Work Text:
Bruce sighed, a long and exasperated exhalation that made his waiting secretary repress a small and sympathetic smile.
“Alright, Gabrielle, I’ll call him again. Stall the printers for as long as you can, hold my calls, and don’t forget to move my three o’clock up to one o’clock on Monday. Also, make sure you forward the revised copy of the Jones account to marketing.”
“Yes, Mr Wayne,” Gabrielle said, scribbling at her notepad in a form of shorthand Bruce still hadn’t managed to decipher. “Please remember to eat later, you skipped lunch again.”
He smiled at that but distractedly as he picked up his phone and tucked it against his ear. His secretary slipped quietly out of the office and Bruce began to punch the well-known number into the keypad. One ring, two, three, five, and Bruce had just resigned himself to the fact that it wouldn’t be answered for the sixth time in three days, necessitating a house call which would take at least two hours he couldn’t spare, when a flustered voice answered just before the last ring.
“Hello?”
“Good afternoon, Mr Grayson,” Bruce said dryly even as a smile threatened to curve his mouth, and switched to speakerphone before setting down the handset. “Thank you for picking up the phone this time.”
“Mr Wayne! Uh, God, just hold on two seconds, I left something on the stove –” the phone clunked as it was dropped onto a table and Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose in long-suffering patience.
“Sorry, sorry,” the phone was scooped up again and a rather atrocious attempt at sounding casual and nonchalant was made at the other end of the wire. “So, what can I do for you this not-especially-fine afternoon, Mr Wayne?”
“You know exactly what you can do for me, Dick, and that is to send in the goddamn final draft of your latest book! It’s two weeks overdue, the printers are baying for blood, marketing needs the final proof to begin advertising Richard Grayson’s latest bestseller, Gabrielle is swamped by the various calls and emails regarding this damn book, and I am rapidly reaching the end of my tether!”
“But Bruce –!”
“Don’t you ‘but Bruce’ me, Dick, you’ve never been this late in sending in your manuscript before. I needed it a fortnight ago; what’s wrong? You were fine when we last spoke just over a month ago.”
There was a moment of silence at the other end and Bruce felt icy forbidding trickle up his spine.
“I scrapped most of my work, Bruce. I started afresh just after our last meeting.”
“What?” Bruce roared, slamming his hand down on his desk and leaping to his feet. “What do you mean, you scrapped your work?”
“Exactly what I said!” Dick shouted back.
“Why? For god’s sake, are you mad? And without talking to me? I am your editor, Grayson, you run your drafts through this office!”
“Look, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, alright? Jesus, Bruce, calm down or you’ll have an apoplexy!”
“Any high blood pressure is entirely your fault,” Bruce snapped, but slowed his frantic pacing around his office.
“Bullshit, Todd is a million times worse than I am, god knows why you even keep him on –”
“The competence of my other writers is not the issue here, Dick. It’s you I’m worried about.” Bruce sat back down at his desk and stared up at the covers of Dick’s five previous best-sellers framed and mounted on his wall. “You’re right: usually, you’re a model client – talented, punctual, personable, and reliable. Dick, you’re one of my best, and have been since you signed on six years ago. Your tenuous grasp of prefixes and suffixes notwithstanding, you write well and deal poignantly but delicately with complex issues. Now you’re telling me that a month and a half before your final proof was due, you scrapped it and started on something new?”
More silence, and then Dick’s voice issued from the speaker, sounding oddly small and soft. “Did I get disconnected and reconnected somewhere else? Who are you and what have you done with Bruce Wayne?”
Bruce huffed out a small laugh even as he looked in faint concern at the phone. “I have been repeatedly informed that a spoonful of sugar works better than a jar of vinegar.” Dick had yelled that at him many times over the past half-decade or so, the only writer – hell, the only person in his professional orbit – Bruce would accept it from, though in truth he was supplementing something Alfred had been telling him that for most of his life. “Would you prefer I yell?”
“Well, familiarity breeds contempt, so I’m not complaining if you want to expand your repertoire,” Dick replied, laughing a little too as the shyness that had sounded so alien to Bruce’s ears disappeared from his tone. “Although I do like debating with you.”
“Call it arguing and be done with it. You know, no one else seems to believe me when I tell them what a firebrand you can be. Clark goes on and on about that butter-wouldn’t-melt look you turn on all the journalists, and Harvey actually thinks any more, and I’m quoting verbatim here, ‘autocratic decrees’ from me will crush your spirit.”
