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There was a man in Bruce’s office.
The sight caught him off guard, made him freeze in the doorway. The neighboring wings were still busy, but this part of the hospital mainly held the consultants’ offices, so it was completely empty this time of night. The only reason Bruce himself was here was because he’d lost track of time in the labs again. By now, the hallways were dark wherever the motion-sensing lights hadn’t picked up on his brisk walk over here, and no-one but the hospital staff should have access out of hours.
But the man didn’t seem like any of his coworkers. For one thing, most of them didn’t choose to crouch in the corner of his office when they were coming in for a consult, holding themselves rigid against the wall as if braced for an attack. Bruce was given to understand that most considered the couch more comfortable. He couldn’t even really be sure this was a man, half-drenched in shadows as he was. Bruce had only noticed someone was there because he’d seen something shift in the darkness of the room. Rather than a person, the figure was more a collection of slightly unnerving adjectives. Large. Hunched. And somehow, despite being positioned well below Bruce’s eyeline, looming.
And, for another thing, the office door had still been locked when he’d opened it.
His right hand crept towards his watch. There was a panic button on the side of the watch’s face. He couldn’t in good conscience just run away now, but if this was some sort of intruder (which was seeming pretty likely at this point) he needed to at least alert someone.
“Hello?” he called out warily. “Who are you?”
The figure made no sound or movement. It was actually a little unsettling how still he was keeping himself.
“You shouldn’t be in here. If you leave now, I won’t call security.” He tried to inject as much authority into his voice as he could. He’d been a doctor for well over a decade now. This was not an insignificant amount of authority.
It seemed to do the trick, as finally the figure spoke. Although ‘spoke’ might be the wrong verb to describe the vaguely ominous rumble emanating from the darkness.
“I mean you no harm,” the figure said.
Bruce stared. “Really.”
“Really.”
“You’ll have to forgive me if I can’t just take your word for it.”
A grunt. For all that it was unhelpfully non-verbal, it felt like a very human response to receive from a barely person-shaped collection of shadows. Almost familiar, even.
He felt himself relax a little. Maybe that was a bad idea, since he still didn’t know what this guy was there for but, well, he hadn’t been attacked yet. That was something. If anything, the way the man had backed into the far corner of the room reminded him more of a scared animal than a menacing predator. Maybe his intruder was as scared of Bruce as Bruce was of him?
Once that thought had settled, he abruptly realized it was more than a little absurd. Perhaps Alfred had a point about his sleep schedule.
Regardless, his fear of the stranger at already subsided a little. He held up his hands in a gesture of non-threat. “Will you at least come out of that corner? It’s a little awkward talking like this when I can’t see you.”
The figure remained immobile for a long moment. But then the shadows shifted in a way that seemed to Bruce like a nod, and he was standing. His initial impressions were proved correct: the intruder was tall, probably Bruce’s height or perhaps taller, and broad in a way that was more than just good genes. There was another moment’s pause, and then the figure took a step forward, finally illuminated by the light from the window, and—
Bruce blinked. Whatever he’d been expecting, it definitely wasn’t that.
“Did you come from some kind of costume party?” he asked, bemused.
“Something like that,” the man said. Bruce couldn’t be sure, but he thought he saw the man’s mouth twitch in what might have been a smile. It was hard to tell, since he was wearing some kind of mask – a mask, god, why a mask? – that covered the upper half of his face. That, combined with the floor-length cape and the vague impression of dark clothing (armor?) beneath, made him look like some kind of Zorro wannabe.
“Do you have a name?” he asked. Then, belatedly remembering his manners (Alfred would surely scold him for that, suspicious intruder or no), he added, “I’m Dr Wayne. As you might have guessed, this is my office you’ve broken into.”
Another grunt. “That wasn’t my intention.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Then whose intention was it?”
“You wouldn’t believe me.”
“Try me,” Bruce said, folding his arms across his chest.
“It’s a long story. One you’re better off not knowing.” The man tilted his head, almost birdlike. “I suppose asking you to trust me on that would be a step too far.”
“Yes. At least a couple steps, actually.”
Another grunt. The man shifted on his feet, and something about the movement suggested discomfort. Bruce’s attention abruptly shifted from the man’s expressionless face to his body. There was a faint but distinct smell in the air, Bruce realized, acrid and familiar. Very familiar.
Blood, he realized. The smell was blood.
“You’re injured,” he said.
The man stilled and then looked away, head tilted towards the floor. “Yes.”
