Chapter Text
Every city had its own way of breathing.
Gotham wheezed.
The stench of factory fumes settled over the streets, cigarette smoke escaping through half-open windows mixed with the smell of rotting rats in the sewers, only to finally merge with the sickening scent of hypocrisy.
Bruce still didn’t fully understand why he liked breathing it in. Especially on those rare, quiet nights when patrolling wasn’t his primary mission.
Maybe because it reminded him that the city was still alive.
Even if it lived in an ugly, disgusting way, spitting in his face with every single rasping breath. It breathed, therefore it lived. Even if it suffered from the illness eating away at it from within.
"You know, when you start looking at the city with that expression, people begin to think you’re planning another one of your moral lectures."
Jason’s voice was loud and full of sarcasm. It pulled him out of his brief daze, but Bruce didn’t move. He only focused his gaze on him.
"People?"
"I mean myself, old man."
"That explains the problem."
Jason scoffed and pushed himself away from the damp wall.
He walked over to him, asking Oracle about any possible calls along the way. Bruce watched him for a moment longer, listening to his voice and feeling warmth spread through his chest at the simple thought that his son was right there beside him.
After a while, however, he turned his face toward the clock tower and slowly closed his eyes.
The rain grew heavier, drowning out some of the sounds around them. He knew they would be heading back to the manor soon, so he allowed himself to tilt his head back and quietly exhale, taking in everything happening below.
Jason eventually finished his conversation with Oracle and stood beside him in silence for a moment.
It was something Bruce secretly cherished and guarded with almost obsessive care. He had always noticed it.
After all, Jason Todd was not someone who liked silence. Not the way he did. Not this kind of silence.
Jason was always filling it with something — shouting, anger, contempt. He hated when it settled on his shoulders.
His second child had not been born into the quiet halls of Wayne Manor, but on the streets of the city whose noise he had learned to listen to so closely.
And yet now, he was silent.
Bruce didn’t ask why.
"Oracle says the night is suspiciously quiet," Jason said eventually, slipping his hands into the pockets of his worn cargo pants.
Bruce finally opened his eyes.
"Agreed."
"Since dawn’s almost here, we can call it a night. And honestly, I can already hear your bones rusting. Spare me those noises."
And with that, he jumped down without looking back at Bruce.
Bruce only let out a heavy sigh before following him, looking over the area one last time. They had caught two burglars during the night, handed them over to the police, and it really didn’t seem like the situation was going to escalate.
***
Morning did not greet him with open arms.
He felt a dull throbbing beneath his skull and a tightness in his chest. The few rays of sunlight that had somehow managed to slip through the blinds irritated him even more than usual, and the approaching footsteps of Alfred behind the door only made him burrow deeper into the blankets.
The door opened with a bang at the exact same moment his alarm started ringing.
He didn’t reach out to turn it off, which was why Alfred now stood over him with a judgmental expression and the familiar scent of tea, soap, and something Bruce had associated with quiet, indulgent disapproval for years.
He burrowed even deeper.
"Is the board meeting perhaps going to be postponed, Master Bruce?"
He didn’t have to lift his head to know that one of Alfred’s eyebrows had risen in clear doubt.
"No. Just inform my secretary that I’ll be there right after breakfast."
"Considering your condition this morning, should I assume the traditional fifteen-minute delay?"
Bruce finally threw off the covers and raised his head, giving him a silent look of reproach.
"Alfred."
"Yes, Master Bruce? Tea?"
Without saying anything else, he simply clenched his jaw and adjusted himself on the bed so he could drink more comfortably.
He held the cup in both hands, waited a few minutes until Alfred left his bedroom, and drank it in one go, ignoring proper manners and the raised fingers Alfred always insisted on whenever he was in the butler’s presence.
He reached for his phone, checked the time, and grimaced internally.
He had stayed in bed longer than usual, and despite that, he still had no desire to get up.
Today promised to be a nightmare.
From the board meeting, through his obligatory appearance at the opening of some cultural facility in the city, to the League meeting and the patrol that would follow immediately after.
He needed to remember to ask Alfred to make him fig cake as a reward for surviving the entire day.
And to hide it from everyone else.
Some instinct told him Dick might show up at the manor with Jason.
Tim was safe. The boy could spend six hours analyzing evidence, but a slice of cake had never been enough motivation for him to abandon his work. Damian, meanwhile, had recently gone through an unusually long period without attempting to steal food from the kitchen.
***
The board meeting itself was not as bad as he had expected.
He was not nearly as late as he had originally assumed he would be, even with breakfast running longer than planned. Jason did not show up, which was still nothing unusual, though Bruce continued to take it far more personally than he should have. The sight of an empty chair always left a strange bitterness at the back of his tongue.
Tim kept him company during the opening of the new museum exhibition, occasionally muttering comments under his breath that were becoming increasingly and eerily similar to the ones Bruce had heard from Alfred his entire life.
Damian, thankfully, was simply at school. He must have been behaving reasonably well, because Bruce had not received a single call from the administration complaining about him, which was always a remarkable achievement in itself.
The problem only began when he sat down at the table in the Watchtower half an hour before the scheduled start of the meeting, intending to quietly go through his notes.
