Archive of Our Own

Of all the things Bruce had trained his mind and body to handle, a man recounting his spiritual reawakening was not one of them. Pierce Chapman had been at it for eighteen minutes. Bruce had stopped listening somewhere around nine, when the man began prattling about ayahuasca and how it had transported him to another spiritual realm. Bruce would not have minded being transported somewhere else right about now.

And all he had to do was wait for Gotham to be Gotham. The discreet earpiece was tuned to the police scanner as he nodded along to the man behind a rehearsed grin.

“Dispatch to all units in the area, silent alarm at the jeweler’s on Fifth, possible break-in.”

“Copy, Unit 23 en route.”

There it was. Bruce loosened his tie, placed his untouched champagne on a waiter’s tray, and politely excused himself. Finally.

Four men had broken in and cut the alarm before trying to escape through the back alley. It took no effort. By the time the GCPD had arrived, the men had been tied to a street lamp and the jewelry had been put back in the vault.

Now Batman crouched low on the museum’s roof, beside one of the twin skylights that ran the length of the hall. Up here there was only the steep pitch of the mansard at his back and a few pigeons roosting in the eaves. By now, the better part of forty minutes was gone, and he looked down through the glass at the part of the night he dreaded.

At the center of the great hall the diplodocus stood, its small skull lifted high, its body and tail running long behind it. Guests gathered across the floor, and waiters wove among them with trays of champagne and hors d’oeuvres. A jazz band played in the corner, the singer snapping her fingers and swaying. By the drinks, an ice swan had lost its beak.

Pierce was now near the band, one hand on a drink, circling around, most certainly looking for his next victim to regale with his story. The front stage had emptied, the crowd dispersing back to their tables. He had missed the speeches. No matter. A check would have done the same good from his study, and spared everyone the evening, but that was never what these were for. Too many in that room cared only enough to be thanked for it in front of a crowd. The cause changed every month, like some sort of seasonal trend. The grandstanding was year-round. Soon he would trade one suit for the other and go back down, delighted to be there, with a cover story ready for anyone who’d noticed him gone.

But soon was not now. His eye went over the room and stopped on Diana, impossible to miss even at this distance. She was speaking to the New Jersey Senator, a few others gathered around them. A year ago it would have surprised him to see her here at all. But she had started a charity foundation, which meant evenings like this, talking funding and policy at people with more money than they had any use for. They were on the same invitation lists now.

She had learned to work a room. The crowd around her had grown, all vying for her attention, and she stood effortless among them, laughing, enjoying herself by every sign he could see. In the first of these she’d ever come to, in Paris, a crowd like that one had overwhelmed her, cameras flashing and questions coming faster than she could answer. Bruce had reached out from the crowd and walked her onto the open dance floor. But tonight no one needed to pull her out.

And yet, Diana had come through all of it unchanged. Months ago he had been close enough to overhear a woman ask how she was, expecting the usual pleasantries.

Diana took it for a real question.

“A little lonely,” she said. “I grew up among my sisters, at a banquet that was never quiet, and I ate alone tonight before I came. I am used to the quiet by now. Tonight, less so.”

The woman said nothing, surprise on her face, and Diana smiled. “But the evening is not a loss. An hour ago I did not know you, and now I do.”

He had no business finding it as charming as he did.

They kept their distance at these parties, each for reasons of their own. She found the Bruce Wayne he played there unnerving and had said so once. He could hardly blame her.

Despite their preference, the evening always had a way of drawing them together. They would find themselves out on a balcony or side by side at the coat check. Those were the only easy minutes he got. With her, he was not required to be anyone in particular, and he could set down the smile before having to fix it back on for the crowd. On paper it might have looked like a standing rendezvous, but he had never planned them. Once or twice, though, Bruce had caught himself searching the crowd for her.

She was a good friend, he reasoned. He was fairly sure that was the word for it.

Bruce came back the quiet way, by the vaulted side hall alongside the great one, and strolled back in. He had an easy grin that was on well before he stepped in. The figure that had crouched on the roof was nowhere in the room.

