Chapter Text
The cafeteria at Gotham Academy smelled like reheated pasta and floor cleaner. Bryce had decided a long time ago that was the school's actual signature scent, more than the ivy on the walls or the crest over the front doors.
She sat at the end of a table that technically belonged to no one, picking the crust off a sandwich she wasn't going to eat. She had a tablet propped against her water bottle, pretending to review notes for a physics test she'd already aced in her head three days ago. Around her, the cafeteria roared with the particular chaos of two hundred teenagers who all had somewhere to be and someone to be there with.
Bryce had somewhere to be. She just didn't have anyone.
"Careful," said a voice above her, "don't want to strain yourself pretending to study."
She looked up. Portia Cole. Tall, blonde, flanked by two girls from her English class. Portia wasn't looking at her, exactly — she was looking past her, the way people looked at furniture they found mildly annoying.
"I have a test," Bryce said.
"Sure you do." Portia's mouth curved. "Must be so hard, having to actually try, when Daddy could just buy you a diploma."
One of the girls behind her laughed. Not unkindly, more like a reflex, like laughing was just what you did when Portia said something.
Bryce didn't say anything. She went back to her tablet, scrolled to a page she wasn't reading, and waited.
Portia waited a beat too, like she expected more, and when she didn't get it, she rolled her eyes and kept walking, her friends trailing after her in a cloud of perfume and gossip.
Bryce let out a breath once they were far enough away. Her hands weren't shaking. She'd gotten good at this — sitting still, staying quiet, letting people get bored and wander off on their own. It usually worked.
She glanced up once, toward the table by the windows where a group of juniors sat laughing over something on someone's phone, all elbows and inside jokes. She used to think, freshman year, that eventually she'd find her way into a group like that. She kept her grades exactly where she wanted them instead — high enough that no teacher worried about her, low enough that nobody looked twice. Fewer questions that way.
A girl from her chemistry class, Nadia, dropped into the seat across from her a minute later, backpack half-unzipped, already talking before she'd even sat down.
"Did you finish the lab report?"
"Yeah," Bryce said. "You can copy the data if you want, just don't copy the conclusion word for word or Mr. Alvarez will notice."
"You're a lifesaver." Nadia dug through her bag for a notebook. "You get why the second trial came out weird?"
"Probably a contamination issue. Check whether you rinsed the beaker between trials."
"I did not rinse the beaker between trials."
"There's your answer."
Nadia laughed and scribbled something down, and for a few minutes it was almost normal, the two of them hunched over a shared notebook, Bryce explaining the parts Nadia had missed without making it sound like she was showing off. It wasn't friendship, not really — Nadia never texted her outside of lab days, never sat with her at lunch — but it was easy, and easy was rare enough that Bryce didn't mind it being small.
Then Nadia's friends called her over from another table, and she scooped up her things with a quick "thanks, you're the best," and was gone.
The bell rang. Bryce packed up her things and walked to her next class the same way she walked to every class: alone, blending into the hallway traffic like she'd practiced it.
She had.
The manor drive always did something to her when the car turned onto it, some tightness in her chest letting go, even though nothing about the place itself was cozy. It was enormous and gray and full of echoes. But it was hers.
She let herself in through the side door, dropped her bag at the bottom of the main staircase — a habit Alfred had given up correcting years ago — and followed the smell of something roasting toward the kitchen.
"There you are." Alfred didn't look up from the pan he was tending. "I trust the sandwich I packed made it past the cafeteria doors this time."
"It made it into the trash," Bryce said, hopping up onto a stool at the counter. "Bold new choice for it."
"Devastating." Alfred set a plate of cut apple slices in front of her without being asked. "How was school?"
"Fine." She popped a slice into her mouth. "Boring. Normal."
Alfred glanced at her, quick, and went back to the pan. He didn't push. He never did. She was grateful for that most days and today was one of them.
"Is Dad around?" she asked, trying to sound casual about it.
"Master Bruce is currently attempting to survive a call with the board," Alfred said. "I give it even odds he emerges with his sanity intact."
