Yes. Yup. You are very well-adjusted and there is nothing weird or obsessive about your love for Dex. You have a normal, non-toxic, non-codependent relationship with him and your friends are not deeply concerned.
They really don’t even know the half of it. Really, they think you broke up with him the first time he went to prison and just haven’t gotten over him since and that’s for the best, because if they knew how desperately and painfully you love Dex, they might call a Bullseye sighting in. Which doesn’t work for you, because that would mean that Dex is gone and when he is gone, you feel that a piece of you has been violently taken--in your defense, that is how he would go.
You are staring at his back, the raised scar along his spine and the other occasional wounds you are scratching across. There are sporadic bite marks along his torso, his biceps and forearms. You really can’t help yourself. He’s just so cute that you can't help bite him, can't help but want to squeeze him and shake him and your arm is beginning to cramp.
Dex must be asleep, you’ve been scratching his back for at least thirty minutes now, so you let your hand fall from his back, flipping over and lightly pressing your back against his.
you feel his back begin to rumble against yours, at first you thought he was sleep talking—new, but whatever, he was cute no matter what. Then you comprehended that it was coherent speech and worse, what he was saying, “Do you want your alarm to not go off or not be able to use your laptop tomorrow?” You couldn’t fucking believe this motherfucker, who used his status as being closest to the wall plugs, thus your phone and work laptop as leverage against you, “Fine.”
You rolled back over and began to begrudgingly scratch his back.
There were red flags, you absentmindedly thought as Dex hummed in contentment, as if he hadn’t threatened you to get what he wanted. Your friends thought the way he stood sentinel behind you was terrifying, that he was more conjured golem than man. How could you explain to them that his preternatural stillness wasn’t what you found concerning, but how eager to please he was.
Yes—how could you explain that you had once, passively, mentioned how the trash would need to be taken out soon, how much you hated doing such a small task and then when you came home, it had been replaced.
Dex didn’t live with you, but he had a spare key. How could you possibly explain to anyone that it was that which unnerved you?
How to explain that when you had inevitably moved in and asked Dex, please, maybe, stop stress-vacuuming in the middle of the night you had expected an argument, had expected to beg him to please for the love of fucking god stop vacuuming at 3am.
Sure, you were definitely jaded by the string of ex-boyfriends who would’ve literally killed themselves before something you asked the first time, but there was undercurrent of something in his actions that caused you to go past vague unease and right off the ledge into terror.
How to fucking explain that? Huh? That it was being taken care of that was the most difficult adjustment?
How to explain that his ease in which he changed his coping mechanism for you was the most terrifying thing he had ever done? This was the same man who you would later know had killed men with office supplies, who you had watched take a discarded cap and shoot right through a man’s eye, this is the man that you knew had killed AVTF agents with straws and lobsters.
When you lived separately, you had ordered a new cabinet and it had taken you three hours and multiple fits of rage crying before you even debated on asking Dex for help. You had expected to need to beg, to plead, to bargain with him, probably threaten him as your patience waned. You had been pacing, still crying and in your fit, hadn’t realized how much Dex had been trying to get in contact with you—thirteen missed calls, five voicemails, twenty-five text messages that you had accidentally ignored.
You stilled when your front door knob began to jiggle, then after a few failed attempts the key had been inserted and Dex stepped in, looking just as panicked as you thought you might've. His hand was shaking, his eyes were rimmed red—he looked positively desperate.
“Why haven’t you been answering me?”
You gestured towards the cabinet. “I’ve been trying to build it, but..” You looked at the disorganized mess in front of you—haphazard, every semblance of order from when you had pulled it out of the packaging had been lost.
Dex had crowded you, had pulled you against him while looking at you like you might flee from him before he squeezed, “I thought you were leaving me.” That was when the first cracks had really began to show, but you, so upset over the cabinet had just resumed crying but into his shoulder while apologizing, that it wasn’t him it was the stupid cabinet.
He had looked down at you, brows furrowed and lower lip trembling because he used to be so openly pathetic, “Why didn’t you ask me?” and you had only stared stupidly at him, because it didn’t occur to you that might’ve wanted to help you. It had never once crossed your mind that that Dex would be more upset that you hadn’t asked because wasn’t he useful to you? Why weren’t you relying on him?
So he built the cabinet. You had sat beside him with your legs to your chest and watched him work and every time he made progress he looked towards you with those big fucking puppy dog eyes and you had felt so lucky.
