning. Nevertheless, here is Jason playing A Sleazy Man and intimating that Bruce should go along with it.
“Hey,” Bruce says again, and pushes his plate of soggy fries towards Jason. “Thought you said you were coming home late tonight. I was just burning time before turning in.”
Looks like a fake dating ploy, and while Bruce has had a lifetime of failing at any number of human relationships (though he must confess he’s doing better!), he’s not Bruce here.
He’s simply Man Who Dates Greasy-Haired Men, and that’s easier to process.
Jason just snorts and knocks back a handful of gross fries, and Bruce doesn’t even ask if he’s sanitised his hands. “I know, but I got off early, and when I went home and you weren’t there, thought I’d see where you got yourself to.”
Oh. So Jason had gone all the way to the Cave to find him, but whatever’s troubling him isn't so urgent that he needed to hail Bruce over the comms. If it’s not an immediate danger, then Bruce is just going to keep playing along. With time, keeping up with Jason’s mercurial nature has come more easily, and it’s been a boon to how they work with each other now.
(The thing of it is, if you can get used to somebody being dead, there really isn’t a limit to what you can bear when they come back. Realising that was a painful revelation, but a very, very good one.)
Bruce shrugs a shoulder, and waves his phone (a supercomputer masquerading as a rundown Samsung) around. “Was thinking about hitting up a bar to get a cold drink, but didn’t really want to deal with crowds.” Iceberg lounge, and a non-invasive op. “WiFi’s bad at home, so I thought I’d burn some time on my phone somewhere where Youtube can load.” Backdooring, and he needed to be close enough to do it.
As quiet a night on duty as it gets for him, really. Jason, on the other hand? “Didn’t expect you till midnight at least. Everything okay at work?”
Jason shakes his head, and holds a fry bent in half under its own sad weight to Bruce’s lips. “Nah, Richie came in clutch and swapped in early.” He wipes the excess salt off Bruce’s lips when Bruce obligingly (disgustedly) takes a bite, and he’s supremely gentle for a man with hideous hair. “I actually swung by the bar while I was looking for you; busy as hell, must be a party or something. There were drunks stumbling all over the place, and I swear one dude almost threw up on my feet. Least now I can help you finish up your food and we can head home,” Jason waggles his eyebrows in a downright offensive manner, “before they all stagger in here to get sober.” He grins, pushing his bangs back. “I know you hate it when people not me don’t distance themselves, babe, so I’m here to be your knight in shiny armour.”
As always, talking in code while undercover is a delicate dance of guesswork and assumption. If Bruce is understanding this correctly, Jason had swung by the Iceberg on his way here, spotted some worrying activity, taken out one hostile agent that almost made him, and trouble might be coming so Jason’s here for a quick extraction.
He glances down at his phone, and sees that he’s only 75% through his download. Michael ‘SwagBag360’ Peterson kept a prodigious amount of pornography on his cloud, and it’s slowing the process enormously. “We got enough time for me to grab another coffee?” Bruce asks, nodding at his empty cup.
Jason laughs, leaning back in his seat. “Maybe, but one guy almost puking on me is one guy too many, so I don’t wanna take the chance. C’mon, I’ll make you a cup at home, you can even sit out on the balcony and pretend we’re rich enough to have a rooftop patio. How’s that sound?”
They have a bit of time, maybe, but Jason’s fine if they make a pitstop on the roof of the diner for the download to finish. Bruce looks at his phone again, and tries to imagine the likelihood of Mr. SwagBag having enough sense to keep sensitive information hidden deep, deep inside his ‘Milfs’ folder.
He puts his phone away. “Fine, but we’re heading back through the park. We need to grab some milk from the bodega on the way back, you always make coffee too bitter.” Bruce gets up, and puts down an extremely generous tip under a ten-dollar bill. He appreciates a waitress who’s got slow-burning murder in her eyes, because he’s a white billionaire man and he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that customers are never, ever right.
And if they cut across the little memorial park instead of following the most direct route out, Bruce should be within WiFi range for long enough to finish the download.
Jason appears to get the message, because he just laughs again and follows after, keeping a warm hand at the small of Bruce’s back.