Bryce huffed something like a laugh and slid off the stool. She found Bruce in the study a few minutes later, phone pinned between his shoulder and his ear, tie loosened, a stack of papers in front of him that he clearly wasn't looking at. He held up one finger — one second — and she leaned against the doorframe and waited.
"—no, that's not what I said, Marcus, I said we'd revisit the Q3 numbers, not—" Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose. "Can I call you back."
He hung up before Marcus could answer.
"Hey," he said, setting the phone face-down on the desk. "How was school?"
"Fine." She'd said the word enough times today it barely felt like a word anymore. "Are you gonna be around tonight?"
Bruce leaned back in his chair. "I should be. There's a thing at eight I might have to step out for, but I'll try to be back for dinner. Definitely dinner."
"Okay," Bryce said.
"Bryce." He looked at her, and reached over to pick the phone back up, then seemed to think better of it and set it back down. "I mean it. I'll try."
"I know," she said, and she did know. He always meant it when he said it.
She left before the phone could ring again.
She found Tim in the library, feet up on the arm of a leather chair, laptop balanced on his knees, three energy drink cans forming an unstable little skyline on the side table.
"You're going to give yourself a heart attack," Bryce said, dropping into the chair across from him.
"Runs in the family." He didn't look up.
"Movie night," Bryce said. "Tonight. Den, the good couch, something that isn't a documentary about serial killers. I know that's what you were going to suggest."
That got him to look up. "It was a very good documentary."
"It was upsetting and you made me watch it at eleven at night, and I had a test the next morning."
"You got a ninety-four on that test."
"That's not the point." She crossed her arms, but she was smiling. "So. You in?"
Tim set the laptop aside, which from him counted as an enthusiastic yes. "I'm in. What are we watching?"
"Something everyone can agree on, which I realize doesn't exist, but we're doing it anyway."
"Bold strategy."
"I learned from the best."
Steph appeared in the doorway before Bryce could even get up, phone already in hand. "Did someone say movie night?"
"Word travels fast," Bryce said.
"Duke told me you cornered him in the hallway about it, and I quote, 'with the face of someone planning a heist.'" Steph dropped onto the arm of Tim's chair, nearly knocking his laptop to the floor, and he yanked it out of the way with a scowl. "I vote for something with explosions. Or a rom-com. Actually — no — a rom-com with explosions."
"That's not a real genre," Tim said.
"It could be, if you believed in me."
"I don't."
"Rude." Steph turned to Bryce. "What time?"
"Eight-ish? I want to actually get snacks set up first."
"I'll bring the candy. The good candy, not the stuff Alfred hides in the pantry that's secretly for baking."
"That's stealing," Tim said.
"It's redistribution."
Duke wandered in a minute later, already half-arguing with Steph about something that had apparently started before Bryce even got there, and by the time Cass appeared in the doorway, the four of them were deep into a debate about whether horror counted as an acceptable movie-night genre or whether it would just end with Steph screaming and waking up the entire east wing.
"It happened one time," Steph said.
"It happened three times," Duke said. "I was there for two of them."
Cass didn't say anything. She just looked at Bryce, and then held up two fingers, then pointed at the couch, then made a small motion like she was folding a blanket.
"Yeah," Bryce said, translating without really thinking about it anymore. "I've got the good blanket."
Cass nodded, satisfied, and drifted over to sit on the arm of the other chair, apparently considering her part in the conversation finished.
"Okay, but for real," Steph said. "What are we watching?"
"I have a list," Bryce said, pulling out her tablet. "I made a list."
"Of course you made a list."
"I like being prepared." She scrolled through it. "Options are: the heist movie, the one with the dog that everyone cries at, the really old sci-fi one Tim's been trying to get us to watch for two years—"
"It's a classic—"
"—or literally anything Steph picks, which is a risk I'm willing to take."
"See, this is why you're my favorite," Steph said, pointing at her.
"I'm your only sister who isn't currently in this room to hear you say that."
"Details."
"Okay, put it to a vote," Duke said. "Heist movie. Hands up."
