[comes to you like an old timey journalist]
Ay kid, I got something for ya..
Bruce Wayne intimacy, caring for him, washing the dirt and grime out his hair, helping alfred stitch his wounds and make him eat and sleep, reassuring Dick when things look bad, being there for him when he feels he has nobody…. ya know…. the good stuff
it's just a feeling
pairing: bruce wayne x reader (gn pronouns)
rating: t
word count: 4,296
one-sentence synopsis: bruce returns from a night out as the batman in gotham, and you remind him what it is to just be bruce, and to let himself be taken care of, for just a little while.
author's note: oh god the intimacy........... a hot scoop if ever i had one buckaroo
read on ao3!
You’re usually lucky if Bruce is home before dawn.
Tonight, you’re not so lucky.
The sun’s already started to spread back up into the sky, beams of dim grey light fighting through Gotham’s near-constant cloud cover. The curtains are drawn throughout Wayne Manor, however, keeping the palatial spread of Bruce’s home in darkness until he’s actually ready to start his day later.
Alfred joins you in the window, watching the trees outside the estate, waiting for the telltale flash of neon and the rumbling engine that promise the Batmobile’s back— that Bruce is back, that another night as Batman is over, that he’s survived long enough to come home to you once more.
When you see it, you visibly relax. The house is so silent that the distant purr of the engine seems like the loudest crash. When it skims underneath the property, vanishing into the bowels of Wayne Manor, Alfred sighs beside you. You glance over at him.
“Another night,” Alfred says. He doesn’t elaborate before he turns to make his way to the elevator that’ll take him down to the Batcave, and you follow after him. You don’t speak, either; there’s really nothing that needs to be said, right now. The two of you have long since fallen into a routine with Bruce. As the two (adult) people who live with him, who take care of him, who love him most, it’s difficult for you to see Bruce like this.
You hear pounding footsteps before the elevator doors close, and then a tiny hand is slamming in, stopping them from shutting. Dick stares up at you from the other side as the doors snap back open. He still looks half-asleep, pillow lines on his face, pajamas as rumpled as his hair, but he’s alert enough to glare at the both of you.
“Is he home?” Dick asks. His jaw cracks around a yawn in the next second, and you hold your hand out to him.
“He is,” you tell him as Dick comes to you, slipping his hand into yours. He leans into your leg sleepily, letting his eyes drift shut as he yawns again. “You, however, should be asleep.”
“I want to make sure he’s okay,” Dick informs you. It’s just an explanation, not an argument.
Alfred crouches, and Dick steps into the circle of his arms, letting him lift him up onto his hip. Dick refuses to release your hand, clinging tightly as Alfred keeps him close.
The elevator dings into place in the dark subterranean Batcave, the doors clattering open. You can see the Batmobile at the far end of the space, the lights still glowing as the machine cools down enough to be turned off again, and the shadowy shape of Bruce moving through the aisles of worktables and equipment. His cowl, cape, and armor are all still in place, though you can see a fray in the material near his eye, a tear along the left edge of the cape, a chunk ripped out of the armor covering one thigh.
You’ll need to make repairs today and patch together other armor for him to take when he goes out tomorrow night; the last thing you’d ever do is let him go out with less than perfect protection from you.
Bruce finally lifts his eyes, when he’s drawn close enough. You can see the bright glint of them as they hit you first.
In that moment, there’s no filter, no screen, no divide; the wall that Bruce likes to hide behind most often isn’t there, and he’s just looking at you, connecting with you, raw and exhausted and worn. Your lips part slightly; you’re not sure if you need a breath, or if you’re going to say something.
“Bruce!” Dick exclaims, wriggling to get out of Alfred’s arms. The both of you release him, and he sprints to Bruce, colliding with his legs. You don’t miss the way Bruce staggers backwards, catching himself against the worktable behind them.
He still wraps an arm around Dick in response. He bows to hold him for a moment before he lifts him.
“You should be asleep,” Bruce informs him. It sounds like he’s trying to be stern, but he’s landing at slightly concerned instead.