Another crack of laughter burst from the speakers and lifted the corners of Bruce’s mouth in response. “So what’s going on, Dick?” he asked when the storm of mirth had subsided. “Give me something I can use to keep the printers at bay.”
A sigh rushed through the speakers like static. “I have finished this new work.”
“Really?” Bruce jerked upright from lounging in his huge leather chair. “You’ve finished a new work in five weeks?”
“Yes. Well, I say finished, as in complete, but not polished. I guess that’s for you to do. But listen, Bruce...this is my last book in the Trefoil universe.”
“Oh? I know you said you wanted to wind down the three floating cities verse, and veer away from the Victorian steampunk style, but I was hoping you’d reconsider.”
“No, I think I’ve wrapped it up fairly well, and I do want to try something new without people asking if it’s going to have clockwork tinkers, wandering tribes and interconnected cities all floating above a range of mountains – which is absolutely ridiculous, I wish I’d never come up with something like that; the thermal drafts from the slopes of the mountains are a ridiculous method of propulsion, I can’t believe people actually like this stuff –”
“Dick.”
Another distorted, sheepish sigh rushed through the phone. “Sorry.”
“I happen to enjoy that universe. Alright, I’ll read it and see what we can do.”
“About that...”
“Dick, I need something!”
“I know, I know, it’s just...I’m not...confident about this book. I was cursed with a particular subplot and it wouldn’t let me go, so I had to rewrite everything around it. Don’t lecture,” he beseeched, obviously hearing Bruce’s intake of breath, “I know how dumb that is for an experienced writer, but I had to. Now that I’ve written it, of course, I...it’s...I’m nervous, Bruce. It’s...”
Dick stammered himself to a standstill and Bruce, now definitely concerned, hastily attempted to reassure him.
“You were nervous about your first book, too, and that turned out better than we could have imagined.”
“It’s not like that,” Dick snapped, and Bruce knew this tense tone, could imagine Dick pacing his living room with a frown on his face and a hand running through his hair as the story refused to cooperate with him. “This is...it feels personal, okay? Just send Bart for it, it’s ready for collection. If you hate it I still have my original work; give me another week and it’ll be done. Bye, Bruce…and thank you for everything.”
A click, and the dial tone hummed before Bruce could reply.
* * *
An hour later, Bruce barked a command to enter and the courier poked his head in.
“Mr Grayson’s manuscript, Mr Wayne.”
“Thank you, Bart.” He stood to accept the parcel, and looked thoughtfully at the boy. “How did he seem?”
Bart pursed his lips. “He looked like shit.”
Colour rushed into his face as Bruce’s eyebrows lifted, and the courier scrambled to back-peddle. “I mean, sir, he just looked really tired, not crash at all, but kind of haggard and pale, with dark shadows under his eyes and an old college hoodie on. He didn’t have much to say either, and usually he’s real chatty and offers me tea and stuff.” Bart shrugged.
“Alright. Well, he’s been working to a very close deadline. Thank you, Bart.”
Bart nodded and hurried out, and Bruce was left gazing at the innocuous brown paper package in his hand, not, in fact, tied up with string. He strode over to his desk, put the package down, and hit the intercom. “Gabrielle, clear my schedule. If the printers call, tell them I’m editing a manuscript now. I don’t want any interruptions, I’m going to be working late.”
“Yes, sir.”
Bruce sat down, reached for his letter knife, slit the brown paper, and unfolded it. Underneath the blank top page sat the crisp black title, The Whispering Wind. It looked promising, but it was the first time since the young writer – Richard Grayson, but call me Dick – had approached Wayne Enterprises, charm not quite disguising his determination to have the CEO edit his first novel, that Bruce had no idea what to expect.
He carefully lifted the title page, and started reading.
An hour in, he set aside his pen to better concentrate. The world was familiar from the previous five books, but this time Dick had focused on the metal-smiths and clockwork runners of the lower regions of Petrafell, the third city. They had always been part of the verse but hadn’t received any lengthy exposé before; Bruce was fascinated by the new glimpses into their micro culture.
His attention was especially caught by the laconic ironsmith Loptendys and the young clockwork courier Halr.
The lights flickered on as darkness bloomed, and Bruce absent-mindedly turned on his lamp without looking away from the page.
