ᯓ★ 15 YEARS, 7 MONTHS
← BACK. ♯┆ [bruce wayne x childhood love!reader].ᐟ
⤿ BRUCE WAYNE lost contact with you years ago, and he thought that there was no way to see you again without seeming like a stalker. Yet, when he saw you from behind at one of his galas, he knew it was you immediately.
!! fluff. bittersweet. fem reader. established relationship. i WILL be writing more for them. bruce wayne is whipped. he's obsessed. SOFT BRUCE sorta. I LOVEDDDD THIS IDEAAAA ANON. ugh it was perfect. ENJOY.
The champagne flute felt foreign in your hand as you stood at the edge of the ballroom, taking in the glittering spectacle of Gotham's elite. You'd forgotten how the city's wealthy moved like sharks in expensive clothing, circling each other with practiced smiles and calculated conversations. The Wayne Foundation Gala was exactly as you'd imagined, elegant , overwhelming, and filled with people who wouldn't remember your name five minutes after meeting you.
You hadn't planned on coming back to Gotham. Not really. But when your company opened a new branch here and offered you the position of senior consultant, something in your chest had pulled tight with an emotion you couldn't quite name. Nostalgia, maybe. Or curiosity about whether the city of your childhood was as dark as your memories suggested, or if time had simply painted it that way.
Three weeks back in that godforsaken city, and you were already remembering why your parents had left.
"You look like you're planning an escape route."
The voice came from behind you — deep, measured, with the faintest hint of amusement threading through it. Something about the cadence made your spine straighten, made something in your memory flicker like a candle in the dark.
You turned, and the champagne flute nearly slipped from your fingers.
Bruce Wayne stood less than three feet away, and he was looking at you with an intensity that made the air feel thinner. He wore a tuxedo like it was a second skin, perfectly tailored, perfectly pressed, but it was his eyes that caught you. Those blue eyes that you remembered, even after all these years, they were older now, harder, with shadows underneath that spoke of too many sleepless nights, but unmistakably his.
"Bruce?" Your voice came out softer than you intended, pure surprise that you still weren't sure if it was joyful, confused, or somewhere in between.
Something flickered across his face that was similar to yours, full of surprise, recognition, and something else that vanished too quickly to name. His posture shifted almost imperceptibly, and for just a moment, you could have sworn you saw the careful mask he wore for slip.
"I thought that was you," he said, and there was something in the way he said it that made your heart skip. Not casual. Not the playboy billionaire making small talk that you had heard constantly in interviews that you involuntarily watched on your social feeds. Something genuine underneath. "You came back."
It wasn't a question, but it felt like one. Like he was asking why, or how, or maybe just confirming that you were real and standing in front of him.
"I did," you managed, trying to ignore the way your pulse had picked up. Of course he was going to be here, but unfortunately you hadn't connected that a Wayne gala would have Bruce fucking Wayne at his own damn gala. "A few weeks ago. It was a work transfer."
He nodded slowly, his gaze never leaving your face. You'd forgotten how he looked at people. He always took a moment to really look, like he was taking note of every detail, every microexpression. It had been unnerving when you were children, that focus. Now it made you feel seen in a way that was both comforting and terrifying.
"It's been a long time," Bruce said, and there was weight in those words. Years of weight.
"Fifteen years," you replied, pulling your cheek between your teeth, your glossed lips pulling into a small smile. "Give or take." You added on, quickly trying to cover the fact that you had been keeping track... loosely.
"Fifteen years, seven months." The correction was quiet, almost reflexive, and his jaw tightened slightly as if he hadn't meant to say it out loud. As if he hadn't meant to reveal that he'd also counted.
Your breath caught. "You remember when we left?"
"I remember a lot of things." His voice was carefully neutral, but his eyes weren't. They were doing that thing again, that intense, searching thing that made you feel like he was reading a story written on your skin. "You wrote me letters. For the first year."
The memory surfaced, bittersweet and sharp. You'd been twelve, heartbroken over leaving your best friend behind right when he'd needed someone most. You'd written him letters every week, filling pages with stories about your new city, your new school, asking him how he was doing, telling him you missed exploring the Manor grounds with him.
"You never wrote back," you said softly, not accusatory, just factual. You'd understood, even then. Bruce's parents had just died. He'd been drowning in grief, shipped off to boarding school, buried under the weight of tragedy. Of course he hadn't written back. But part of you, after years of no response, made you feel like maybe you'd been forgotten.