Over the years he had been a good many idiots to excuse his absences. There was the time he’d pulled the handle clean off a restroom door, claimed he’d locked himself in, and joked that he was far too generous to sue. Once, he’d told a table of donors he needed an hour in a dark room to reset his internal clock. He hadn’t known if they’d bought it until a man from that same table stopped him at a later event to say it had done wonders for him.

Another time, he’d claimed to have gone into the fountain outside after his cufflink. It had only taken a sleeve run under the tap and the gall to walk back in dripping.

“These fountains have no business being so deep,” he said, wringing out his sleeve.

A woman clicked her tongue at him. “Brucie, that’s what the staff are for.”

For all the effort, the stories only confirmed what Gotham had long decided about Bruce Wayne: charming, harmless, and just eccentric enough to wave off.

He was building a new cover story, still deciding how stupid to make it, when Alfred came on the line.

“Sir. You have an admirer of sorts this evening. Miss Vale has taken a keen interest in your whereabouts.”

“She has too much time on her hands.” He kept walking, smoothing his lapel and running a hand through his hair.

“And she is being most industrious with it. She has forty minutes unaccounted for, and a valet who confirms your limousine has not stirred from the lot.”

“She’s looking for a story.”

“She is praying it is one. She has wearied of the society pages, and intends you to be her way off them. Best you reappear, then, and leave her certain she wasted the evening on you.”

“I’ll give her a scandal worth printing, then.” He rolled his shoulders once.

“Beneath you in every way, sir.”

“I trust you won’t be reading tomorrow’s paper?”

“On the contrary, I quite look forward to reading all about it with my morning tea. Do try to make it worthwhile, Master Wayne.”

The line went quiet.

A tall door opened at the far end of the hall and Diana came through. She spotted him, glanced around, and lifted a hand in half a wave before she made her way towards him. The chandeliers spilled a soft light over her as she walked underneath them, a low gleam moving along the dark waves of her hair, her blue eyes never straying from his the whole way. She wore red, the gown bared at one shoulder, a small clutch held in one hand.

She looked good in red.

“Long night?” she said as she reached him.

“They usually are. And yours?”

“Not as intended. I have spent the evening trying to discuss a bill with Senator O’Sullivan. We keep drawing a crowd. I appreciate the enthusiasm but I had hoped to speak to him alone.”

“He must be thrilled. O’Sullivan hasn’t gathered a crowd at these events since the election.”

“He did seem pleased. But I intend to have his answer on the bill by tonight, even if I have to walk him out to his car. He can enjoy the crowd until then.”

“Someone should warn him.”

She grinned and set her shoulder to the wall. “You always disappear before the speeches,” she said. “I have begun to suspect you schedule these crimes yourself.”

“I’ve tried. The timing never cooperates.”

She shook her head and leaned closer. He glanced down the hallway before setting his back to the wall beside her, his shoulder against hers.

“This is a beautiful building, Bruce.”

“It is.”

“I read about this building’s history before tonight. The two brothers who designed it nearly did not speak again over these ceilings. One wanted the museum’s design to be beautiful and ornate, something worthy of the wonders of the natural world. The other felt that a museum should be classical and simple, that anything more would take away from its purpose.”

She looked up at the hand-painted panels on the ceiling. “I find that I am glad the first brother won. I have never thought beauty works against purpose.”

He looked up with her.

“One of my grandfathers thought the same. Solomon Wayne commissioned a lot of the buildings here.” He kept his head tipped back. “He felt the right building could scare people honest: Gargoyles, flying buttresses, and thick walls.”

“He would be glad to know they are still being put to work,” she said.

“I’m not sure he’d approve of the methods.”

She paused. “He wanted the wicked afraid. His grandson manages it better than stone and brick.”

He waited for it to slide off like every compliment had all night but it clung. A man’s booming laugh carried over from the main hall, applause following behind it, and he turned toward the sound. When he turned back to her, his attention fell to her mouth. Right. His answer had been standing in front of him the entire time. He looked away from her mouth.

“The man who was talking to you before found me shortly after you left. I think he was happy to have an audience for his story. I cannot say the same for the woman beside him now. She sounds like she is in dire need of a sister.”