He raised his own hand. Bryce raised hers. Steph looked genuinely torn for a second, glancing between Duke and her own phone, before she groaned and put her hand up too.
"Traitor," Tim said.
"It has a good soundtrack," Steph said. "I'm allowed to have priorities."
"Cass?" Bryce turned to her. "Tiebreaker."
Cass looked at all of them for a long moment, clearly enjoying the power, then pointed at Duke.
"Yes!" Duke pumped his fist. "Democracy wins."
"Democracy is four people against one," Tim said. "That's just a majority."
"That's what democracy is, Tim."
"I know what democracy is, I'm saying you're using it wrong—"
"Nobody's using anything wrong, you're just mad you lost."
"I'm not mad, I'm disappointed. There's a difference."
"There isn't," Steph said cheerfully, and stole another handful of candy out of the bag she'd brought, which prompted an immediate argument with Duke about whether she was allowed to eat the candy before the movie had even started, which turned into Duke trying to grab the bag back, which turned into Steph holding it over her head even though he was taller than her and could clearly just take it if he wanted to.
He didn't. He just stood there with his arms crossed, looking personally wronged, while Steph ate a gummy worm very slowly and maintained unbroken eye contact with him the entire time.
"You're the worst," Duke said.
"I'm your favorite and you know it."
"You're my only option in this conversation, that's not the same thing."
Bryce sat back against the couch cushions, half listening, half just enjoying the noise of it — the way the argument kept looping back on itself, the way nobody actually seemed to want it to end. Tim had gone quiet, tapping something into his laptop, and when Bryce leaned over to look, he minimized the window fast enough that she only caught a flash of it.
"What was that?"
"Nothing."
"You looked very guilty for a nothing."
"I was making a counterargument for the sci-fi movie. In writing. With citations."
"You made a slideshow."
"It's a very short slideshow."
"Tim."
"It has six slides."
Bryce laughed, actually laughed, loud enough that Cass glanced over at her with something that might have been a smile. Somewhere behind them, Steph was still narrating her gummy worm consumption for Duke's benefit, and Duke was still pretending not to be annoyed by it, and for one whole hour, all of it — the noise, the arguing, the ridiculous six-slide presentation nobody was ever going to watch — felt like exactly the kind of evening Bryce had been hoping for.
She found Damian last, in the training room, going through forms with total focus. He didn't hear her come in until she was standing at the edge of the mat. He straightened when he noticed her, wiping sweat off his jaw with the back of his wrist.
"What."
"Nice to see you too," Bryce said. "Movie night, tonight, den. You're invited, which is generous of me given how you behaved during the last one."
"I fell asleep. It's hardly a crime."
"You fell asleep and then denied falling asleep for a week."
"I was resting my eyes."
"For forty minutes."
The corner of Damian's mouth twitched. He picked up a towel and draped it around his neck. "Fine. I'll attend. Provided the selection isn't something asinine."
"High praise. I'll aim for merely dumb, not asinine."
"Acceptable."
"Steph's already lobbying for a rom-com with explosions in it, so, fair warning."
Damian gave her a flat look. "That isn't a genre."
"That's what Tim said."
"Tim is, for once, correct."
By the time Bryce made it back to her own room, something in her chest had gone warm and a little unfamiliar. She spent twenty minutes deciding on snacks like it was a mission-critical decision, dug the good blanket out of the hall closet, and dimmed the den lights the way she liked them. She hadn't looked forward to something like this in a long time, and she didn't examine it too closely — just let herself have it.
The den was set up by seven-thirty. Popcorn, three kinds of candy because nobody could agree, the good blanket draped over the back of the couch. Steph showed up with an actual grocery bag of candy she refused to explain the origin of. Duke argued with her about the definition of "sharing size" for a full two minutes before she just threw a bag of gummy worms at his head. Tim sat cross-legged on the floor with his laptop still open, still trying to build a case for the sci-fi movie, and Cass sat on the arm of the couch, quietly stealing popcorn out of the bowl before Bryce had even finished pouring it.
"Hey!" Bryce swatted her hand. "That's for the movie."