He’d been in the corner, Bruce realized. Hunched over, braced against the wall. Bleeding. Now that he looked more closely, he could see that beneath the heavy cape the man’s arm was wrapped tight over his stomach, like he was compressing a bleed. If Bruce could smell the blood from across the room, the wound was nothing trivial. A stab wound? Or even a bullet? This was Gotham, neither were exactly uncommon here.
Just like that, Bruce’s curiosity and wariness about this stranger had shifted to professional concern. “You need to get that seen to. I can take you to the ER—”
“No,” the man snapped. In his low growl of a voice, the barked order was distinctly threatening. Bruce felt himself tense again before the man continued, more softly, “Sorry. I can’t. No ER.”
“Okay. No ER,” Bruce said, forcing himself to relax again. There were a lot of reasons someone might not want their name on the ER’s admission records, especially if they were wrapped up in the kind of messes that left people injured and hiding in an empty office in a hospital. “But you still need medical attention. If you don’t want to be admitted, you should at least let me look at you. I am a doctor, as I said before.”
The man seemed reluctant, but Bruce didn’t back down, reaching once again for his store of authority and injecting it into his gaze. Eventually, the man nodded silently.
“Good.” Bruce gestured to the man’s stomach. “Is the wound in your abdomen?”
“Yes.” There was another pause before the man continued. “Upper left side. It was a glancing blow, not a stab, so organ damage is unlikely. The bleeding is because the damage to the muscle is extensive. I’ll probably only need a few stitches.”
Bruce chose not to comment on the fact that this man was familiar enough with being stabbed to give a detailed report on the injury. “I’d like to have a look first, but I can definitely do that.”
He reached for the light switch but the man winced. “No. No lights.”
“Stitching you up in the dark might be difficult,” he drawled, but the man’s expression only darkened. He sighed. “Fine. I can use a lamp. Does that work for you?”
Another nod. “That’s acceptable.”
Well, it was progress, at least. He went to flip on his desklight, barely illuminating the room in a warm, yellow glow. It would have to be enough. He had the distinct impression that anything more would make the man bolt, and Bruce’s conscience rallied against the idea of letting him go without at least checking the wound’s severity. The half-shielded expression was no more scrutable with the added visibility.
“I’ll also need you to remove your…” he trailed off, briefly uncertain of how to refer to the man’s unusual sartorial situation. “…Your outfit. The top part.”
The man seemed hesitant again. Bruce sent him an encouraging smile. “That one’s not really negotiable. I can hardly examine or treat the wound through your clothes. Don’t be shy, it’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”
Now that twitch of the mouth was definitely a smirk. “I suppose you’re right.”
The man unclipped the long cape from his shoulders. The clothing beneath definitely looked more like armor than a costume, rigid plates connected by a thick weave that looked a lot like kevlar. And…was that some kind of bat symbol on his chest?
Before Bruce could focus on it, the man had flipped some hidden catches on the side of the armor and it peeled away from his torso, leaving him in a dark underlayer. He pulled the fabric up over his torso, just high enough to reveal the wound.
God. Bruce could understand now why the man had been reluctant to reveal his skin. Even the small part Bruce could see was a patchwork of scars, crawling up towards the still-covered areas of his torso. These were not the kind of scars one got from being accident prone. And layered over those scars were dozens of bruises, at various stages of healing. This was clearly no ordinary man.
Still, the man’s personal history was irrelevant. The wound was fresh, seeping barely-thickened blood. That took priority. Always.
“Here,” Bruce said, gesturing at the little couch in the corner. He paused for a moment, looking at the angry smear of red on the man’s skin and hands, and shrugged off his blazer and lay it out on the couch. The man looked at it for a long moment and then perched on the laid-out jacket, the movement oddly graceful – almost delicate – considering the man’s size and the still-bleeding wound in his side. Bruce made sure to approach slowly, still wary of spooking the man, but he seemed content to let Bruce closer.
He bent down to visually inspect the wound. The man’s self-assessment was distressingly accurate: even on a cursory examination, Bruce could see that the muscle fiber was only superficially damaged, suggesting that whatever blade this man had been cut with had not gone particularly deep into the tissue.
“It’s not too long. Five stitches should do it,” he announced. The man seemed coherent enough – not that Bruce really had a baseline to compare to, but— “Are you feeling woozy at all? Disorientated?”
The man shook his head. “I’m not in shock, and I haven’t lost too much blood. It’s a minor injury.”