Bruce had stopped listening. There had to be something. Anything. Anything that didn’t involve making Diana his scandal.

“So if you’ll excuse me.” She touched his shoulder and caught the look on his face. “What is it?”

“There’s a reporter inside, Vicki Vale. She’s been counting my absences. I need her chasing something more flattering than the truth.”

“What has she seen?”

“The limo hasn’t left the lot. Knowing Vicki, she’s checked everywhere, even the men’s restroom.”

“She is tenacious.” Diana furrowed her brow.

“That’s one word for it,” Bruce said.

She squeezed his arm, her mouth twitching. “Right. So you need to look as though you slipped away with someone.”

“Yes.”

“And Vicki needs evidence of a tryst.”

“Yes.”

“How much do we need to invent?”

“Forty minutes’ worth.”

One of her eyebrows arched and she took his hand, looked both ways down the hallway and led him to a narrow arched door at the other end of it, dark wood with ornate trim, a small brass knob set low on the frame. She bent down to examine the lock, stood back up, and pulled a card from her clutch. The card slipped between the door and the jamb and the knob turned. A click.

She flashed a brilliant smile at him, one hand going to her waist. It was hard not to return it.

Lifting the card, she bent it back flat. He caught the front of it briefly. Cheerful cartoon books with smiley faces, Gateway Public Library printed above, and beneath it: “Books are gates to lands of pleasure.”

She stepped through and held the door. He checked the hallway both ways and came in swiftly.

The door closed behind him and only a sliver of light came in from underneath. She was close in the dark. Light came on overhead, an exposed bulb at the center of the ceiling. Metal shelving down both sides, spray bottles and tins of brass polish, a mop standing in its bucket in the corner. Between the shelves there was barely room for the two of them, and they stood face to face, backs tight against the shelving, as if it were pushing them together.

“Where did you learn that?” he asked.

“Barbara.”

“I didn’t know you knew her.”

“Dinah introduced us. We spent an evening trading party tricks. That one was hers. I have not had a reason to use it until tonight.”

Hmm, Barbara hadn’t mentioned it. Two circles of his had overlapped without his knowledge and it bothered him more than he had any right. It was an unusual sensation to be left in the dark and he resigned himself to leaving it alone for now.

“You should look the part when you return.” Diana reached into her clutch and took out her lipstick, setting the clutch on the shelf behind her. “May I?”

He took a second before nodding.

She swiped the color over her lips, then brought the back of her hand to her mouth. The press of her lips left a red kiss on her skin.

“Perfect,” she murmured.

Then her hand rested on his chest as she walked him backward slowly toward the far end of the closet until his shoulders brushed the wall. He had been put against walls before by every villain Gotham had to offer, braced for the impact and sharp pain it came with, but never like this, never by a touch so light and soft.

She bent her head and pressed her mouth to his collar, slow, drew back to study what she had left, and leaned in again, lower, against the side of his neck. This time he felt her lips properly, warm and firm against his skin. Each kiss was slow to lift, the warmth of one not gone before the next, until the whole side of his neck held the heat of her.

Her hands had come to rest on his shoulders. He kept very still, looking at the floor, his hands useless at his sides while she worked. His gaze went to the door. He had checked the lock and he knew it was secure. Still, it would be, he thought, a particular kind of irony to actually be caught in here with Wonder Woman of all people.

When she had done that side she lifted her head, and their eyes met.

Diana was beautiful. Everyone could see it, and she found it the most boring thing about herself. He had generally taken her word for it. He did not take her word for it right now, with her face near enough that he could see exactly where the blue of her eyes went deeper at the edge. Her cheekbones were faintly pink and he—

No. He clenched on the thought before it finished. This was closer than any friend should be.

She came around to his other side.

“You smell good,” she said, not looking up from his collar.

“You sound surprised,” he said.

“After the evening you have had? A little. You clean up well.”

“So do you.”

That earned him a brief smile. Her hands stroked his neck as she frowned. “These need to look unintentional.” One mark smudged under her thumb, then another.

Diana was thorough in her work. He had always valued that in a colleague. Considerably less so right now.