Basically, whatever was wrong with you, was ten times more wrong in Dex and made you look considerably more well-adjusted in comparison and it was ten years too late to back out now.
You listen to the sounds of Hell’s Kitchen, distant shouting, laughing and the sounds of cars running. There’s a far honk that triggers a few more, a little excessive, but what do you know? You listen to the scratch of your nails against Dex’s back, occasionally pausing to rub the pad of your index finger against the raised edges of his spinal scar.
“Bebé?”
“Hm?”
“Just testing if you’re sleeping yet.”
“Why? Got plans?” You pinch the skin near his armpit. “No, my fucking arm is tired.” You waited another ten minutes, “Schnookums?”
“What did you call me?”
“Schnookums.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Okay, well, what about babygirl?”
“I’m not remotely a babygirl.”
“If not babygirl, why babygirl shaped?” Dex shifted, your hand slid down to the fabric beneath, still warm. Dex turned over to face you, eyes narrowed--the only person who might've dared to call him something so ridiculous.
“Grown men are the opposite of babygirl shaped.” But there is just enough moonlight seeping through the curtains for you to tell that the tips of his ears are red.
You looked past him, contemplative. Your expression too serious for the jovial nature of your conversation.
“Hm. Princess?” Dex shook his head, “Pookie?” He physically cringed, “Tough crowd. Okay, Dillo?” His lip curled, “I wasn’t a fan of that either.”
A minute of silence, “Dexcito?” he inched closer, “Not bad.” that was all you needed to spurn you forward, “Dexy.”
“Dexcito is better.” You hated how easily he picked up the pronunciation. ‘All about precision’ he would tell you about how easily he picked up languages—what the fuck ever.
Just thinking about drummer!Simon giving after class lessons to band member!reader bcs she's struggling w/ the sessions there having. And obvi the situation ends up on the bed where Simon is fingering reader to the beat of the music.
Is it obvious that I'm ovulating sorry not sorry ;P
everyone wants to be CBK thinking it’s some rulebook she’s mastered when really the woman is too busy to play games. she’s self-possessed and true to herself every step. worked too hard to give it up for even the crowned prince of America. she doesn’t adjust to lower her self worth based on someone else’s capacity. she was raised by a single mom who taught her the most important thing in life is to stand on your own two feet so you can walk away when uncertainty dangles idly in your face.
The lack of personal space was why you hadn’t wanted to live with Dex.
The sheer lack of alone time. Everything was together, everything was in tandem. He was always touching you, hand in your back pocket, touching the crease between your forearm and elbow, big ass hand splayed across your lower back, against the nape of your neck, the back of your thigh.
You didn’t mind it, for the most part but in moments like this, where he was caught doing something that you knew that he knew he wasn’t supposed to do that the apartment felt like it would suffocate you. Every small inconvenience coming to the forefront of your mind.
“Dex.” Your fists were clenched at your sides. Your tone meant business—he knew. “You left it out.” Dex stated, never ‘I’m sorry for snooping through your personal belongings’ always ‘it’s your fault for leaving them out.’ When you knew you didn’t leave your sketchbooks out, you never did.
“We’ve talked about this,” you began, closing the distance and trying to yank the book from his hands, “Get out of my freaking sketchbook.” Dex wasn’t letting go and if you pulled any harder, you would’ve ripped the pages, so you stopped, but kept your grip firm on the book.
“Let. Go.”
“You have more drawings of this character than me.” Dex pointed towards the spread in front of you: paint marker, meticulously done, Vigilante. A fictional character that did not exist and contrary to popular belief (Dex’s made up scenarios) only occupied two, three, maybe five pages.
“That’s because he’s my favorite character.”
“Okay, well. I’m real and Vigilante isn’t.”
“That has nothing to do with this conversation.” Dex huffed, petulant. “You should be drawing me.” You tugged at the sketchbook again.
“Gotcha, just pages and pages of Bullseye. Hows that gonna look to my students?”
“It’ll look right." there wasn't a trace of humor in your expression. Right, that wasn't the word you thought anyone would use. "Also, you have two drawings of him in civilian clothes."
You can recall at least twice that you’ve caught Dex unnecessarily posed perfectly in your line of sight as you drew. Hm.
“I’m not drawing you out of spite for how nosy you are. So stop double-checking.”