“I just wanted to say hi,” Dick says. He pulls at Bruce’s cowl, and so Bruce reaches up to tug it off, dropping it aside. He looks absolutely fucking exhausted, his face drawn, hair crushed flat, skin wan and split here and there. You can’t see the bags under his eyes, smudged as the space around his eyes is with impossible amounts of reflective black paint, but you know there’s going to be tired bruises there when his face is clean again
“Hi,” Bruce tells him. “When did you go to sleep?”
Dick immediately appears sheepish, and lies, “Eight o’clock.” Bruce looks up at you and Alfred for confirmation, and Dick hurries to correct himself, saying, “I meant ten!”
“You shouldn’t stay up so late,” Bruce tells him, moving to set him down again. “You need your rest. Go back to sleep, kid, okay?”
Listen to your own goddamn advice, you can’t help yourself from thinking. It’s different, you know that. And you can’t help being impossibly endeared by how deeply Bruce cares about Dick and his well-being, even if it’s offset by the obvious contrast in how little he cares about himself and his own well-being.
At least, you think, he has you. And Alfred, and Dick, you mentally amend, but mostly you, because Alfred keeps Bruce functional and the house running, and Dick keeps Bruce balanced and controlled and happy, but you keep Bruce alive. You care for him the same way he cares for Gotham: absolutely, without concern for yourself, determined to do this one job right and protect what matters most to you.
Dick is frowning, but Bruce says, “Alfred, would you?” anyway.
Alfred extends his hand, and Dick hesitates for a rebellious moment before he gives in. He must still be tired, and you wonder how long he waited up after you put him to sleep still waiting for Bruce. You’re sure he’s still lying about ten o’clock, but you’re not about to call him out on it, not right now. Later, you can try and convince him about the merits of a good night’s sleep, even when his father— or, father figure, or mentor, as they insist, but you know better— is setting a terrible example.
“I’ll return in a moment,” Alfred informs you both, but Bruce waves him off, already turning away to start unfastening the latches on his armor.
“No need, Alfred,” Bruce replies. “I’m all set tonight, you can go to bed. Thanks for waiting up.”
Alfred is obviously skeptical, hesitant, and he’s about to argue with him before the two of you make eye contact. You and Alfred have gotten excellent at nonverbal communication; it’s easy for you to talk about Bruce without Bruce ever hearing a word.
Now, Alfred lifts an eyebrow at you slightly. You incline your head. When Alfred’s eyes flick over to Bruce, then back to you, you shake your head slightly, a small furrow coming between your brows.
I can still come back, he’s saying.
No, you tell him, I’ll take care of him. I can do this.
“Get some rest, Alfred,” you tell him. Alfred nods, now, surrendering Bruce to your care. It doesn’t look like Bruce has been busted up in any major ways, no enormous lacerations or deep injuries that need immediate wound care from somebody trained under fire. When Bruce needs a different kind of care, it’s better if it’s only you there. He tries so hard to stay strong for Dick and Alfred, no matter how often you— all of you— insist he doesn’t have to.
You all love him, and he loves you all. The hard part is just convincing him that it’s as true in one direction as it is in the other. You have an unconditional love for him, as does Alfred, as does Dick— but Bruce is terrified that he’ll someday still find the one condition that’ll stop that love, the one thing that will leave him alone again.
He loved so deeply before, only to lose everything, to be broken completely. He’s always so terrified to love again— to lose again— but you know that he’s losing every second he’s not letting himself love.
When Alfred and Dick vanish behind the closed elevator doors, the machine carrying them up and away into the proper body of Wayne Manor, you return your attention more fully to Bruce.
With nobody here but the two of you, Bruce is starting to crumple. He grasps for the fixture on the cape, and you step up without hesitation, stretching to unclasp it yourself. You send the fabric slithering to the floor. It’s important; of course, it’s important. Everything Bruce makes for Batman is important.
Bruce, however, is more important, and takes precedence over his uniform. You unwind the wraps from his hands, freeing each finger in turn until his bruised hands are free. Each piece of his armor gets separated and set aside next, either placed on a worktable or dropped to the floor to join the cape. You’ll pick it up later, or Alfred will, or Bruce himself will; whoever gets to it first. Right now, it doesn’t matter. They’re just things, just clothes. They can be mended in time. Bruce needs mending immediately, needs care he can’t wait for.
When you’ve got him down to his tight black boxer briefs and his black undershirt— all soaked in sweat— you can take a better catalogue of his injuries.