Softer this time, barely there, she went back over the same spots. The firm kisses he could handle. He hadn’t braced for soft. It was better than it had any right to be, and his eyes closed. He loosened his posture and her mouth moved along his neck while he did nothing but feel it, until he felt her ease back and opened his eyes again.

She bit her lip over the marks, weighing both sides of his face. Her mouth softened, and she nodded.

“This will do nicely,” she said as she bent again.

He felt her mouth lower, under his jaw, working down. A hand cupped his cheek as she maneuvered his head where she wanted it. Goosebumps climbed his arms the second her lips found the spot just below his ear.

It felt — it felt — really good.

His hands came up off his sides, reaching for her waist, before he caught them and pressed them flat against the wall. He needed this to stop. Now.

Then she stopped. Her mouth hovered just under his ear, a soft warm breath. He thought she had finished and waited for her to step back and check the marks. She didn’t step back. After a moment she pressed her mouth to his neck again, more delicate than before, and continued.

He’d been counting the seconds down. Thirty more, fifty at most.

He got his voice level before he used it. “Almost done?”

“Almost,” she said against his skin. “This is only thirty minutes’ worth.”

Then she went to work on his other side. For a second he seriously wondered whether it would really be so bad to let Vicki Vale work the whole thing out herself. It was a little too late for that.

She was pressed against him now, holding him to the wall, and she moved her hand from his cheek to the back of his head and kept going.

His heart rate was climbing and he knew she would be able to hear it. He maintained a working file on every meta-human colleague; at this distance, Diana’s range meant his pulse wasn’t even a challenge. Between her and Clark, he had managed to ensure he would never have a private cardiovascular moment. He was going to need to reevaluate his friendships.

His eyes went to the wall over her shoulder, found a long thin crack, and locked on. The crack ran down to the corner of the closet and split in two near the bottom, and the longer he looked at it the more it interested him. The room directly above was the reptile exhibit. He’d been up there back in the spring, not as a guest. Two men had tried to walk a donor’s wife out toward the side stairs to ransom her, and Jason, who’d had the title of Robin only a few months and wanted so badly to be good at it, had come in off the back stairs and taken both of them down in one jump, a thud that went straight through the floor.

He built the room overhead in his head, down to the spot where the two men had hit the floor, and set it over the closet he was standing in. The crack lined up. Yes, right about here.

The doorknob rattled.

In an instant, Bruce pulled Diana into the corner of the supply closet where the metal shelving would shield them. He caught her waist as he steered her back, pressing her against the wall. They stood frozen. He didn’t know whose hand was on the other side. The custodian with a key, a caterer, the museum director. He didn’t care. Bruce Wayne caught in a supply closet was another weekend for him. Diana in a supply closet with Bruce Wayne was another story.

The doorknob jiggled, louder, and then stopped. Diana shook her head. Not yet, she mouthed. He nodded.

Her shoulders loosened. “She’s gone,” Diana whispered.

“She?” he asked.

“Yes, she is checking the next hallway,” Diana said. “She was muttering about how she brought the wrong shoes for this game of hide and seek. Vicki Vale, I take it?”

“Yes,” he said, his hands still steady on her waist. “If she’d had a key…”

“Well,” she teased. “That would have been one way to sell it.”

“Not like that.” He frowned. “You’re doing me a favor. Doesn’t mean you should end up in the paper beside me.”

“You worry more about my name and image than I do, Bruce.”

He didn’t have an answer for that.

“We should go.” He stepped back, his hands returning to his sides.

“Give me a moment.”

She looked him over, collar to jaw, and took a small travel perfume from her clutch. “A shame to cover up your cologne,” she said, and gave his neck a light spritz. “But we should be thorough, Bruce.”

He breathed in before he could help it. Her perfume. Another small detail, to anyone close enough to notice. He took it in again.

When his eyes came back up they went to her mouth. The lipstick had smeared at the corner, and his thumb was at the edge of her lip. He wiped the smear slow, across the corner of her mouth and she went still under his hand, her eyes moving between his. The smear was gone and there was no reason left to touch her. His thumb wouldn’t leave. He forced it back.