“I’m not nosy. If you don’t want me looking then you shouldn’t leave it out.” You started trying to pry his fingers off the book, “Okay, but I didn’t leave it out. I actually hid it in the fabric under the couch, so I know that you had to get on your hands and knees and then root around underneath—” Dex let go, harshly shoving the sketchbook at you. You immediately set to work on smoothing out the crease in the spread as Dex is crossing his arms, having the audacity to look affronted.
“I do not root around.”
You tucked the sketchbook under your arm once satisfied with your work, “Like a red river hog.”
In theory, being a sugar baby wasn't the worst job she had ever had. In practice? She's almost depressed and entirely aimless.
She packs up the few belongings that she paid for herself, writes farewell with an old lipstick and begins a roadtrip across the country.
She does not expect to be missed.
She does not know what to do with the knowledge that she is.
part two
Every morning, she spent eight dollars that wasn’t hers on coffee and an additional six dollars that also wasn’t hers on a loaf of ciabatta from the bakery next store for her daily panini.
She lounged in a brownstone that she didn’t pay for, spending money that wasn’t hers on whatever caught her interest that day while already having a stack of packages that she hadn’t opened yet.
She was sunbathing in a string bikini on her balcony, eyes closed and feeling increasingly restless while trying to think of outlets she hadn’t visited, dream destinations that she hadn’t been to, brands she hadn’t worn when she realized that her problem wasn’t as materialistic as she originally thought. This was when she realized that this life was no longer what she wanted.
What was this? She was living the life of a regency-era mistress.
Using a man’s credit card, living in his apartment.
She attended events with outfits he bought, makeup he paid for. She leaned against his arm and looked beautiful while he spoke about topics that she knew too much about, but wasn’t invited to speak on.
The only thing that she had that was hers was a blacked out 2015 Volkswagen Golf R which had sounded like so little to the version of her from six years ago, when this arrangement first began.
Now she felt her that her Golf was somehow encompassing her entire world. She had hardly touched the car, had only passively kept up on its maintenance.
She shot up, suddenly invigorated and rushed into his townhouse, hardly wasting enough time to shut the door to the balcony behind her and surveyed the room. She had expected to feel a pang of sadness to be leaving everything behind and wasn’t expecting the giddiness she felt at the prospect of nothing.
She hadn’t known when the lethargy started, when the visits waned and she became complacent but now that she had become aware—she could no longer look past it. Being a sugar baby wasn’t bad. Her college self had dreamed of having a man like Bruce Wayne pay for everything she needed and then leave her be—no expectation of sex, though that did happen, just companionship, but the reality of that situation was different.
It left her empty. She had become isolated, waiting for any drop of affection from a man was notoriously distant. She knew that it hadn’t always been like that, but she felt that the days of a Bruce Wayne that was almost suffocatingly affection had been gone for years now.
She hadn’t known when she had stopped messaging her friends, or when they had stopped reaching out.
She was in her mid-twenties, women she had once called friends had careers, or children, their lives were fulfilling even if she didn’t understand the appeal of a child.
She had never used her degree, she dropped to her knees by her bed and shoved aside dust bunnies until she reached her duffel bag—a plain black Adidas that she had carried since high school. It was worn, faded, but undeniably something that she had paid for. She pulled it out and walked into her closet, breezing past racks of designer clothing to a series of tied grocery bags buried in the back that she had kept forgetting to part with.
She pulled the bags out, opening them to check that they weren’t moldy and couldn’t help but smile at her completely mundane black t-shirts, dorky capris, hiking boots. She tossed everything but the three pairs of shoes in the washer and gathered her folder of important documents next, shoving that into her duffel and set to work on looking for items in the townhouse that she had purchased, spending three hours to come up with a total of ten things. Seven of them being books, one being her old purple iPhone, which she would need to get reactivated, a pair of corded headphones and then, surprisingly, an unopened, carefully wrapped present of something that she had bought Bruce and been too insecure to give him. It had been too long for her to remember what was inside, but she tossed it on her bed.
Whatever it was, she had no need for it. He could keep it—she didn’t want to remember Bruce. Well, that wasn’t entirely true, but it was easier than admitting that she had a silly, childish misconception that she would be different. She would be the wife, she would live with him, whoever that was.