It’s there even when they’re out of the diner, all the way to a cherry-red motorbike, because the sleazy man is also flashy (and also kind). “C’mon, time to go,” Jason says as he gives Bruce the one helmet. He’s smiling as he does it, because he knows Bruce’s Thoughts on the shortage of helmets. “Save it, babe, no time to waste.”
Kicking up a fuss wouldn’t be in the nature of a man who dates a man who does this, so Bruce just sighs a sigh of long-term suffering and gets on. “By the memorial park, Jay,” he murmurs before he pulls the visor down, and they shoot off into the night.
-
If the Penguin’s hellbent on causing a scene, it’s inevitably going to be a busy night for the Bat and his associates, despite what a regular night would have been like for a man with a ponytail and a man who loves him in spite of it. Jason slows down enough for Bruce to complete his download, and then they’re off to the closest safe house for a quick outfit change to catch up with the little militia, charmingly armed with rocket launchers SwagBag sourced them from Russia.
It’s about 3 times more exciting a night than Bruce had been anticipating when he left the Manor earlier, but with Jason for back-up it’s pretty easy-going to break down Oswald’s latest attempt at sowing discord. It’s barely 2 AM before everything’s wrapped up and a dozen or so of the Iceberg's more murder-y staffers have been delivered to the GCPD, and by virtue of it being a disgustingly hot muggy Thursday night, people were miserable at home and civilian casualties were nonexistent.
It’s the right mix of mind-numbing busywork and fast-paced action to make the day feel exactly the right amount of productive, so when Bruce settles into his ergonomic chair in front of his computer, he thinks that he’s done enough that a project report can wait till the morning. He plugs his phone in and starts up the app that will parse the file type of everything he’s gathered tonight, and turns to address Jason who gave him a ride home.
“Thank you for helping out tonight,” he says, edging towards polite because without a disguise to hide him it’s a lot harder to be good.
It’s not the case for Jason, of course, and Bruce is only sometimes bitterly jealous. “No problem, B. I swung by ‘cos I wanted to know if you were cool with Filipino food for next Thursday. Uncovering a mini uprising by the Penguin was just a lucky break.” He unclips his bangs and takes them off, and Bruce doesn’t know what to do with the thought of Red Hood trampling late-night criminals with synthetic hair in his eyes. “So, Filipino?”
Bruce nods, and that’s part of the code for this kind of talk. He doesn’t tend to care about what food he eats as long as he gets the nutrition necessary, but Jason does care about feeling out Bruce’s preferences and so they do this little dance every time. “Good work coming up with a character for extracting me,” he says, because things could have gone south if Bruce had been caught unawares, and it’s a thing worth deeply, deeply appreciating that Jason will come to his rescue.
The ponytail’s been tugged off too, and now Jason’s back to looking fully like himself, and isn’t that just entirely devastating? He grins, and comes right over to where Bruce is sat, towers over him with purpose. “Fake dating for a cover, aren’t I a fuckin’ genius?”
It’s not the most original ploy as far as ideas go, but it’s still a good one, so Bruce doesn’t say anything, just tilts his head back and quietly stares.
“You have to tell me though, Bats,” Jason says, half a laugh in his voice, “what the word is when I fake-fake date you for cover, given that I’m dating you in real life. Never done that before.” He leans down and kisses Bruce hard, digs his teeth in because they’re still thrumming a little with adrenaline but they don’t have the luxury of more tonight. “Don’t think I didn’t see you reacting to babe, by the way.” He drops down for another quick kiss, a warm hand holding Bruce still at his neck. “Poker face could do with some work, old man. I’ll see you on Thursday.” The hand tightens a little, just enough to be felt, just so there’s the slightest edge on the inhale. “Take care of yourself.”
And Jason’s gone to do whatever it is Red Hood gets up to. Bruce very calmly doesn’t touch his neck after Jason’s departure, and breathes and breathes and breathes.
Batman and Red Hood are in similar lines of work, so Bruce knows that more likely than not Jason’s just off to do something tedious and menial and dull.
It might have been nice if his tedious and menial and dull duty for the night was following up on a promise made under cover, to make coffee for Bruce and sit with him on a balcony, just exist as two people who love each other in exceedingly simple, thoughtless ways.
Bruce gives up, and rubs at his neck.
Well. That’s what next Thursday is for, and maybe by then he won’t need a wig and an emergency as an excuse to eat from Jason’s hand.
(Bruce is perhaps a little excited for Filipino.)