She straightened and pulled his tie off-center, her eyes on the knot, away from his. The top button came loose under her fingers and she smoothed the front of his shirt flat, warm through the cotton.

Then she stepped back. Her hands were gone from him, and he felt it more than he wanted to. He put the pleasant, unbothered face he wore for the press back on before she looked up.

“The things you do for Gotham,” she said playfully.

She pushed a loose strand of hair off her face and picked up her clutch. “I’ll go first. Give it a few minutes.”

“I know. I’ve done this once or twice,” he said.

“Of course. Though I doubt the others required this much of someone else’s lipstick.”

“I am not complaining,” he said with a grin that left as fast as it arrived.

His hand came up for a handshake, before he reconsidered and dropped it. “Thank you.” It came out softer than he meant it to.

She did not answer right away, and then her palm was on his cheek, resting there for a second, until she pulled it back and walked towards the door.

“Enjoy the rest of your evening, Mr. Wayne,” she said.

The door shut. His hand went to the spot where her palm had been, and stayed there a moment before his mind went to the room he had to walk back into. He gave it the few minutes she had asked for and went out to give Vicki Vale her smaller scandal.

There were fewer people in the main hall by the time he returned. The band was down to a lone pianist. Near the entrance the goodbyes had started, and the servers were coming around with trays of dessert. Diana was mid-rescue, locking arms with Pierce’s hostage.

He found Vicki by the bar, the back of it mirrored behind the shelves. This was going to be easy. He crossed the floor and bumped her as he passed, light. “Vicki. Didn’t see you there.”

In the mirror behind her, the red kiss marks stood out on his neck and jaw. Fine. It was good work. He could see now why she’d taken her time. He covered the side of his neck with one hand, a little too slow, and gave Vicki a sheepish grin. She didn’t return it. He let the hand fall from his neck.

Vicki crossed her arms and gave him a smile that was all teeth. “Enjoying your night?”

“I’d say so.” He straightened his tie.

“You’re a hard man to find, Bruce. I looked everywhere, and I mean everywhere. The limo never left the lot, so I know you didn’t either.” Her eyes settled on his collar. “And I suppose I don’t have to ask what kept you.”

“You went to all that trouble to find me?” He grinned. “Vicki, if you wanted my attention, there are easier ways than searching the coatrooms.”

She sighed and leaned an elbow on the bar, chin in her hand, and clicked her pen. “Right. Because I’ve got nothing better to do than chase you for a dinner.”

She gave him a once-over, head to toe. “She must be something. A man doesn’t skip the part where a few hundred people clap for his generosity unless he’s got a very good reason. So what’s her name?”

“These things can be a bore. Same hundred faces every year, that poor swan melting into the shrimp.” He lifted a glass off a passing tray, looking faintly bored. “But I don’t come for the party. I’m here for the cause, not to be told how generous I am. I stepped out for a while and found some good company.” A shrug. “Hardly worth your column.”

“I’m not leaving without something, Bruce.” She pointed the pen at him. “I’ve got a column to fill, and you’re the name people look for.” She held her hands out as she announced him. “Our very own prince of Gotham.” She smirked before letting it go. Her tone went serious. “So who is she? Is Gotham’s most eligible bachelor finally settling down?”

“You’ll be the first to know, Vicki. The very first.”

“You want to play coy, fine. I’ll print what I see.” She set the pen down. “A bachelor your age, raising two boys, the latest one adopted just…what, some months ago? So quick to make a family with no mother in it. Don’t you think you owe those boys some stability? They’d do better with a woman in that house. Care to comment?”

“You almost sound like you care, Vicki. It suits you.” He set the glass down on the bar beside her. “My boys are faring better than your column, by the sound of it. You might want to ask Lois how she manages to excel at hers without resorting to all this.” His grin stopped short of his eyes. “Have one of these. You’ve worked harder than I have, tonight.”

Vicki took the flute. “To good company,” she said. In the mirror, he watched her carry it into the crowd.

He turned just as Diana looked over from across the room. Her smile was wide and clearly pleased; the plan had worked. Delight spread across her face as her eyes dropped to his neck, following her handiwork. And for half a second, the smile was all his. Then someone crossed between them, and it wasn’t.