When her laundry was finally done, she folded everything out of the dryer and felt giddy at the complete mundanity of warm laundry. Then, she did a last survey of the townhouse, lingered on shelves of books that she had accumulated; easy over a thousand but paling in comparison to the library at Wayne manor.
She had expected to feel sad, leaving everything she had ever wanted behind. She had scrolled on LinkedIn after finding her ten items, applied to at least forty seasonal jobs, before she transitioned onto Indeed and various government websites.
She wasn’t entirely sure where she was going, but knew that she missed Boston and had applied to a Seafood Data & Operations role there. She had always wanted to road trip across the United States. Why hadn’t she? All the free time in the world and she had spent it doing nothing—she felt atrophied. She no longer researched, hardly ever drew. She wasn’t entirely sure that she could even be qualified for any of the jobs that she had applied to anymore.
She had the basic yearn of journaling but she no longer eagerly waited for the Hobonichi drop each year and had eventually stopped even purchasing them two years ago.
She would need to dig through her storage unit, but the thought of looking through years of her passions, shoved inside and forgotten about made her queasy.
An entire life that she had abandoned, her eyes were stinging and she choose to look at the ceiling to avoid tears.
Leaving this townhouse was different—her old life had fulfilled her. It was challenging, but it was hers. She visited the library everyday, pirated thousands of books and only bought groceries on sale and most items over one hundred with pay later apps.
When she had met Bruce, it wasn’t with the intention of.. this.
She couldn’t pinpoint when their relationship had transitioned into a sugar baby dynamic.
They used to have fun. She dragged him with her to hike Mt. Tammany, Mt. Rainier, Mt. Whitney, she had been telling him to get time off to backpack the Appalachian Trail, but couldn’t remember why they had never gone.
She looked down at her keys, the embroidered patch style motel keychain of swordtail shark had been a gift from Bruce—the first one that he had ever given her.
She could remember the day with starling clarity—how lucky, how loved she had felt. She wondered if her Golf could make it to California, giddy the prospect of finding out. She thought about writing a note, but what was there to say?
Bruce would be fine. How long would it take for him to even notice? Did he keep tabs on her? Their dynamic had to have been coming to an end even without her decision to leave.
She left the phone that he had bought her on the entrance table, inside the large catch-all bowl he had bought her beside the wallet he had bought her (she only needed the ID and her old, barely non expired debit card.) She looked in the mirror above the entrance table that Bruce had bought her and grinned.
She was in her old chunky New Balances, cargo capri’s and a loose fitting brown and white shirt. Her hair was lose around her shoulders, grown out slightly and she looked considerably different than her fresh out of college self.
She rifled in the bowl and pulled out an old light pink lipstick, scribbling on the mirror, ‘Gone Fishing. Wont be back.’ Before locking the door behind her and slipping the key under the mat as she left.
-
Her phone was ringing.
That shouldn’t scare her as much as it did. No one should be calling her. Her parents were dead, she was an afterthought to her siblings—had she even talked to them in recent years? She was no longer a prodigal daughter, but it did tickle her to still be the only one in her family with a masters.
She was a (hopefully) formally depressed, aimless (working on it) former sugar baby who had been camping in Congaree National Park for the better half of the week.
She leaned over her center console, three missed calls, the same number she didn’t recognize. She had every number related to Bruce memorized, but he had been instantly ruled out—he would’ve called with a familiar number. Maybe it was her nephew? She answered.
“Hello?”
“Where are you?” She jumped, let out a small screech and dropped her phone between the center console and passenger seat while cursing, “Hold on, I dropped my phone, let me—” she grunted as she rooted around for it, “Almost there.” She said when she finally managed to grab it.
“Where are you?” Bruce asked again, significantly less amused. “Didn’t you see my note? I’ve gone fishing.”
“And you won’t come back? Explain yourself, you have one minute to begin or—”
“Or what?” She spat, “You’ll cut off Daddy’s credit cards?”
“You know I hate when you call me that.”
“That wasn’t a no.” She pulled her leg to her chest, looking out at the campsite and watching families interact with each other.
“You didn’t take my cards.” Came his low, deliciously gravelly voice. There was a unique note to it. She wouldn’t say that he sounded sad, maybe.. distant? Her mouth felt dry, “I’m surprised you noticed.”
“I noticed instantly.” She fought the urge to hang up. “Now, where are you? I’m coming to get you.” Her hand was shaking, “Why would you do that?”