Almost as soon as Halr was introduced as an acquaintance of the main character Cerophon, he recognised Dick’s quirks and mannerisms in the light-hearted, reckless trader. When the young man joined Cerophon and his cousin Traile on a stage of their quest, he introduced them to a reserved, aloof ironsmith in the south quarter named Loptendys whose looks and characteristics reminded Bruce strongly of himself.
The night janitor poked his head in and swiftly retreated at the sight of his boss still at his desk.
Dick was one of the few mainstream, popular authors to include both heterosexual and homosexual relationships in his novels, a feature which garnered him both keen praise and scathing condemnation, and Bruce had enough experience with his writing to spot likely couples. However, he had no idea what to make of the interactions between Loptendys and Halr, or even if they were meant to be foils for himself and Dick at all.
But Dick had said there was something personal about this new, inspired work...
Butterflies, honest-to-God butterflies like the kind he hadn’t experienced since college, fluttered in his stomach, and Bruce leaned forward, intent on the words before him.
His computer shut itself down and the air ducts went quiet.
Eyes itching, Bruce ploughed on. He hadn’t been this intrigued, this captivated, by any piece of literature in years, to the point he forgot he was an editor and simply became a reader. Dick was an exceptional author, elegant without being florid, detailed without being pedantic, but there was something a little harried in this new work Bruce hadn’t seen before, though he knew he was probably the only one who would be able to tell.
He was three-quarters of the way through the novel when he realised he was paying more attention to the supporting characters than the main pair and their respective challenges, trials and tribulations. Bruce shrugged to himself; he’d need to reread it anyway. He was too tense with anticipation and fearful hope at the developing relationship between the trader and the ironsmith to redirect his focus, too caught in wondering how far to take the parallels between them and their real-world counterparts.
Perhaps Dick had just taken inspiration from character traits he came across; Bruce had spent plenty of lunch meetings with Dick where the writer had trailed off in the middle of a sentence to scribble an idea down on a notepad, or had needed Bruce to repeat himself several times because he was too busy gazing with interest at the foibles and tics of passing pedestrians.
On the other hand...
Just before Cerophon, Traile, Halr, and Captain Yzabella of the Petrafell Guards – Bruce did not hold high hopes for the overeager captain’s survival – entered the Obsidian Maze, Loptendys gave to Halr a dagger decorated with the runes of Halr’s House on the blade, which coincidentally doubled as a map through the Maze to an integral piece of machinery. Loptendys’ refusal to accompany them was explained after two chapters of nail-biting, puzzle-solving, running-through-the-dark-possibly-being-chased-by-a-Minotaur suspense: the ironsmith knew he was going to be captured by the Guild of Lords who believed Petrafell should sink out of orbit, and chose to give himself up rather than betray Halr.
Halr, in his turn, followed the whispers on the wind, and stole the key circuit they had just found in the Obsidian Maze from Cerophon to bargain for Loptendys’ life. Fortunately, Cerophon and Halr had already agreed on substituting the real mechanism for a fake and the elevation of three cities of Trefoil was safe from orbital erosion; Bruce could see the conclusion of the series and felt a warm, wistful nostalgia as he turned to the last pages. Cerophon returned to wed his faithful betrothed, commander of the Merchants’ Guild, Traile took her place on the Council, and the Tinkers' Court welcomed their wandering trader home.
Loptendys returned to his forge, alone.
Thunder rolled through the workshop as the smith beat out his iron, hammer striking again and again, but not even a storm could deafen Loptendys to Halr’s footsteps.
'You are meant to be in the skybridges of Ventral,’ he said, not looking around.
‘I am meant to be where the wind takes me,’ replied Halr, unimpressed. ‘The wind has brought me back to you.’
Loptendys cast aside his hammer, lifted the tongs, and doused the glowing metal in the barrel of water. ‘Only until the seasons turn, when the wind will sweep you on again. I cannot cage you, I beg that you do not ask me to.’
‘Does a seed feel caged because the wind has carried it to fresh ground where it may sprout and grow? Loptendys, I belong with you, wherever we go or stay.’ He approached the smith carefully, wary of startling him back into his aloof righteousness, and touched his fingertips to Loptendys’ scarred wrist. ‘Please,’ he whispered, ‘please. You reforge me, you take what I am and you make it better, stronger, what it could be! No one has ever seen what you claim to see in me. I am but a wild leaf on the wind, but when you look at me I am more than skeleton and skin, I feel as though I could be anything! Please, let me do the same for you.’