Really, compared to other nights, it’s not that bad tonight. There’s a long cut looping near his hip that must’ve slipped through his armor; luckily, though it stretches for a fair length, it’s shallow. A slightly deeper cut is near his collarbone, and there’s a few fresh bruises, which you’ve grown horribly used to.
“C’mon,” you tell him, and take his hand to guide him. He grabs his notebook on the way, letting you take him upstairs into the proper house, through the dark, twisting hallways and up the stairs to his bedroom.
In the enormous bathroom attached to his bedroom, you sit Bruce down on the edge of the bathtub. You run the hot water, letting the rushing sound fill the room, steam thick with heat following after. In that roaring silence, Bruce scribbles in his notebook, his hand flying in his struggle to keep up with the pace of his own thoughts.
While he works and the bathtub fills, you start examining his wounds. His skin prickles everywhere your fingers drag. You make a soft noise when you see a little fresh blood around the injury near his collarbone, and his eyes flick up to meet yours.
“I’m going to stitch this one,” you tell him.
He nods, then says, “Thank you,” his voice rough. You nod, leaning in to kiss his cheek, tasting paint and sweat and dirt and God knows what the fuck else.
Bruce keeps up his rapid scribbling while you dig out the massive first aid kit you and Alfred keep under the sink for him in here. You clean the wound on his hip first, then neatly close it with butterfly stitches. He barely seems to notice. When you move up to his collarbone, he switches to writing with his other hand. He only reacts once, when you first dab this wound; his expression tightens a bit, the muscles in his jaw jumping.
You move more carefully, cleaning out the deeper cut as tenderly as possible. He doesn’t respond again, still writing, mumbling softly to himself as he works. It’s a rhythm the two of you have long since established. In the beginning, he used to apologize a lot. It took you telling him many, many times that you’re here for him, not some changed and different version of him, for him to actually believe you, letting it sink in that he can sometimes just be quiet and think. You know he needs to process his time out as Batman when he gets home; this is just another part of the routine.
You finish cleaning Bruce’s injuries and stitching him up before he’s finished writing. You let the water run a little bit, letting a bit of it out so he can finish up. It’s only once he’s done that you finally allow the bathtub to fill up the entire way. He seems surprised, nearly as if he’s forgotten where he was, when you reach out to lay a hand on his wrist.
“Can I take that?” you ask, and he nods. Slipping the notebook from his hand, keeping his pen inside to keep his place, you tug him into standing again.
He starts to strip off his own undershirt, so you kneel to hook your fingertips in the waistband of his underwear and tug them down. His clothes end up in the laundry basket; the notebook is safely removed to the nightstand in his bedroom; the first aid kit is replaced to its home beneath the sink.
Bruce takes your hand, lets you lower him down into the hot water. His face screws up slightly in response to the heat. You watch Bruce start to sink back into his own body, bit by bit, coming back to you.
The physical sensations are going a long way towards dragging him up out of the trance he usually ends up in when he comes home on nights like these. You roll your clothes up so you can sit on the bathtub’s edge without getting anything wet, your own legs submerged in the water up to your knees.
You stretch to reach for Bruce’s bath sponge. He tilts forward obediently, and you reach down to soak the sponge in water before you bring it up over his back and squeeze it out, letting the water rush down his skin. It drags dirt and grime with it, leaving trails of slightly cleaner skin behind.
You take up Bruce’s soap and start working it through the sponge until there’s a lather. His eyes drift closed when you bring the sponge to his back again, starting to scrub at his shoulder blades, suds washing away the filth that’s gathered on him over the course of the night. You work over every inch of his back, taking care to make sure you don’t miss anything. You go back over it again, to loosen his muscles, and he sighs, his head hanging forward, shoulders slumping.
You take Bruce’s wrist in your hand, stretching out one arm so you can scrub it clean. You do the same with the other, and Bruce tilts his head back to watch you, his bright eyes hazily half-focused on your face as you work.
Every now and then, unable to resist him, you lean in and press a kiss to some part of his face. The corner of his mouth, the space next to his eye, the skin between his brows, the side of his nose. He smiles slightly every time, tipping just a bit into each kiss like he’s chasing after them with half a mind, slowly, drowsily returning to his own body.