“You’re clearly not thinking straight.”
Ah, now he pissed her off. “I’m thinking with more clarity than I have in years.” She placed her phone between her ear and her shoulder as she started her car.
She hadn’t seen the famous Congaree fireflies, but that was fine, she could come back. She decided her next stop would be the Bayou—drive straight through the night, day, whatever it took. “If that was true, then you wouldn’t be where ever the fuck you are now. You would’ve told me where you’re going and would’ve bought my cards. I see you’ve taken that German piece of shit car with you too. You’re going to end up stranded in the middle of no where with no way to get home.” She was surprised at the vitriol in his tone—Bruce didn’t often cuss. It would’ve made her laugh, if he had used different verbiage.
“That townhouse is not my home & teenage boys everywhere would kill to have my Golf.”
“That thing is a deathtrap, that’s why you have the E-Class.”
“I don’t have an E-class. I can call a driver to bring me the E-Class.” Then, with her eyebrow twitching she added, “and Mercedes is German too.” She could practically feel Bruce’s eye roll.
“How many speeding tickets did you get in the Golf? I had to bail you out of jail for racing an undercover cop!”
“He downshifted next to me! He provoked me! It was a trap.” The laugh that came from Bruce was sardonic, “Yes, yes, I’ve heard. You can explain it all to me again when I come pick you up. Now, where are you? If I need to ask again—” She didn’t let him finish, “Bruce, I don’t need to be picked up.” She could admit that she didn’t sound convincing, there was little conviction in her tone. She hadn’t even really thought she would need to defend her reasoning to him.
“I want to pick you up.” Bruce Wayne couldn’t fathom the idea of her no longer wanting to be with him—to him, this might’ve been her just being difficult, playing hard to get.
She flinched at the memory of his exasperation, a distant memory of him referring to her as ‘annoying’ maybe that had been the beginning of the end, when her wanting affection had transitioned from something adorable, into something that had a crease forming between his brows before he waved her off.
“That’s nice and all, except. When I left, I meant for our arrangement to end.”
Silence. She pulled her phone from her ear to make sure that the call hadn’t been disconnected and only caught the ending words, “—to end?”
“I don’t want to be your sugar baby anymore.”
“You have never been my—”
“Don’t piss me off. If I was your girlfriend, I’d be living in that scary ass gothic manor with your forty kids.” She was bouncing her leg, turning up the AC as her car was growing suffocatingly hot. “You’d be seeing me more than once every few weeks.” Her addition was an afterthought, almost mumbled as she wiped off a small section of dust she had missed off her dash.
“Mature adults would’ve reached out to have a discussion about this.” He wasn’t disagreeing.
“That’s what happens when you hook up with women twelve years younger.” She hung up and tossed her phone to the passenger side, exhaling and slumping into the driver’s seat.
She felt the familiar burn of tears, but wiped at her eyes harshly enough for her to attribute them towards herself and definitely not Bruce. That was it, the last time she would ever speak to him.
She hadn’t expected to end on a bad note, had thought the last memory she would have of him would from a week before she left, catching his gaze lingering on her as she tried to catch a budgie she hadn’t seen before the last few days and had become convinced it was someone’s escaped pet. His smile as she caught the bird.
She had texted Bruce notifying him that she had reunited the bird with it’s owners, but he had left her on read. She might’ve cared a few years back, but that somewhere along the way that had become their dynamic.
She jumped at the ringtone, noticing quickly it was the same number. She blocked the number and pulled up directions to New Orleans.
Her phone had rang three more times after that, she had blocked each number and after the fourth time, turned her phone off and went off highway signage.
She ended up conceding and turning her phone back on a few hours later after the stretches of spotty radio connection left her alone with her thoughts for too long.
She tried not to see the four new missed calls, the series of text messages. She didn’t want to think of them—they confused her, opened topics that she didn’t want to think of.
-
She made it to New Orleans in the middle of the night, or maybe it was early morning? She was tired. Exhausted and too broke to sleep in a hotel, so she searched for Hiltons with free parking and tried to blend in with the cars in the parking lot.
From her previous car camping days, she had immaculate window blinds that covered each window and let almost zero light in. She pushed her back seats down and rolled out her bedding and stared the lighting she had installed in her ceiling to mimic stars—some of them were out, but majority were in great shape.