You had never been in his social circle, you weren't rich like he had been but that never bothered either of you. Until you began to doubt yourself, after four years of nothing from him, you figured maybe being some average kid from Gotham, of all places, had made you fall into the background of his life. Maybe he found someone else to wander the grounds with and someone else to sneak out with to go down to the docks.
Then his name hit the headlines, but this time it was "Bruce Wayne", not "Son of Thomas and Martha Wayne, Bruce..." and you had to begin to accept the fact that his life continued on, and yours had to too.
"I kept them." The admission was quiet, and he looked away for the first time since approaching you, his gaze fixed on something across the room. "Every single one. They're in my study."
Oh.
Oh.
You didn't know what to say to that. Didn't know how to process the image of Bruce Wayne — billionaire, playboy, Gotham's most eligible bachelor — keeping a stack of letters from his childhood friend for over fifteen years.
"Bruce..." You wanted to say more but your words caught in your throat, and thankfully he took over.
"Would you like to get some air?" He turned back to you, and there was something almost vulnerable in the question, hidden beneath layers of careful composure. "It's quieter on the terrace. We could... catch up. Properly."
You nodded, not trusting your voice, and he placed a hand on the small of your back, and even though it was a barely-there touch, it was enough to send warmth spreading through you.
People parted for him automatically, and you caught the whispers, the speculative looks. Bruce Wayne leaving his own gala with a woman no one recognized. It would be in the gossip columns by morning. But he didn't seem to care, his attention fixed on navigating you both through the ballroom and out onto the sprawling terrace that overlooked Gotham's glittering skyline.
The night air was cool against your skin, a relief after the stuffiness of the ballroom. The terrace was empty, the other guests preferring the warmth and networking opportunities inside. Bruce led you to the stone railing, and for a moment, you both just stood there, looking out at the city.
"Do you remember," you started, surprised by your own boldness, "when we used to play in the gardens at the Manor? You were convinced there was a secret passage hidden somewhere in the hedge maze."
The corner of his mouth lifted into something that was not quite a smile, but close. Closer than you'd seen since he approached you. "There was a secret passage. I found it two years after you left."
Your eyes widened and your jaw dropped slightly. You felt more relaxed than you had in the ballroom, which was evident by the fact that you let go of the champagne that was really just something for you to hold, and your shoulders were slouched a bit. "You're kidding."
"I'm not." He turned to face you, leaning one hip against the railing, and that almost-smile deepened. "It led to the old wine cellar. Alfred was not pleased when I emerged covered in cobwebs during a dinner party."
You laughed, the sound bubbling up unexpectedly, and something in Bruce's expression softened. He was watching you again with that intensity, but there was warmth in it now, something that made you feel like the years between you were collapsing.
"I missed that," he said quietly.
Your lips were still graced with a smile, and your eyes still crinkled in the corners. "What?"
"Your laugh." He said it simply, like it was a fact, but there was something underneath the words that made your chest tight. "You always laughed like you meant it. Like joy was easy."
"It was easier then," you said, matching his quiet tone. "We were kids, then we unfortunately became adults.. and everything got so complicated."
His expression shuttered slightly, and you knew you'd touched on it, the thing that stood between the children you'd been and the adults you'd become. The night that had changed everything.
"I'm sorry," you uttered oh so softly. "About your parents. I know I wrote it in the letters, but I never got to say it to you in person. I'm so sorry, Bruce. I wanted to be there for you, but we were already gone, and I tried to tell them I needed to stay, but I didn't have any say over my parents..."
"Don't." His voice was rough, and he reached out, his hand covering yours on the railing. His palm was warm, slightly calloused in a way that surprised you. "You were there. Those letters..." He paused, seeming to struggle with the words. "They mattered. You mattered."
Your hand turned under his, fingers curling slightly, and he let you. Let your fingers brush against his palm, let the touch linger in a way that felt significant.
"You matter," he corrected, present tense, and his eyes met yours with an intensity that stole your breath. "You came back."
"I didn't come back...." You stopped, because that wasn't entirely true, was it? When you'd accepted the position, when you'd packed up your life and moved back to Gotham, hadn't there been a small part of you that wondered? That hoped? What about the part of you that agreed to go to a Wayne Gala when you didn't even need to be there? "I didn't know if you'd even remember me."
His hand tightened on yours, just slightly. "I told you. I remember everything." He was closer now, though you hadn't seen him move. Close enough that you could see the flecks of gray in his blue eyes, the faint scar on his cheekbone that hadn't been there when you were children.
