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“Bruce?”
You've walked up and down this particular hallway of the manor at least five times this morning alone; the patterns on the ceiling are starting to make your head spin.
You're ravenous and a certain someone is late for your lunch date.
Makes a change from his usual rigid punctuality.
“Bruce??”
He's not down in the Cave, nor in the kitchen, not in one of the living rooms, not in his office, not out on the patio or wandering around in the gardens, and not lurking in one of the shadows just watching you bumble around, giggling to himself.
He's vanished. Not a surprise. He's good at disappearing into thin air.
“Bruce!”
Walking up the stairs, you practically glide across the plush carpet, instinctively meandering towards the corridor that leads to your shared bedroom.
“That place only holds a reservation for half an hour.”
The house is eerily still and quiet. Also not a surprise.
“So, remember it was you who made us late this time. Not me.”
You peek your head around the open door frame and scan the room, eyes landing on his hunched over frame sat at your vanity table.
The strong, chemical smell of acetone hits you when you step further into the room.
“Here you are,” You say cheerily, skipping over to him.
“Hey,” He mumbles absentmindedly, clearly busy with something.
Your hand skates over his bare shoulders; he tends to lose his shirt when he's deeply concentrating on something. Helps him think better, apparently. You're pretty sure he just likes catching you off guard when you turn a corner in the Cave and unexpectedly collide with his chest.
A muscle at the top of his arm twitches in response when you wrap your fingers around his bicep. You smile out of habit – Even when he’s not paying any attention to you, you’re happy to be in his presence.
Observing him in silence for a short while, you watch as he removes black polish from his pinkie nail with a cotton wipe.
“Not feeling that colour anymore?” You inquire after he's cleaned the rest off.
“Wouldn't be proper,” He answers, leaning back and laying his palms flat on the table to inspect them.
“Proper for what?”
He glances up at you, “Our lunch date.”
You narrow your eyes at him, “Says who?”
“You know who.”
“Ugh, Bruce, how many times do I have to tell you?” Taking his face between both hands, you make him stay looking at you before he can turn away and sulk, “It doesn't matter. You can do literally anything you want to. That includes wearing your emo boy nail polish out in public.”
He makes a face at you, halfway between incredulity and discomfort.
“Don't pull faces. If the wind changes, you'll be stuck like that.”
His expression softens a little.
“You sound like my mother,” He says quietly with a sigh.
“That's probably not a good thing,” You let go of his face and drop your hands to his shoulders again, “Do you want to wear that nail polish?”
He answers quicker than you expect, “Not that specific colour, no.”
Raising one of your eyebrows, you tilt your head to the side, interest piqued.
“Which one, then?”
He turns back to the table and plucks a small bottle from your neat display of polishes.
“Matches your dress,” He holds the bottle out to you.
It's a vibrant lilac shade; complementing the pale purple design of your sundress.
Something else that often catches you off guard is how casually adorable Bruce can be. You've been together for a few years, and he's plenty caring and generous, but less is he outright cute. It's only recently that you've encouraged him to embrace a different, more tender side. Even more recently, and rather reluctantly, has he given in and admitted that to himself. You can’t help but feel gratified knowing you helped him realise.
“You want me to put it on for you?” You ask.
His eyes flit downwards, thinking.
You can see the gears ticking in his head.
He's overthinking.
“I promise you, baby,” You start softly, brushing your thumbs over his skin, “No one will care.”
He's not convinced, “Really? I doubt that, Y/N.”
Sometimes, he still needs that little push.
“Well, I don't.”
Taking a seat on his lap, you drape your legs over one side and rest a hand in the crook of his neck.
“C’mon, I’ll put it on you. I want us to match. Plus, you can wear that lavender coloured tie I got you too.”
He seems very displeased you've got him cornered; he won't concede that he wants to look prim and pretty in a coordinating purple outfit, and he won't put up a fight against it either.
“But we are going to be late for our reservation.”
He shrugs, “Doesn't matter. They'll let us in anyway,” He leans in and smooths a hand down your hip, “It's me, remember?”
“Alright, so, as you, beloved Prince of Gotham, will you let me paint your nails like you so badly want me to?”
You wriggle around on his thighs, deliberately putting all your weight on him, ensuring you have his full attention.
“Or are you gonna waste the rest of our day while you make up your mind?”
Now, he's pulling that very familiar grumpy looking face. The one you get to be on the receiving end of when you've either strong armed him into doing something or disproven him entirely. After all this time, he still can't take it with a smile when you wrangle him into submission, even if you're a lot gentler and patient about it than he is with you. He just has to push back.
“Fine…” He says at last, “You can put it on.”
“Good boy,” You tease.
It’s not like you can help yourself either.
Twisting around on his lap, you take one of his hands and position it on the table. He passes the polish to you and you make a start on carefully painting.