“I’m not sure most people would describe a stab wound as a minor injury,” he said wryly. “But that’s good. My office isn’t really kitted out for a blood transfusion. I’m afraid I don’t keep any local anesthetic in my office, but I can go and grab some. 10 minutes tops.”
“No need. I’ve had worse. I’ll be fine without,” the man said.
From the look of him and the almost breezy way he spoke, Bruce didn’t doubt it. Well, he’d offered at least.
“Suit yourself,” Bruce said with a shrug. He busied himself with laying out the tools he needed: disinfectant, a suturing kit, bandages. “You never did give me your name.”
“I didn’t,” the man agreed.
“You’re not going to, then.”
“Wasn’t planning on it.”
“And I suppose you’re not going to tell me how you got stabbed?”
“No.”
Bruce snapped on a pair of nitrile gloves. “Anyone ever told you that you’re real secretive?”
“It’s been mentioned.”
Bruce grunted. He realized now why the man’s grunt had seemed so familiar: the pitch and timbre was similar to his own, the nonverbal response a quirk of his own speech. How strange to think he had something in common with this scarred intruder. He worked in silence, cleaning up the wound with disinfectant. The man didn’t flinch at the sting, remaining stoic and silent, until out of nowhere he asked:
“What kind of doctor are you?”
Bruce paused, blinking up at him. Of all the things he’d expected from this mysterious masked stranger, unwilling even to provide a fake name, small talk certainly wasn’t one of them.
Still, the man was only human, he reminded himself. Many patients preferred to talk to distract themselves from pain. Bruce himself had never been a talkative man, but it seemed inconsiderate at best (and unprofessional at worst) not to play along.
He could feel the man’s gaze on him without looking up, intent and unwavering.
“I’m a surgeon,” he said. “So you’re in good hands here. I’m going to put in the first stitch, okay? You’ll feel a pinch.”
“What made you choose surgery?”
Bruce supposed that was as much of a go ahead as he was likely to get. The needle slid cleanly through the skin. “It’s not a very interesting reason, I’m afraid. Just fulfilling a childhood dream,” he said mildly, half-distracted by the movement of his hands. “My father was a surgeon before he retired.”
Now the man flinched, tensed like the words had been a physical blow. It was more than a little startling, considering that the needle entering his skin hadn’t elicited even a flicker of a reaction. Bruce looked up at the man’s face in confusion but it was still impassive stone, even as his eyes seemed to bore into Bruce’s own from behind the lenses of that strange mask of his.
Then he was looking away, a sour twist to his mouth. “I see.”
He didn’t seem like he planned on saying any more. Bruce wasn’t entirely sure what to make of his reaction, so he simply returned to the stitches, even as curiosity burned a brand into his consciousness.
It was at least another minute until the man spoke again.
“What is he like?”
Bruce paused again, a little surprised by the question. It took him a moment to realize what the man was even referring to. “You mean my father?”
“Yes. Your parents. What are they like?” There was an odd inflection in the way he spoke, the syllables deliberately placed as if he was worried about misspeaking. His tone was carefully neutral.
Bruce frowned, wary of giving any particularly private details out about his family to this clearly suspicious man. “Well, if you’re from around here, you know them already. The Waynes. We’re pretty well-known – at least, my parents are. I’m not sure what I could tell you that you couldn’t find online.”
“Your father. You said he retired. How is he finding it?”
Huh. This kind of polite, nothing small talk was not what he’d expected at all. Still, he supposed it was harmless enough. “I think he misses it. The work, I mean. He won’t stop asking me about my cases, offering unsolicited consults, that kind of thing. But I think he’s enjoying the time off as well.”
There was another strange pause before the man said, “And your mother?”
Bruce smiled wryly, although he didn’t think the man could see it while Bruce was knelt below his eyeline, watching his hands. “Well, I think she’s enjoying his retirement too.” She’d always loved taking family vacations, but Thomas Wayne had never been one for taking much time off. Neither was Bruce, for that matter. “The press focuses heavily on her philanthropic work, but she actually spends most of her time on her garden.”
Three stitches down. The man had yet to react to the prick of the needle. His pain tolerance was disturbingly impressive. “Do you have a family?”
The man seemed startled. “What?”
He started on the fourth stitch. Still no reaction. “Well, you’re asking a lot of questions about mine. I thought maybe you had something to share.”
For the first time tonight, the man’s habitual silence seemed more like he was at a loss for words than reluctance. “I— No. Yes.”