While you’re focused on his face, you bring a washcloth up to scrub the paint and sweat and filth away. You swipe under one eye, sponging the paint off of him in sweeps to reveal pale skin and the bruises you knew would be underneath his eyes. You scour his entire face until he’s pink and raw when you bring the filthy cloth away. The thing is stained, but you just chuck it towards the laundry. It’s more important that Bruce is clean than the washcloth is.
You take up the sponge again to bring down between his legs, dipping into the creases near his hips, his thighs. His head tilts back against the rim of the tub, and he shifts. You let your hand glide over his cock once, but there’s no intent. He’s clean, he’s warm, he’s safe, he’s here. That’s all you want— right now, anyways.
Gliding to his inner thigh, you make sure he’s clean everywhere. You scrub behind his knees, along the fine bones of his ankles, winding around and back up the other side. You make sure he’s clean everywhere, not a drop of the night left on him, before you abandon the sponge and take up Bruce’s shampoo instead.
Bruce tips his own head into the water to wet his filthy hair, sweat-soaked and crushed flat to his scalp as it is. He has such beautiful hair, not that he seems to realize it.
You scratch your nails down to his scalp, working out every tiny bit of grit, every speck of dirt, every oil-slick strand. He relaxes under your ministrations, his eyes drifting open and closed and open again, slipping up to find your face. He flickers back and forth as he watches you, a small smile at the edges of his lips.
When his hair is completely washed, you rinse it, then start again. He gets scrubbed twice before you carefully condition his hair, even as he huffs a laugh at you.
“How was it tonight?” you ask, when he starts to engage with you again.
“Mm.” He shifts, the water rippling slightly against the sides of the bath. “It wasn’t bad. Nothing terrible. Just another night in Gotham.”
For Bruce, ‘just another night in Gotham’ can mean anything from stopping a couple of muggings to witnessing somebody’s death, so you’re not about to let him just blow off whatever happened tonight. However, you also know he processes in his own time, so you rinse his hair again before kissing him on the temple.
“Up,” you say. “Get in the shower, let me clean the bathtub.”
“I’m s—”
“Go,” you tell him, and he goes. A trail of dripping water is left behind in tiny puddles in his wake. Really, the bathtub isn’t so hard to clean; you rinse it out twice and it’s mostly fine. You find Bruce in the shower after, his forehead pressed to the tile, hot water cascading over the crown of his head to sluice down his body.
“Come on,” you say. You tangle your fingers with his, and he comes with you to stand on the rug in front of the sink. You stretch to towel his hair dry, combing it with your fingers before you twist to find his actual comb on the counter. He stands still as you comb his hair back for him, then pat him dry all over, kneeling to rub the towel down the backs of his thighs.
Small goosebumps are lifting on his skin when you finish, so you reach for his bathrobe to wrap him in it, soft, dark fabric sliding over his skin. He follows you from the bathroom to his bedroom.
When you’re sitting him down on the edge of the bed, sweeping his hair back from his face, there’s a soft knock at the door. You leave him there with a kiss on the forehead before you go to answer the gentle sound.
On the other side of the door, Alfred waits with a tray. He passes it off to you, asks, “How is he tonight?”
“He’s okay, I think,” you tell him. You glance over your shoulder, and Alfred does the same, the both of you watching as Bruce shuffles himself back against the pillows, still on top of the covers. “Just tired.”
“Aren’t we all?” Alfred asks, and you smile slightly. When you turn back to Alfred, he leans in to give you a kiss on the cheek. “You get some sleep, too. Don’t think your hours have gone unnoticed—”
“Goodnight, Alfred,” you say, giving his hand a squeeze before you balance the tray again. “You get some sleep.”
“Rest assured, I will,” Alfred replies. Raising his voice slightly, he says over your shoulder, “Goodnight, Master Wayne.”
“Goodnight, Alfred,” Bruce says. He looks up, asks, “Is Dick asleep?”
“Soundly,” Alfred replies.
Bruce is smiling when he says, “Thanks, Alfred.”
“Get some rest,” is all Alfred says. He eyes you, says, “The both of you. And eat that,” he adds, pointing at the tray he’s given you. “All of it.”