Bruce has always had perfectly manicured nails. Long before you’d ever come into his life, he’s kept them looking pristine. You found it amusing, if not a little disconcerting as well, how the undersides of those hands were wrought with cuts and calluses more often than not. The guy could keep his nailbeds in a calculated level of precise care, but not the rest of his hands. It wasn’t until you made a conscious effort and insisted on soothing his roughness with hand cream that he had even thought about it.
That’s something you’ve noticed over time; exponentially, he’s started understanding how to better take care of himself. And he’s gradually allowed himself to adopt some of your more feminine habits.
The first time he seemed to take it completely in stride was when he’d stolen one of your shawls down to the Cave in place of his traditional magenta robe. You’d found it draped over the back of his chair, taken hostage for when he not only wanted the comfort of your scent as he voluntarily kept himself away from you, but when he felt the pull of something else. It didn’t take you long to catch onto the fact that Bruce has always been fixated on the ways of a woman, not just in the obvious sense.
Another time, you’d gone searching for him in the middle of another sleepless, boyfriend-warmth-less night, expecting to see him tapping away at the computer but discovered he was in the gym, wearing one of your headbands as he worked out to keep his sweat-drenched hair out of his eyes. You’d been mesmerised. It wasn’t even that big a deal, guys wear headbands all the time, but he’d specifically chosen a sparkly red one when you had more than enough plain ones that would suffice for a practical purpose.
Bruce is nothing if not practical.
Then, taking you completely by surprise, just a year ago, he had been watching you do your skin care routine from the comfort of the bed. He’d seen you apply your various oils and creams plenty of times before but this time, he got up, wandered nearer, and started reading the labels on the bottles. The day after, off his own accord, he’d asked you to help him figure out his skin type and he was incredibly eager to research into his own routine.
Now, when possible, you both stand in front of your vanity mirror and complete a daily or nightly course together. Almost like a ritual.
Something that didn’t come as a surprise whatsoever was when he asked you to put some makeup on him… or just a little smidge of mascara. You’ve wanted to doll him up in drag ever since the moment you laid eyes on him; he has the perfect face for it, but he wasn’t quite ready for a full beating then. After you’d pointed out that his ‘war paint’ he applies around his eyes when he’s in the Batsuit was akin to kajal and eyeliner, he’d been intrigued to take it a step further. Just as he’s affectionately watched you dress up before a night out, you’ve watched him make the change from Bruce to Batman countless times. The eye makeup had always struck you as something remarkable. It served such a functional, necessary need for him, as almost everything does, yet you couldn’t help but think how it really did make his eyes pop. Like he was purposefully trying to draw attention to one of his best features. The request to try out wearing some mascara just around the house had come a week after you’d told him how jealous you were of his long, fluttering lashes.
Once, he asked you to curl and do them up before he had an important shareholder meeting for WE.
You were seldom to deny him.
It’s always been there in him, this desire to pry into the nuances of the other binary gender. You’ve never forced it on him, merely done what you always had as yourself. It seems, through just being around someone who is so open-minded and ready to share, he too has felt inclined to mimic your behaviour. Because finally he has a chance to. Because you’d never judge him for it. Because you've wanted the same thing which is for him to just live as himself, no holds barred, unrestricted and unrestrained in all areas. Exploring himself freely and honestly, both as Bruce and Batman.
He was hesitant at first; you could see it a mile off. There would be a question on the tip of his tongue and he would stave off for fear of embarrassing or, worse, emasculating himself. So, you waited, and tried to encourage in subtler ways.
When you shared some insight on his alter-ego essentially being comparable to a drag persona, albeit for vigilante purposes rather than gender expression, you made a large impression on his ever-changing worldview.
In turn, you've adopted some of his masculine habits too because you can. You’ve taken to using the same brand of manly body wash he does, opted for wearing a tailored jacket and pants to work rather than a skirt, started dousing yourself with his cologne, and stolen countless items of clothing, including his boxers. His oversized, distressed Nirvana t-shirts (that are genuinely vintage, not that pseudo vintage bullshit you see everywhere else) feel that little bit better to wear to bed than any cutesy lingerie he's bought for you. And you happen to enjoy the fact his tastes are similar to yours; he happens to reciprocate that same notion.
Maybe that's the reason you feel it's so casually intimate between the both of you, there's a natural similarity with him, this unspoken mutuality — because you just click.
He never batted an eye at any of that. He never thought it was strange for you to act any less feminine, he was never turned off by it, quite the opposite in fact, but he had immense amounts of trepidation over himself acting less masculine.
Still does. The idea of being a real man’s man is very much stuck in his head, and you don’t blame him for it; he’s been forced to portray himself in a very particular way under the scrutinising, unforgiving gaze of the public. But when he’s with you, he lets himself lean into all his girly desires.
Frankly, it's pretty clear-cut; you both mirror the other back to one another. He likes to do as you do and you like to do as he does.