Bruce raised an eyebrow. “A complicated answer. Which is it?”
“It’s— Yes. I have a…father figure, I suppose.” The man swallowed. “Sons.”
“Sons, huh? I’m jealous.”
Every muscle in the man’s body went rigid. “What.”
Bruce stilled his hands again, halfway through the knot. He glanced up at the man’s face, but all he caught was an impression of tightness in his jaw before it smoothed out to a careful blankness once more.
Bruce was abruptly aware that he’d said something terribly wrong. His fault. He should have guessed from the man’s reactions that family might be a sore spot. He suppressed a grimace. “I didn’t mean to—”
“Why,” the man said. If the man’s voice had been gravelly before, now that same gravel was being put through a blender. “Why would you have reason to be jealous? You’re working the job you dreamed of as a child. You’re successful and presumably well-respected. You’re wealthy. I’m sure you have friends who care about you. And your parents are happily retired and still a part of your life. What could I possibly have that you don’t?”
Bruce considered the man’s words as he finished up the suture.
“Well,” he said. “A stab wound, for one.”
The man let out a sharp breath, almost like a laugh.
Bruce set down his tools. “I’ve clearly stepped on a landmine, which wasn’t my intention. I'm sorry about that. But, to answer your question… Sons. Children. I’ve always wanted children, but I’ve never found anyone to settle down with. I’ve even considered adoption or fostering but I’ve never gone through with it.”
“Why not?”
Despite its personal nature, the question was blunt and curious enough to feel inoffensive. Bruce shrugged. “Well, I suppose… I always wonder if I’d be a good fit. Those kids have gone through a lot. And what could I possibly do to help them?” He shook his head. “I always wind up deciding it’s better to work to improve the system, fund more foster homes and sponsor families, rather than just foster a kid myself. That way, someone more experienced or qualified has the means to help them instead.”
The man nodded slowly. “That’s…very logical.”
“I get that a lot.” Bruce wasn’t sure himself why he’d said all that, or even mentioned it in the first place. Adoption was a fairly personal topic for him, certainly not something he made a habit of talking about with strange men dressed like bat-Zorro who broke into hospitals late at night.
Or…maybe he did know why. The man’s expression wasn’t visible, his voice had barely changed – but somehow, despite all that, Bruce could tell that he was sad. Deeply so, in a way Bruce had seldom experienced but was all too familiar with after working in a hospital for over a decade.
Grief was not uncommon here. Whatever the man’s situation, he was clearly going through something terrible. It made Bruce want to be honest, despite everything.
He picked up his tools again. “I have one more stitch, and then you’re done. Do I have your consent to continue?”
The man nodded again but didn’t reply. He seemed almost distracted now, lost in his thoughts. Bruce got to work, finishing off the final stitch and securely bandaging the wound.
“All done,” he announced with a little smile, and stood. His knees cracked – he’d been kneeling for a little too long at his age. He should probably exercise more. “I’d offer you a lollipop, but I keep them in my other pants.”
The man was watching him again now, that same strange, intense look from earlier. “It was kind of you to do this. Most people would have run, not tried to help.”
“Perhaps. But you were injured,” he said simply.
“You’re…a good man,” the man said. His voice was halting. “Better than I expected. Maybe because—” He cut himself off, with a shake of his head. “No. Maybe it’s not that. Maybe it’s not just circumstance. Maybe it’s…something deeper. I want to believe that.”
The praise felt uncomfortably earnest coming from this strange, solemn man. Bruce gave a little shrug. “Thank you, but it’s nothing, really. I took an oath, that’s all. As a doctor, my mission is to help anyone who needs it. And that includes people who break into my office – although I usually prefer doing this kind of thing by appointment. You know, just for future reference.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” the man said. And then, for the first time since Bruce had met him, he smiled – a real smile, albeit a small one. “A mission, huh? That’s an interesting choice of words. Perhaps we’re not so different after all.”
Bruce blinked. “What? What do you—”
But before he could finish, his office was suddenly filled with blinding light. On instinct, he whirled around to find the source and froze, stifling a gasp. It was— It looked like a portal of some kind, like raw, swirling energy beyond a rip in the world itself. And it was energy. The room practically hummed with it, like a vibration but not a physical sensation, something far, far deeper than that. Bruce gaped at the tear in reality in pure shock as it grew wider, stabilized into a glowing circle of energy, hovering incongruously above the cheap carpet of his office floor.
And then a figure emerged from the portal. Dressed in red from head to toe, with a yellow lightning symbol on his chest, and—
Oh god. Was that the Flash?