“Yes, Dad,” Bruce says from the bed. It’s a joke, but it’s not a joke, between them. Every time he makes the joke, the both of them get this smile that makes your chest feel tight, and you’re not even involved. It’s nice, to see Bruce, who sometimes feels like the most well-known orphan in the world, not be completely without a parent.
Alfred bids you both goodnight again before leaving to retire to his own room. You nudge the door shut gently, quietly, before taking the tray he’s brought to Bruce in bed, slipping the cover up and off.
It’s not much— it’s hot oatmeal, and warm water, and cornbread with butter melting in. It’s not food that Bruce makes himself when he’s being specific with what he eats; it’s what Alfred makes him to comfort him.
Bruce accepts the food without comment, leaning back against the pillows to pick at pieces of it. You tear the cornbread and bring a piece to his lips.
He smiles. “You’re feeding me, now?”
“It’s more for me than you,” you tell him. Leaning in slightly and lowering your voice, as if sharing a secret with a co-conspirator, you tell him, “I have a little bit of a crush on you, you know.”
Bruce laughs again, a soft noise that accompanies a bit of pink flushing on his sharp cheeks. You lean in to kiss the corner of his mouth before you feed him the cornbread. His tongue chases the shine of butter on your fingertip, and you smile, too, watching the sleepily joyful edge that he has as he nears sleep.
You can’t help but feel partially responsible for him, right now. For his contentment, for his happiness, for the way he’s stretching lazily and yawning when you know that, before you, he used to come home and lock his bedroom door and collapse in bed until he woke up the next day, if he slept at all. It’s difficult to keep Bruce home— impossible, actually— but you can at least make home a good place while he’s here, can make sure that he’s comfortable and safe and happy while he’s here with you.
Softly, unable to stop yourself, you ask him, “Bruce. Are you happy?”
Bruce looks up from where he’s scraping the last of his oatmeal from the bowl, his brow furrowed. “What makes you ask that?”
Your chest hurts a little bit. “I just wanted to make sure.”
“Oh.” Bruce looks back down at his spoon, then sets it down, abandoning the empty dishware. You take it from him as he says, “I am.”
“Yeah?” you ask.
He reaches out, his long fingers encircling your wrist. You set the empty tray aside, joining him in bed again, bringing him painkillers from the bottle on the bedside table to take with the last of his water.
“Yeah,” he agrees.
He takes the painkillers you offer, then draws you in. You climb over him to get under the covers, bringing them up and around the both of you. Snapping off the light beside the bed, you throw the room into darkness, despite the fact that you know the sun must just be rising outside. For Bruce, this is the time to sleep, the only time. You’re going to make sure not a drop of sunlight comes in to ruin that before he’s ready.
Bruce twists to burrow into you in the darkness. You can’t see each other, but you can feel Bruce wrapping himself around you, burying his face in your throat. His chest is rising and falling steadily, but his face feels warm as he tucks it into your skin.
His lips move slightly, but you can’t hear what he says. Letting your hand drift up, you start carding your fingers through his damp hair, scratching lightly along his scalp.
You press a kiss to his hairline, then whisper, “What was that?”
Bruce takes a soft breath in. The inhale feels a little shaky, but you don’t have time to ask if he’s okay before he’s murmuring again, voice raised slightly from before, “Thank you for not… leaving me alone. Thank you for being here.”
He’s saying that, but he’s saying more, so much more. He’s saying thank you for staying when I told you to go. He’s saying thank you for knowing me better than I know myself. He’s saying thank you for caring for me when I don’t know how. He’s saying I love you and I can’t be alone if it means being without you. He’s saying nobody has ever loved me like this. He’s saying I never thought I had anybody before I had you.
You tighten your hold on him, and he does the same in return. Burying your face in his hair, inhaling the warm soap-clean smell of him, you smile through the burn in your eyes.
“I love you,” you tell him. “You don’t have to thank me for loving you.”
He huffs a laugh that doesn’t feel like it’s humored. You can still feel the smile against your skin, the hot burn of salt-wetness that soaks from his eyes, melting into you.
“I love you,” he murmurs back, voice warm like steam, absorbed by your skin. You kiss his skull, close your eyes, grounding yourself in the feel of him and in the knowledge that he’s here for another night, safe in his bed— your bed— your shared bed— with you, at least once more.