The switch from his quick ice cold showers to drawn-out warm bubble baths only came after you’d entered his life. The question of borrowing one of your eye masks to sleep came easier once he saw you using one. The use of your lip balm, and even gloss on a rare occasion, has become more frequent and normal for him. There’s even been an instance he wanted to try on a pair of your fishnets, just to see what they felt like. It’s not like you hadn’t fantasised about him wearing a dress and heels, it had even helped get you off when his touch wasn’t available, so the fact you’d gotten even that had you close to swooning. You’re sure that’s coming soon. He’s always eyeing up your skimpy frocks and lacy blouses and dolly socks with something more than just traditional attraction, something more than the primal urge to rip them off and take you there and then, but something closer to envy.
His curiosity is not something you ever intend to dismay by prodding him too much, but fuck if you can’t resist from having your own selfish desires for everything you wanna do to him. He’s the ideal canvas, a beautiful little doll just waiting to be played with.
Maybe you should start calling him your girlfriend instead of boyfriend... But you keep that thought to yourself. Maybe he's not quite ready for that concept just yet.
“You’re always so precise with it,” Bruce mutters, his chin now resting on your shoulder as he watches you apply the lilac nail polish, “Always stay within the lines.”
“Practice makes perfect,” You reply, moving onto his other hand.
“You’re already perfect,” He says barely above a whisper, right beside your ear.
Your spine tingles with a rushing, electric sensation, but you keep focus on your task.
It's evident he noticed; his hand settles on your thigh, tapping a mindless rhythm with his fingertips along your bare skin, purposefully trying to rouse you. But you're more than acquainted with all the ways he tries to get one over you — You know him inside out, after all.
“Don’t mess those nails up,” You warn sternly, “We’ll be here all day, otherwise.”
“Maybe that’s what I want.”
“Oh, I know it is, but you’re not getting your way. Not this time,” You gently blow on his other hand once you’ve finished with the polish, “You promised me a date.”
“That I did, princess.”
Your stomach flips at the nickname, but you don’t let it show on your face when you turn around and look at him.
“You have to let them dry,” You say, smiling and pressing yourself close against him, a little needy yourself just to be wrapped up in him and all he offers.
He nods, “I know.”
“At least ten minutes.”
“But twenty is better.”
“Mm-hm,” One of your arms winds around his broad shoulders, the other drifts up to his soft hair, “I’ve taught you well.”
Bruce nuzzles into your neck, lips brushing along the base of your throat, his breath hot and stirring when it cascades down your chest.
“Can you wait that long?”
He makes an indecipherable grunt.
“That's not an actual answer, you know.”
He murmurs something into your skin, something that's equally as unintelligible, so you resign yourself to just savour the moment.
You plant a kiss to the top of his head, letting your lips linger in his hair, inhaling the aroma of floral shampoo and manly musk. His scent is near enough a drug to you; addictive; sparks the beginnings of a high.
Bruce's hands still lay on your legs, stroking small caresses side to side, heeding your warning of his wet nails and never wandering further up.
You could stay here all day, sat on your favourite seat, bathed in sunlight and serenity, allowed a moment where time feels as though it's stalled and stopped completely. And the chance of spending it with him — Yes, you could do this for the rest of time. So could he. Moments like these are hard to come by in your relationship; the worry over making it in time for your reservation swiftly slips away.
You stay holding onto him, feeling him breathe almost in unison with you, relishing the heat of his bare skin burn into the places you meet, indulging yourself in him. Your hand falls from his hair, down the side of his face, along his neck, and settles over his heart. Pressing your palm to that precious place, it thrums under your touch, picking up pace ever so slightly.
After what must be the quickest eternity ever, you shatter the lull that has fallen.
“Are we doing mascara today?”
He hums and it vibrates straight through your whole body, “Yeah, the waterproof one.”
“Why? Are you planning on crying?”
His deep, rich voice is like a white hot current, “No, it just has a cleaner application. Less clumps. Looks better.”
You grin and stifle a giggle; he’s right. It’s still a little surreal that you can now ask your boyfriend, who the world deems to be the very height of masculinity, for earnest beauty advice. He usually has some well-informed answers.
“Right you are, baby,” You card your fingers through his hair, “Lip balm?”
“I was thinking of that plumper thing you have…” His voice sounds mellow, subdued, almost entirely docile, “The tingly one.”
“Ooh, good choice.”
He crooks a lopsided grin at you, “If we were staying in, I’d let you do my whole face.”
You sit up straighter and regard him full on again. “Don’t try and get out of this date by tempting me with offers you know I can’t refuse.”
An intrigued brow shoots up. Now, he's smugly smirking, as if he’s already won.
“When we get back, though...” You caution him with a dangerous edge in your voice, “I’m dragging you up to the nines.”
His smirk melts into a sincere smile and he nods in compromise, “I’ll hold you to that, darling.”