Cass raised an eyebrow and ate another handful anyway.
For a while, everything felt normal. Bryce sat on the arm of the couch scrolling through the movie menu, half listening to Steph and Duke argue about something completely unrelated to the movie now, half enjoying the noise of it, when Damian's phone buzzed against his wrist — silent, easy to miss unless you were looking for it, which Bryce wasn't.
She saw the aftermath instead. Damian went still in the doorway, head tilting slightly. Tim's phone lit up half a second later, and he was on his feet before Bryce had even registered what was happening.
"We have to go," Tim said.
"Go where?" Bryce looked between them, remote still in her hand, the movie menu glowing on the screen behind her.
"Something came up," Damian said, already moving toward the door. "Company thing. Bruce needs us."
"What kind of thing needs both of you at—" she checked the clock — "eight-fifteen on a Tuesday?"
"Board stuff," Tim said, too fast, already grabbing his jacket off the back of a chair. "Emergency meeting. It's boring, trust me, you're not missing anything."
Cass appeared in the doorway a second later, already dressed to leave. She looked at Bryce, then made a small motion with her hand — not quite an apology, not quite anything Bryce could put a name to — and left without saying anything at all. Steph came down the stairs two at a time, phone already in her hand, saying "raincheck, I promise, we'll do this" without really slowing down. Duke was last, pulling on a hoodie, and he paused just long enough to squeeze her shoulder on his way past.
"Sorry, kid. Later, okay?"
And then they were gone. All of them, fast, the same way they always seemed to move when something like this happened — like they'd rehearsed leaving a room quickly, and she'd just never once been let in on the choreography.
Bryce stood in the den, remote still in her hand, the movie menu still glowing, the popcorn bowl still full and warm on the coffee table.
"It's okay," she said out loud, to no one.
She sat down on the couch anyway. Alone. She watched five minutes of the movie by herself before she turned it off, because watching it without anyone else there felt worse than not watching it at all.
She left the popcorn out. She didn't feel like cleaning it up yet.
Dinner happened later than usual, closer to nine, once everyone had trickled back in one by one, looking scattered in ways nobody explained and nobody asked about out loud. Bruce made it, tie gone now, sleeves rolled up, sitting at the head of the table like nothing had happened.
"Sorry about the movie thing," he said, sliding into his seat. "Something came up."
"It's fine," Bryce said, and reached for the bread basket.
Dinner was almost normal after that. Alfred had made roast chicken and vegetables, and for a while the table was just noise — Steph telling a story about something ridiculous that happened at school, Duke arguing with her about half the details, Tim eating like he hadn't seen food in days, Damian correcting someone's grammar with the exact amount of smugness he always brought to it.
"It's 'fewer,' not 'less,' if you're talking about a countable number of people," Damian said.
"Nobody asked you," Steph said, and threw a piece of bread at him. He caught it without looking and ate it.
Bryce ate her chicken and let the noise wash over her. This was what she'd wanted, even if it wasn't the movie night, even if something had eaten the middle of her evening and spat it back out unexplained.
Then all six phones buzzed at once.
Damian's, tucked against his hip. Tim's, lighting up on the table beside his plate, screen glowing blue-white against the wood. Cass's. Steph's, mid-sentence, cutting her own story off to check it. Duke's. And Bruce's, buzzing once against the table at the head of it.
All at once, around the table, five faces went from dinner to somewhere else — nothing dramatic, no one standing up or gasping, just a shift, like they'd all done this exact thing a hundred times and knew how to move through it without anyone noticing.
Bryce sat very still and watched it happen.
Her own phone — the flip phone Bruce insisted on, no internet, no apps, nothing but calls and texts, the phone that made her the only fourteen-year-old at Gotham Academy without a smartphone and therefore an easy target for exactly the kind of comment Portia liked to make — sat next to her plate, dark and silent.
Nobody had texted her anything. There was nothing for her phone to light up about.
"Sorry," Tim said, already standing, already halfway into moving. "We gotta— there's a thing."