"You taught me how to skip stones at the pond behind the Manor. You broke your arm falling out of the oak tree near the east garden, and I carried you back to the house even though you were almost as big as me. You hated peas but loved carrots, and you always tried to trade them on your plate when we had dinner together. Your favorite color was yellow because you said it was the color of happiness."
Each memory felt like a gift, carefully preserved and offered back to you. You'd forgotten some of them — the peas and carrots, the specific tree, but he hadn't. He'd kept them all, filed away in that brilliant mind of his.
"It's still yellow," you whispered, barely audible and laced with so much that was unspoken.
Something in his expression cracked.. just for a moment, just enough for you to see the want underneath. The loneliness. The careful hope of a man who'd built walls so high he'd forgotten what it felt like to let someone in.
"Have dinner with me," Bruce said, and it wasn't the smooth request of a playboy billionaire. It was raw, almost uncertain. "Tomorrow. Or whenever you're free. I want—" He paused, seeming to recalibrate. "I'd like to hear about the last fifteen years. All of it. Not the summary version you'd give at a gala."
"I'd like that too," you said, and meant it more than you'd meant anything in a long time. "I want to know who you became, Bruce. Because no offense, but I don't think you are at all a playboy."
"I still-.. I'm still not sure you'll like what you find." There was a warning in his words, a darkness that flickered across his face.
You squeezed his hand, still intertwined with yours. "You're still the boy who spent three hours helping me look for my lost bracelet in the gardens. And the boy who shared his birthday cake with me even though I wasn't supposed to be at the party. And the boy who cried with me at the animal shelter because we couldn't adopt all the dogs." His eyes widened slightly at that last one, and you smiled. "I remember things too, Bruce. And I know that person is still in there, under whatever armor you've built up."
He was quiet for a long moment, his thumb brushing absently across your knuckles in a gesture that seemed unconscious. Intimate. "You always saw too much."
"Or maybe you just let me see it."
"Maybe." He lifted your hand slowly, giving you time to pull away, and pressed his lips to your knuckles in a gesture that was old-fashioned and achingly gentle. "Tomorrow, then. I'll pick you up at seven."
"I haven't given you my address."
The corner of his mouth quirked. "I'm a billionaire with unlimited resources. I think I can find it."
You laughed again, and again, his expression softened at the sound. "That's not creepy at all."
"I prefer thorough." But there was a lightness in his tone that you suspected few people got to hear. He lowered your hand but didn't let go, his fingers still loosely tangled with yours. "I'm glad you came back," he said quietly. "One good thing Gotham's done is brought you here, tonight."
"So am I," you replied, and realized you meant it. Gotham was still dark, still dangerous, still the city your parents had fled. But standing here with Bruce, his hand warm in yours and the ghost of your childhood friendship hovering in the air between you, it felt a little less heavy. A little more like it could be home again.
"I should let you get back to your gala," you sighed reluctantly. "You're the host. People will notice you're gone."
"Let them notice." But he stepped back slightly, releasing your hand with what seemed like reluctance. The loss of his touch felt more significant than it should. "I'll walk you to your car."
"Bruce, you don't have to..."
"I want to." Simple. Direct. Honest in a way that the playboy persona never was.
So you let him walk you through the Manor— because of course the gala was at Wayne Manor, where else would it be? — and down the front steps to where you'd parked your modest sedan among the Bentleys and Maseratis. He opened your car door for you, one hand resting on the frame as you slid into the driver's seat.
"Seven o'clock," he reminded you, and there was something almost boyish in the way he said it. Like he was afraid you'd forget. Like this mattered to him in a way that went beyond simple dinner plans.
"I'll be ready," you promised, a smile that held the same childlike joy you held 15 years ago came to your lips as you saluted him playfully with two fingers.
He nodded, seeming satisfied given the small smile that was on his own lips, and stepped back to let you close the door. But as you started the engine, he leaned down, tapping on the window. You rolled it down, raising an eyebrow in question.
"Welcome home," Bruce muttered softly, and the way he looked at you made you think he wasn't just talking about Gotham.
You drove away with his words echoing in your mind and the phantom warmth of his hand still tingling against yours, and for the first time since returning to Gotham, you felt like maybe — just maybe — you'd made the right choice in coming back.
Behind you, Bruce Wayne stood in the driveway of his family home, watching your taillights disappear into the Gotham night, and allowed himself the smallest of smiles. You'd come back. After fifteen years, you'd come back.
And he wasn't going to let you slip away again.
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