She had been avoiding looking at the messages Bruce had left, but was tossing and turning too much with the knowledge that they existed to sleep. With a frustrated sigh, she checked her voicemail first—nothing, and no with no longer being able to avoid the inevitable, she opened her messages.
‘Hanging up on me was extremely immature.’ Well, that’s what happens when you screw younger women.
‘This is completely out of the blue and deeply concerning.’ Was it though? Or had Bruce just stopped reaching out, or talking to her?
‘You are welcome to leave, but you do not have a job, or an apartment.’ She had her car. That was good enough and how she had first moved into the brownstone originally—her decrepit apartment had been condemned and she had been sleeping in her car for almost a week before Bruce had offered.
She still didn’t know how the man had known she wasn’t in a hotel (too expensive) since she hadn’t told him about the apartment being condemned—ironically, it seemed too personal.
Too open-ended, her younger self had considered it like she would’ve been asking to move in with him.
‘At least be angry with me where I know you’re safe.’ That tugged on her heartstrings.
‘If you do not pick up this fucking phone, I am going to drag your ass back to Gotham with me.’ Where did this mouth come from? Why, she ought to wash it out with soap.
She typed a threat, ‘I will get a restraining order so fast your head will spin.’ Her finger hovered over the arrow, she deleted it, tucked her phone into the pocket behind her passenger seat and forced herself to count sheep.
-
She woke up to her phone vibrating and still half asleep, made the horrible mistake of answering it—too tired to remember the only person who could be calling was the one person she didn’t want to talk to. “Hello?” She heard a sharp intake of breath from the other side. “Where are you? I’m in Congaree and I don’t see that piece of shit car.”
It took her a few moments to register what Bruce had said, “You’re.. in Congaree?”
“Correct and before you repeat the next half, I’m not seeing your piece of shit car either.” She was wide awake now.
“You’re looking for me?”
“I warned you that I would drag you back to Gotham if you refused to pick your phone up.” What could she say? I didn’t think you were serious? I didn’t think you would notice that I was gone? I didn’t think you’d miss me?
“I told you I don’t want to be your sugar baby. What’s not clicking?” She tried to look for constellations in her ceiling, but didn’t think her past shelf had thought to add any. “Yes and that is fine—if you didn’t leave everything you owned behind and start driving across the country. You can stew in a different townhouse if you’d like, a penthouse, a loft, a studio. It doesn’t matter where are long as—” did his voice crack? She didn’t want to dwell on it.
“I am safe.” She snarled, growing more annoyed and less endeared. “Go back to ignoring my existence. I preferred when you left me on delivered.” She hung up, deciding future attempts at sleep were impossible and that she suddenly no longer wanted to see the Bayou, so she folded up her window blinds and pulled up her seats and had no destination in mind as she started driving.
She didn’t stop til she was in Texas and decided that peeing was no longer optional.
She wanted to grab gas station snacks, but could only afford a slim Jim after using the bathroom and spent twenty minutes slouched in a parking spot, scrolling Craiglist looking for odd jobs that paid yesterday and ending up depressed that her only options were related to agriculture.
She scrolled her inbox next--zoom interview invitations, in person ones that she would need to ask to be done over zoom, a few rejections sprinkled in.
She made quick work of replying to the zoom interview inquiries, sent the same copy and paste ask for a zoom interview to the ones asking for in-person before she finally decided to look at her messages.
‘New Orleans? Are you serious?’ She shouldn’t be surprised that he is somehow tracking her. He was insanely wealthy—big corporations did this shady shit all the time. ‘I would prefer you broken down on the side of the road, rather than a city with drive-thru Daiquiris.’ She couldn’t recall asking what Bruce Wayne thought.
‘The sooner you come back to Gotham, the sooner you can be rid of me.’ She was trying to be rid of him now.
She didn’t need to be in Gotham to do it—she wasn’t even from New Jersey. She was from Nebraska! Then, below that was an Apple Pay of $400 with a note, ‘Noticed your bank account is getting a little low.’
She immediately sent $390 back with a note ‘Inconvenience fee’ he immediately sends $900. “Are you fucking kidding me?” She sends back $910.
‘For the love of god, take the fucking money.’ He sends $3,000.
She sends back $2980 with a note , ‘no.’
He sends her $25, ‘At least eat.’
Her lip wobbles. She was hungry. She sends back $45.