Loptendys dropped his tools and stepped away, and a broken gasp tore from Halr’s throat.
‘Please,’ he managed again, his heart nothing but ash like the dying forge.
‘You would stay?’ Loptendys asked, something reverent in his hushed tone as he stood by the far wall.
‘Beyond the ending of the world and the sky consumed by flame.’
The ironsmith let out a shuddering sigh and returned, a silver betrothal circlet of intricate design in his hand.
‘How could you believe I would not want you? Since the first moment I saw you, fearing no burns as you tended the fire, I have wanted you, but you have always danced out of reach like the leaf on the breeze you claim no kinship to. I do nothing: the greatness is in you, Halr.’
He fitted the circlet onto Halr’s hair, nestled among his curls like a sweep of stars in the night sky, and Halr pledged himself to Loptendys as the cities of the sky floated on, endlessly, through the air. Perhaps fire and wind cannot live “happily ever after,” but they were happy, and they lived, for as long as they were able. Who among us can ask for more?
There will always be stories to tell, quests and danger, friendship and discovery. There will always be the whispering wind, if one only has the ear to listen.
Bruce sighed, a gentle release of tension, as he turned over the last page and sat back. There was no doubt now. He had said those words, or something like them, to Dick at their last meeting, in answer to the words that were placed in the mouth of Halr.
“Here, your scarf,” Bruce had said, unwinding it from the back of Dick’s chair and passing it over, “I think this will be your greatest one yet, Dick. The direction is promising.”
“That was almost a compliment!” Dick had laughed, wrapping his scarf about his throat. He glanced up at Bruce as they stepped out of the cafe, something almost shy in the tilt of his head. “I’m not worried, you always take what’s there and make it better. You reforge my jumble of letters into words, into a story. You make it seem like I can be...more.”
Bruce had looked down at him, frowning, and brought him to a halt with a hand on his arm. “I appreciate the sentiment, Dick, but you said it yourself – I work with what’s there. You have talent, and there are stories everywhere; we just have to listen. Email me if you have a problem, otherwise I expect your final draft in six weeks.”
Dick had gazed at him like he’d hung the stars, and Bruce should have known then that a new muse had taken hold; he’d seen that dazed, wondering look before.
His heart thumped. No, it wasn’t simply a look of new inspiration. Wishful thinking and wistful imagination could only take him so far: he would have to do the rest himself.
Bruce stood, butterflies diving and swooping in his stomach as he gathered his determination and fortified his resolve. A look at the clock, however, and the way the room was blurry and fuzzy, prompted Bruce to rearrange his plans.
“Two-fifteen am? Since when?” Bruce pressed his palms to his eyes, the burning of exhaustion and craving of hunger finally making themselves known as the adrenaline faded from his body.
Right, a nap on the couch in his office, a coffee, a muffin, a toothbrush, a change of clothes – thank god he kept a night bag in his office for the times worked late – and another coffee, and he would be half-human enough to see Dick and find out once and for all his hazy midnight yearnings could become sunlit reality.
Several hours later, dodging Gabrielle’s obnoxiously bright-eyed and bushy-tailed concern, Bruce slipped into his car, ignoring the way the butterflies had transformed into rampaging rhinos, and pulled out of the Wayne Enterprises car park. Twenty minutes later he pulled up outside Dick’s building. Five minutes later, he talked himself up the steps and found himself in front of 3B with his stomach churning like he hadn’t base-jumped before.
“Come on, Wayne,” he scolded himself, and knocked.
A few seconds later, the door was opened and Dick stared up at him, ensnared and statue-still, a deer in bright headlights. Shadows under his eyes, rough scraping of stubble across his jaw, tousled hair and old college jumper – Bruce adored every inch of him.
The spell broke; in one fluid movement Bruce stepped forward, cupped Dick’s beautiful face in his hands, and kissed him. Dick gasped into his mouth and flung his arms around his neck as he collapsed against him, and Bruce shifted one arm to his waist to hold him close, kissing him again.
“God, Bruce...” Dick breathed his confession against his lips, “I was so scared...”
Bruce walked them back a few stumbling steps so he could close the door behind them. “So I was right? Loptendys and Halr –?”
Dick nodded, hugging him tightly and tucking his face in Bruce’s neck. “Yes.”