When the view cleared, Diana had moved and was speaking with a waiter. Even from across the room, her lips were easy to read.

Has Senator O’Sullivan left?

The waiter’s lips were just as easy. I am sorry, miss. He has.

She thanked him anyway. Somewhere in the time she had helped him, the senator had slipped out. Nobody had needed to warn him after all.

Bruce worked on settling down again. He didn’t make it past the dessert trays before a loud sing-song voice called out to him.

“Bru-cie! I was starting to think you were avoiding me.”

Muffy. He had lent her and her friends his yacht for the summer, which apparently meant she had to repay him with a date. He had been dodging her calls, hoping she would eventually get the message.

“Five times I have called your office. Five. And that secretary of yours, God, where did you find her? Not from Gotham, clearly. She did not know who I was! Me? Can you believe it? All week she has been telling me you are in meetings.”

“I’ve been—”

“Bruce, you need to let her go. My stable hand has a niece looking for work. I’ll have my assistant give your butler her number.” She clapped her hands. “And now that it’s settled, come now, I owe you a dance.”

Her gaze went to his neck and she wrinkled her nose in disgust.

“Oh, you are joking!” The nearest table stopped talking. “Some meetings! And to believe, I defended you…I told everyone, poor Bruce, he works too hard, and this whole time you’ve been…fooling around. Who’s the girl?”

A flash went off to his left.

“Muffy.”

“Forget it.” She turned toward the flash and huffed. “Oh God, just wait until I tell Veronica,” she laughed. “She swears you are the dullest man in Gotham. Turns out you had us all fooled.”

Vicki Vale stood beside her photographer, champagne in hand, and raised her glass half an inch.

He gave Vale a flat look before walking away. At the very least, she had what she needed to leave him alone now.

“Bruce, just the man.” Patrick, a scotch deep into his story, waved him into the circle near the center of the room. “I was just telling the boys about the sporting clays at Lawford’s place.”

The group made room and one of them stared at his neck until the man at his right elbowed him in the ribs.

“So did he get to the part where he carried us?” Bruce said. “He shot forty-eight of fifty. I’m still asking about lessons.”

“Nonsense, you’re far too generous, old friend.” Patrick was already turning to the group. “Thirty-one, and half of those were the easy crossers. But he buys the drinks after, so I keep inviting him.”

A chuckle made its way through the group and the conversation drifted to finances. A waiter stopped by. Plates of desserts went around, and Bruce took one with the rest, moving the cake around his plate as the donors talked numbers.

By the time he had sufficiently prodded the cake, he allowed himself one more glance at Diana for the night. She was back at the woman’s side, a hand on her arm, laughing.

He continued to mingle around since leaving now was its own kind of story, and gave the remaining crowd the Bruce Wayne charm.

As the night drew to a close, he headed out. The street had gradually quieted by the time he finally came down the front steps. Alfred was waiting out front with the limousine. As Bruce sat inside, he let out a breath he had been holding since the first handshake of the evening. Her perfume came back to him before the door had fully shut.

In the rearview mirror, Alfred studied his collar. Bruce had cleaned his neck and jaw before he left. The collar was another matter.

“I see the evening left its mark on you, sir.”

“Several, in fact.”

“And, I suppose all went well.”

“It had its moments. Would you put a call to O’Sullivan’s office on my calendar? First thing tomorrow.”

“Certainly. Might one inquire as the purpose?”

“The senator should hear a friend out…Properly this time.”

“Consider it done, Master Bruce.”

Out the window, Diana was coming down the steps, clutch under her arm. She passed the car and lifted a hand for a taxi.

The ghost of her lips stayed on his neck. A faint steady charge held at each spot her mouth had been. He tilted his head back against the headrest and closed his eyes. Her breath was on his neck again, soft and warm.

Alfred cleared his throat. “I trust Miss Vale went home disappointed.”

Bruce straightened and found Alfred’s eyes in the mirror. He nodded once.

Alfred turned to the window, to a taxi already pulling away. “It would appear you were not left similarly empty-handed.”

Bruce held his eyes. “Home, Alfred.”

“Very good, sir.”