He always tried to ignore what they talked about.
Not because he couldn’t hear.
He did not need enhanced abilities to notice things others missed. He never had.
Gotham had taught him how to listen. How to catch the smallest nuances.
The quiet comments thrown around between missions about his heavy scent. The careless remarks about his possessiveness and aggression. All the assumptions no one ever bothered to question, the ones his sons mocked during Thursday dinners.
The countless whispers that Batman was an alpha.
At first, Bruce had tried to correct them.
He had tried to walk away from that ridiculous assumption with his dignity intact, but now, after several years, all he felt was a strange emptiness and a quiet, sad amusement.
The Watchtower was one of the few places where he did not wear scent blockers. Those were the rules here. Rules he had created himself. He knew it was a risk but the League was supposed to be built on trust, not assumptions. He simply had not expected those assumptions to prove stronger than facts.
Bruce had never been unsure where those assumptions came from.
The fault was his scent.
And himself.
He knew he smelled far less subtle than the stereotypical omega.
His children had never tried to understand him through his scent. They had known him first. For years, Dick had tried to convince him that his scent reminded him of an old forest after rainfall. Wet wood, moss, and something warm that reminded him of a safe place — though Bruce had never fully understood why. Jason claimed he smelled more like Gotham’s rooftops after a storm. Tim insisted it was mostly cedar and leather — probably because he spent so much time in Bruce’s office, surrounded by old furniture and pieces of his suit. Damian, meanwhile, considered the entire discussion a waste of time.
"My father smells like a father," he had declared once with his usual certainty, as if he had just solved the most complicated mystery in the world.
Bruce suspected Damian was the one who was the most correct.
Maybe it was simply because his children never tried to fit him into any category. His scent was just another thing that belonged to him — the same way his voice, his movements, and his silences did.
The problem only appeared when people looked at him who knew only Batman, not Bruce Wayne.
To them, the heavy scent of cedar, leather, and rain meant one thing.
Alpha.
That was why seeing Hal gossiping about him with Barry because of some video he had found online was not exactly a comfortable situation.
"Wayne?" Hal raised his eyebrows, looking at the screen displaying a photo from one of the latest charity events. "If he was interested in men, I probably would have tried to ask him out years ago."
Bruce fought the instinct to tighten his fingers around his pen. Not because the comment itself offended him. Hal Jordan had a habit of saying out loud the things most people would be afraid to even think.
What bothered him more was how easily Hal talked about him, as if Bruce Wayne was nothing more than an image on a screen rather than an actual person.
"Really?"
The voice coming from behind him made Hal turn around in mild surprise.
Superman stood in the doorway of the conference room, holding a cup of coffee and wearing the same calm expression that usually meant he had just overheard something he probably wasn’t supposed to.
Hal shrugged.
"What? Don’t look at me like that. The guy is rich, handsome, and has that whole mysterious, untouchable charm. People like that."
The most ridiculous part was that Hal was right. People really did like that version of Bruce Wayne. The one without exhaustion, sore joints, and children who considered reminding him to eat their personal responsibility.
"You just described half the reasons people dislike Bruce Wayne."
"Yeah, but the other half is the fact that he looks like someone who could throw me out of a window and then apologize for the mess."
Clark’s mouth twitched upward.
"That sounds like something that would encourage you."
"I’m not going to lie. A little."
Superman walked closer to the table, glancing at Wayne’s picture.
"I don’t think Bruce Wayne would be interested in anyone who couldn’t keep up with him."
Bruce went still for a second. It was nothing special. A simple sentence. A casual observation.
And yet something in the way Clark said it made him forget about the documents in front of him for a moment.
It did not sound like an opinion about Bruce Wayne.
It sounded like something Clark Kent had accepted as a fact a long time ago.
It sounded like certainty.
Hal laughed.
"See? Exactly what I’m talking about. Even as a billionaire, this guy sounds like a challenge."
"Maybe he’s just tired."
Hal looked at him in disbelief.
"Clark, we’re talking about Bruce Wayne. The man looks like he was born wearing a suit and carrying trust issues."
Clark smiled faintly, looking away.
"You’re not entirely wrong."
Hal narrowed his eyes.
"You know him better than I thought."
"A little."
"A little?" Hal scoffed. "Clark, you say ‘a little’ about people you’ve known for ten years and who would literally give their lives for you."
Superman only shrugged.
"Bruce is complicated."
Bruce should not have felt that strange, misplaced satisfaction. Clark Kent had described him in one sentence more accurately than most people had managed in years.
Hal looked at the picture again.
"That’s also kind of attractive."
"Hal."
"What? I’m just saying, if it turned out the billionaire actually had a heart and a sense of humor, that would be a solid investment."
Clark did not answer.
Which, according to Hal, was extremely suspicious.
Bruce wasn’t sure what irritated him more.
The fact that Hal Jordan had just conducted an analysis of his love life in front of the entire League, or the fact that Clark Kent had managed to say more about him in a few sentences than Bruce had ever allowed anyone else to notice.
That was dangerous.
Not because Clark knew.
Bruce had accepted a long time ago that eventually someone would notice the cracks in his masks.
What was dangerous was that Clark wasn’t trying to tear them apart.
He was simply looking.