Bruce let out a final, shuddering, thankful sigh and let himself relax into holding Dick, resting his cheek upon the top of his head. They swayed side to side, breathing together, for a few minutes as exhaustion crept up on them both.
“What prompted you to write us into The Whispering Wind?” Bruce eventually murmured, slightly worried he would fall asleep on his feet if they stayed like that any longer.
Dick shrugged, not looking up. “I...I’ve kind of been...crazy about you for...a while, I guess, and after our last meeting, well, the plot grabbed me and wouldn’t let me go, like, intense insomnia and distraction like I haven’t had since my first book. I thought that as I was wrapping up Trefoil I might as well throw caution to the wind and just go for it. If you hated it, I wasn’t going to write anymore anyway, if you didn’t notice, ditto, and if...”
“If I did notice? If I felt the same?” Bruce’s voice was husky, and Dick’s arms tightened around him.
“Then it was worth all the sleepless wondering,” he whispered, and pushed up on tiptoes for another kiss. Bruce cupped his cheek, lost in the sensations, and deepened the embrace as fatigue was chased momentarily back by a wave of desire.
Dick tugged him forwards and down the corridor, dodging books and items of clothing as they exchanged hasty kisses, but as the couch appeared, Bruce pulled back. “If I sit down I think I might fall asleep,” he admitted to the soft hair at Dick’s temple. Dick huffed a laugh, pressing one more kiss to Bruce’s lips as he agreed.
“I haven’t slept properly for a fortnight. I had to keep up the momentum for the last chapter, or else I’d chicken out.”
Bruce smiled, gazing down at him like he’d never seen Dick properly before, and a few minutes later saw them curled up together on the couch, both a little nervous and tired but too thrilled to let that get in the way of learning more about each other.
A call from Gabrielle thirty minutes later reminded Bruce of his responsibilities.
“I have to get back to the office,” he said reluctantly. Dick just curled up tighter against his side.
“So, Mr Wayne, in your professional opinion, how was the book?”
Bruce considered him, trying not to let on that the arm behind Dick’s back had gone numb. “Well, Mr Grayson, it has potential. I do have to admit I pulled an all-nighter and I have yet to reread it, but it’s definitely a book worthy of the Trefoil conclusion.”
Dick sighed. “Thank god.”
“But...”
“Oh, here we go,” Dick muttered, rolling his eyes and then yelped as Bruce pinched his side.
“As I was saying, there’s an element of haste in there, of tension. Obviously I know why, but you’ll need to smooth that out before final proof. There was also a section where you changed tenses for a few sentences. Also, a dagger with a map in the runes? Really? No.”
“It was convenient,” Dick pouted. “You try writing a plot device for a heroic quest with two hours of sleep under your belt and a severe lack caffeine.”
“We can come back to that – maybe a paper map hidden inside the hilt. The last thing I can think of is the placing of the ending. Do you usually finish the book on a secondary character?”
Dick pulled a face. “No. I could juggle the conclusions around, but I was drowning with the possibly self-destructive need for you to see Loptendys and Halr for who they were supposed to be at the time I wrote it.”
Bruce kissed him again. “Take another week and fix it up, I’ll have the edits back to you tomorrow morning.
“I thought the printers were on the warpath?”
“Whose name is on the building? I’ll move the date back, but I can’t promise more than a week.”
Dick nodded, eyes following his fingertips as he trailed them across the back of Bruce’s hand and up his forearm like he’d never seen anything as amazing as his skin on Bruce’s before. Bruce caught the wandering hand and brought it to his lips. “Have dinner with me tonight?”
A bush stained Dick’s cheeks, but he nodded, a smile lighting his eyes.
“Good,” Bruce murmured. “Get some sleep, and I’ll pick you up at eight.”
They squirmed around until they could stand without falling over the other’s legs, and Dick walked Bruce to the door. “Till tonight?”
“Until tonight,” Bruce agreed, warm affection rising in his chest as he tucked some hair behind Dick’s ear. Dick nudged his cheek into Bruce’s palm, and then laughed softly, putting his hands on Bruce’s chest to push him gently out the door.
“Off with you, or Gabrielle will have my head without even chipping her nails.”
Bruce smiled and stole one last kiss. “See you tonight.”
A beautiful smile, a last coy blush, and the door was closed behind him. Bruce took a deep breath of almost-spring air, smiled, and strolled off down the sunlit stairs to his car, a faint breeze coaxing the leaves in the gutter behind him to dance.