"Another thing," Bryce said. Nobody seemed to notice how flat it came out, because they were already moving, chairs scraping back, Steph apologizing without really looking at her, Duke's hand on her shoulder again, quick, gone.
"Rain check," Cass said, and touched Bryce's arm on her way past. She held eye contact a beat longer than the others had. Bryce didn't know what to do with that, so she just nodded.
Bruce paused at the doorway. "I'm sorry, Bryce. I really am. I'll make it up to you."
"It's fine," Bryce said again, because it was the easiest thing to say.
She sat at the table by herself for a minute after they left, looking at the chairs pushed in crooked, the half-finished plates. Everyone at that table had somewhere to be. It was never here. Not with her.
Alfred appeared in the doorway a moment later, apron still tied around his waist, and looked at the empty table, and then at Bryce.
"Well," he said. "That was abrupt, even for this house."
"Board stuff," Bryce said. "I guess Wayne Enterprises runs on nothing but nine p.m. emergencies."
Alfred came and sat down across from her instead of clearing the table right away, which he never did before finishing the after-dinner routine.
"Finish your dinner," he said. "I made extra of the potatoes. You liked those."
"I did." She picked her fork back up, mostly because it gave her something to do with her hands. "You don't have to sit with me. I know you have stuff to do."
"I am aware of what I do and do not have to do, Miss Bryce," Alfred said. "At present, I choose to sit."
She looked at him for a second and didn't say anything else. She didn't need to.
"Thanks," she said eventually.
"You're very welcome."
He stayed until she finished eating. He didn't ask what was wrong, and she didn't tell him, and that felt like the right amount of conversation for both of them.
Later, she cleaned up the den herself. Dumped the stale popcorn, folded the good blanket back over the arm of the couch, turned off the TV that had been glowing uselessly on the movie menu for hours. It didn't take long. There wasn't actually that much to clean up — a few bowls, some candy wrappers, the leftover evidence of a plan that hadn't happened.
She carried the bowls to the kitchen, rinsed them, set them in the drying rack, and went upstairs, past the closed doors of rooms that belonged to people who weren't home, down the hall to her own room, and through the door at the back of her closet that led, via a narrow set of stairs nobody in the house seemed to remember existed, to the workspace she'd built for herself two years ago and told absolutely no one about.
It wasn't much to look at from the outside — an old sewing room nobody used, tucked into a forgotten corner of the east wing. Inside, it was something else: three monitors, a soldering station, shelves of components organized with the kind of obsessiveness that would have made her physics teacher weep, a half-built drone hanging from the ceiling on fishing line, wires everywhere, and in the corner, a small speaker unit she'd built from scratch, humming faintly with the low blue glow of standby mode.
She dropped into her chair. The lights came up automatically, warm and low, tuned exactly the way she liked them at night.
"You're back later than usual," said a voice, soft and dry, coming from the earbuds she pulled out of a drawer and put in without thinking. "I take it the movie night did not survive contact with reality."
"Nope," Bryce said, spinning slowly in her chair. "Emergency board meeting. Twice."
"Twice in one evening does seem statistically unlikely for a company that, by all public records, is not currently experiencing a crisis."
"Yeah, well." Bryce pulled her tablet toward her, opening up the half-finished code for a satellite-tracking subroutine she'd been tinkering with for weeks. "Guess Wayne Enterprises runs on secrets."
"Would you like me to pull up the astronomy feed? The Perseids won't peak for another few weeks, but the sky's clear tonight. Might be worth a look."
Bryce thought about it, then shook her head. "Maybe later. I want to finish this first."
"Understood." A pause. "For what it's worth, the popcorn sounded like a solid plan."
Bryce huffed a small laugh, the first real one since lunch. "It was a great plan. Everyone just had somewhere else to be."
"They usually do," ASTRA said.
Bryce didn't answer that. She turned to her code instead, fingers moving fast across the keyboard, the small blue light of the standby speaker pulsing gently in the corner, the manor huge and quiet around her.
She worked until midnight. Nobody came looking for her. She hadn't expected them to.
If she wanted company, she'd build it herself.
She already had.