When the Flash’s eyes landed on Bruce’s intruder, he lit up. “Oh, Bats! I knew I got the right one this time. Hope you didn’t wait too long…” he trailed off, eyes drifting to Bruce. His mouth snapped shut. “Oh. Ohhhh, holy crap. Is that—”
“This is Dr Wayne,” the man – Bats? – said. When Bruce turned his shocked gaze towards him, his expression was placid and calm, completely unphased by the giant glowing portal not 10 feet away from him. He nodded at Bruce. “Dr Wayne, this is the Flash.”
Bruce was sure his eyebrows were at his hairline. “I’m familiar. I’m guessing he’s a friend of yours?”
‘Bats’ was already reattaching his armor, slotting the plates back on with a fluidity that spoke of long practice. “Something like that.”
There was a superhero in his office. And he seemed to know Bruce’s intruder. Did that make this ‘Bats’ a superhero too? That…actually made a lot of sense, all things considered.
He regarded the Flash, who was looking between them with what looked like bewilderment. Bruce had never seen an actual superhero up close before. He seemed smaller in person than the larger in life character he’d seen on the news, a few inches shorter than Bruce himself. And more generally, he looked different, somehow. He was—
Bruce frowned. “Did you change your suit?”
“Aaaaand that’s our cue to go,” the Flash said. “You ready, Bats?”
“Yes.” He turned to Bruce. “I should get going. Thank you for your hospitality.”
“Well,” Bruce said numbly, “I didn’t exactly have much of a choice.”
“I suppose not.” He turned to leave, walking towards the portal in a fluid, confident stride – but just as he reached it, he turned back. “Oh, and one more thing. Don’t give up on adoption just yet. You might not do as badly as you think.”
Flash choked. “Okay, yeah, let’s go—”
And then ‘Bats’ was being pulled through the portal and the light was gone. Bruce’s office was empty of its intruder and its superheroic visitor and the bizarre portal alike.
Bruce realized that, in all the excitement, he’d completely forgotten what he’d come in here to do.
He sighed. Maybe it was time to call it a night anyway. He was sure his parents and Alfred would be eager to hear about his night.
Dick opened his eyes blearily. Weak sunlight was streaming in through the gap in his curtains. It was still early – the traffic in downtown Blüdhaven would only be this quiet before rush hour started. And on his bedside table, his cell phone was buzzing with the notification for a call. It wasn’t a familiar pattern, but he definitely recognized it all the same. Wasn’t that—?
He jerked up and practically flung himself at his phone, jabbing his finger into the call receive button and putting it on speaker. “B? What’s up?” he said breathlessly.
There was a pause – surprise? “Dick. It’s—nothing urgent. How are you doing?”
“What? I—How am I doing? Why are you calling me?”
“I’m inviting you to dinner.”
Dick blinked at the phone. The caller ID was definitely B, but… “You never call. I thought something terrible had happened. Why are you calling me?”
This time when Bruce spoke, there was a distinct air of discomfort to his still neutral voice. “No bad news. I just thought it's been a while since we had dinner. I know Tim would like to see you.”
“No, no,” Dick said, narrowing his eyes at the phone as if Bruce could actually see him. There was usually a non-zero chance that he actually could. “Something definitely happened. You’re being weird.”
“Perhaps,” Bruce said. “If you come to dinner, maybe I’ll tell you.”
“Of course I’ll come to dinner. You don’t need to bribe me,” Dick huffed.
“Oh,” Bruce said. “Good. Thursday?”
“Sure.” Dick didn’t know what to make of this. Bruce was calling him for non-Bat related business, and it was really just a social call? Bruce hadn’t done that kind of thing for months. Years, even. Not since—
Well. Not since.
“I’ll tell Alfred you’re coming,” Bruce said. “He’ll be pleased.”
“Sure,” Dick said, rolling his eyes. That was classic Bruce, outsourcing all expressions of affection to Alfred. But even then, he realized, Bruce had actually sounded pleased. Dick hadn’t heard him like that, really like that, since—
Well. Since.
“Have a good day, Dick,” Bruce was saying. “I’ll see you Thursday.”
“You too, B,” Dick murmured. Bruce had already hung up. Classic.
Still deep in thought, he stared at the screen of his phone until it went dark. And then he smiled. He was actually looking forward to Thursday. He’d have to figure out what had happened at some point, but whatever was going on with Bruce…maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing?