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His fiancée is a pretty thing. Flushed cheeks, shy smiles, and excited eyes. She’s been that way since New Year’s Eve. Eyes glinting every time she looked at him and down at her hand.
The ring was subtle by his standards. Secretly, he thought he should get her something bigger, more elaborate, something that more adequately showed her the depths of his feelings.
He was glad he hadn’t made that mistake; his decision curbed by the tact of his butler placing his mother’s engagement ring on his breakfast tray. The moment he saw it, he was filled with a warmth and an ache he hadn’t expected. He knew. This was the ring that he would use to ask her to spend the rest of her life with him.
It had been the right decision. Since the proposal, she’d been floating around the manor in a daze. Every time the ring caught a glint of light just right, she would pause what she was doing, entranced by the simple diamond sitting just under her knuckle.
A bit vainly, he thought her infatuation with the stone had come from how positively exquisite it had been. He had the stone reset, her soon-to-be initials engraved on the band, and had it resized accordingly. But then she looked at him with the same dreamy eyes that she gazed at the ring with, and his heart skipped a beat.
He hated to admit it, but he had been nervous proposing to her. His true lifestyle is not one for the faint of heart. And while she had been eager to accept him and all of his flaws, he still had doubts that she would willingly bind herself to him. It was still surreal to him that she was as infatuated with him as he was with her. That she loved him just as deeply. But his doubts were always silent when he looked into her eyes. And recently, it had been no different; if anything, the effect that she had on him had doubled. The plain, open love for him seemed to radiate through her like sunbeams. She was almost blinding sometimes.
“You’re staring.”
Her voice is shy, likely embarrassed that he had once again caught her staring at her ring. No matter how many times he said he found it adorable, she would only stutter out a denial. After all, how many lavish gifts had he given her in their time together?
He uses a finger to wipe flour from her cheek, and she stops kneading the dough in front of her, confusion etched on her face.
“Tonight?” She questions with a frown. “But don’t you have to…”
“Not tonight,” he soothes. He won’t add that Dick had promised to fill in where he couldn’t tonight. The would only make her worry,
“But it’s Valentine’s Day, it’s going to be so busy out.”
‘So many eyes.’
That is what she is probably thinking. She didn’t usually mind dealing with the spotlight that came with being with him, but she hated it when it was special nights, and the flashes of cameras would intervene on their time together.
“And I’m already making…”
She’s gesturing to the batter-filled bowl in front of her. The mixture is a lush, dark brown color. There is a carton of fresh strawberries on the counter, and the baking pan is already spread out and ready for her to fill it.
“You’ll have time to finish,” he promises. “I just want to do something special before the day is over.”
She contemplates the ideas, biting the inner corner of her lip.
“All right.”
“Good.”
***
“Is it too much? Am I overdressed?”
A bit self-consciously, you smooth the creamy fabric of your deep red dress of your thighs.
“It’s perfect.”
“I wish you would just tell me where we are going, its driving me crazy.”
He gives you another small smirk through the mirror. At times, he could be so sadistic that he seemed to enjoy your fretting. He always enjoyed watching you worry when he took you to special places. You knew he wasn’t cruel; you weren’t sure that he had it in him to even consider being outrightly mean to you. But he loved to relish your reaction to new things. Things that only a person of wealth could show you.
It was no secret that Bruce Wayne liked to flex. When it came to you, however, it was more about spoiling you than boasting.
You knew that, and still, you could barely contain your worries. Your worries ran through your body, your flesh pimpled from the cold sweat you had broken out in. Going out with him meant eyes on you and the scrutiny that came with the attention. You are always worried like this. Checking and rechecking your appearance. Worrying too much about what people would think when they saw you, what they would say in the morning papers.
Your anxiety, however, was always temporary. Wherever he took you, you would enjoy it and forget about these self-conscious thoughts. Enjoying spending time with the man you loved so deeply, you would lose yourself in him and in whatever it is he had planned for you. It’s what he was always so smug about.
“What part of it’s a surprise don’t you get?” He asks.
“You’re insufferable.”
If he had a dimple, it’d be showing now. It was enough that his deep blue eyes seemed to dance when he was with you. To see him genuinely happy was worth suffering through his surprises.
“Are you going to tell me what’s in that box?”
His eyes cut down to the slim black box sitting protected underneath his hand on the arm of the chair,
He hesitates for a moment, oddly stiff, a sharp change from the playful man he was moments ago.
Finally, one of those long fingers taps on the lid of the box as if he had finally settled on a thought.
“Take off your jewelry.”
“All of it?” You hesitate to reach for the clasp of your necklace.
It’s not the first time he’s surprised you with a new set moments before taking you out somewhere. It was his version of romance. He loved giving gifts, and while you genuinely loved most of the things that he gave you, what you adored most was the look on his face when he gave them to you. Even more special was that you surprised him and casually wore the pieces he gave you.
You do as you’re told and set your jewelry down on a side table before facing the body-length mirror. His hands are hidden from your sight in the mirror, you can’t even get a hint of the pieces that he will be bestowing on you tonight. But they must be special. His brows are furrowed, his mouth pulled down at the corners, and his eyes are a little distant.
You frown. “You don’t have to give them…”
“I want to,” he says decisively, and you stop your protest.
There were many things that Bruce had to work through. And he often processed his trauma silently. But you felt lucky that he felt like he could do it with you in the room.
His fingers touch the back of your neck, and your skin breaks out in slight goosebumps.
Shyly, you meet his eyes in the mirror, but you quickly look away as you are confronted by the intensity in your fiancée’s eyes.Your eyes look for something else to latch on to before they settle on the hand that is bringing up the new piece of jewelry that will grace your neck. It’s only when you see a flash of creamy white that you understand what’s happening.
“Bruce, that’s too much.”
The words rush out of your mouth and you instinctively shake your head ‘no’ at him.
You had never seen his mother’s pearls. You knew where he kept them and he had made it clear that if you wished to look in the safe he would not stop you.
But you had never taken advantage of the offer. There were things that Bruce still needed to come to terms with. Thrauma that he would never work through. He had chosen to use his pain instead of setting it free.
And you had loved and accepted the man that had made him. But a part of you ached knowing that there would likely never be a point in his life where he could genuinely be simply happy. All of the most precious moments that the pair of you would share would always be tinged with bitterness and fear. He was forever waiting for the day when someone would try to take you away from him. The same way they had his parents, his mother.
“I want you to have them.”
“You can’t just give something like this away, Bruce.”
He hums slightly, your rejections not penetrating.
The necklace is cool as it lies across your neck, resting just under the small bumps of your collarbone. The off white pearls pair beautifully with the deep red of the gown you had chosen.
As he fastens the clasp, he presses a kiss to the side of your head.
“They belong to Mrs. Wayne, and Mrs. Wayne should have them.”
***
Bruce Wayne thought his fiancée was adorable. Since he’d given them to her, she hadn’t stopped fingering the pearls that graced her lovely neck. The matching pair of earrings he’d given her had barely registered in her mind. He’d had to put them in her ears himself.
And even now, as she gapes at him in surprise, her soft fingers could not leave her new keepsake alone.
“Bruce, is something going on? Are you dying or something?”
She is as serious as she is confused. As worried as she is excited.
“No, nothing like that.”
He looks from her pretty face down to the lower floors and then the velvet curtains kissing the theater stage.
“I just thought it was time to make some new memories. Some good ones.”
How could he tell her that from the moment he decided that he would marry her, he felt something shift within him. The burden on his heart felt a little lighter, and he felt a little braver.
Happier.
He knew she didn’t understand how happy she made him, didn’t understand the depths to which she had changed him for the better. Even if he could not stop himself from donning the mask that had become a part of him, he cared more now that Bruce Wayne survived than he even had before. He no longer lived out of spite and some misplaced longing for revenge. He instead could feel the budding head of the pervasive need to protect his family becoming his primary motivation. Where that would lead him in five years, he didn’t know. But what he understood was that he liked himself more now than he ever had before. And because of that, he was willing to try to confront his demons little by little. And he wanted her to be there to experience that, at least for some of them.
“And I wanted to share this with you.”
He laces their hands together and squeezes her fingers affectionately. Her shoulders relax, dropping slightly as the apprehension leaves her body, though her eyes still have a skeptical light to them. It’s only when her glossy lips quirk at the corner and she leans onto his shoulder that he genuinely believes that she is content with the answer.
“I can’t believe that you took me to this show, I’ve wanted to see this play for so long. And on Valentine’s Day too, you big softy.”
He chuckles as the lights begin to dim and she settles in to enjoy the show before her. Her other hand is still gently fingering the beloved pearls around her neck. He imagines she’ll be enamored with them for a long time.
His eyes briefly glance at the stage down below as the actors begin the show, but he can’t focus on them for long. Not when she squeezes his hand in subconscious excitement. Not when she was smiling so prettily.
He’s not sure how long this euphoric happiness will last, but he can’t imagine it fading away, not as long as she makes his heart skip a beat.