-
She was sitting in the parking lot of a Chilis somewhere near Alamosa, $30 richer from helping an old lady with her lawn and sapping some of their WiFi for a zoom interview when her phone chimed. She didn’t need to look to know it was Bruce.
She waited until after the interview to reach over to and open her messages. It was primarily Bruce complaining about being in places that she had just been, asking if she was eating and sending her money that she promptly returned.
He complained about having to work on the road, about important meetings that he was going to have to reschedule. Bruce had always excelled at making her mere existence feel like a burden. Her sheer presence too suffocating to tolerate.
The distance had helped her realize how little she had been wanted in the last few years. The reminder had her tucking her laptop away and driving.
She stopped in Flagstaff next, not because she wanted to, but because if she didn’t stop she was going to run out of gas and really be stranded. She leaned against her car, staring into the dark past the lights of the gas station and despite the exhaustion that had her eyes closing, she knew she couldn’t stop driving.
She didn’t want to—Bruce was ruining her roadtrip. Not with his messages, but the knowledge that he was only ever a few cities behind her, a few hours away and yet he felt closer to her than when he was beside her.
She stops in San Diego, at an isolated beach she doesn’t know the name of and almost stumbles out of her Golf. It’s late, so late, she has never driven for so long and doesn’t ever want to sit in a car again.
She grabs her sleeping bag, bundling it up and almost falls down the stairs that lead to the beach. The night air is humid, the smell of the sea overwhelming and the sounds of cars distant. The city isn’t quite asleep, but it’s late enough.
She unceremoniously drops her sleeping bag onto the beach and falls asleep as soon as she’s inside.
She rises when the sun does. Groggily, half-conscious and still unbearably tired she forces herself up and still doesn’t miss the townhouse, the safety net of billions behind Bruce. She shakes out her sleeping back, more gentle as she rolls It up and tucks it into the trunk of her car, grumbling when sand flakes off into the boot and she knows she has to find a laundromat, a hotel, a shower.
Only two of those she can afford, but she quickly discovers, it’s easier to find work in San Diego.
-
She didn’t intend to stay. It was accidental, a serving job that she couldn’t pass up and the perfect spot for a hammock in a hidden part of the beach. She showered, she did her laundry, she thought about apartments but didn’t want to look just yet.
She would need to reset a dozen passwords that she couldn’t remember. Were her credit cards still active? Bruce hadn’t messaged her since Flagstaff. She had made the mistake of looking at their texts and cringed at the sentence she had texted in her exhaustion, before deleting the thread entirely.
She was sitting behind the building, a shaky chair pulled up near the door that the line cooks sat and smoked at.
There was a trail of sweat sliding down from her temple, the heat of the kitchen wafting out with the familiar scent of the family meal that she was only allowed to partake in on the condition that she would fall into the rotation of cooking—something she hadn’t expected to agree to but found it came naturally.
“Aye, there is someone asking for you.” A gruff voice called from inside, the cook that it belonged to was considerably younger than the voice implied, but that was what happened when you chain-smoked everyday for years.
“A table?”
“A man.”
“You can tell him I died for all I fucking care.”
“Said he won’t leave til you talk to him.” She cracked her neck, standing and debating on the merit of asking for a cigarette but couldn’t stand the smell of whatever he smoked and knew she would only end up embarrassing herself by coughing out a lung.
She walked past, knowing that the cook said something but the buzzing in her ears was too loud to comprehend as she walked out of the kitchen, almost immediately smacking into Bruce who had the audacity to be waiting immediately outside of the kitchen entrance despite the hostess—Araceli, attempting to politely redirect him to a table.
She wasn’t sure what she was expecting when Bruce finally caught up. Was she expecting to regret her decision to leave? A pang of longing? was she expecting her chest to constrict? Or for her to break down into uncontrollable sobbing?
She found that she felt none of that. It was weird, slightly uncomfortable to be seeing him. It was as if any affection she had for him as carved out of her, leaving an empty void where she knew once, maybe, had been something adjacent to love.
There were a few hairs out of place, his two top buttons were undone. “Are you available to talk?”
“I’m in the middle of my shift.” That was a weird sentence to say.
“I’ll wait. Please place me in her section.”
Araceli nodded and it was only when the hostess got back from settling Bruce in that she swapped sections with another server.
The restaurant was small enough that Bruce could see her from every end. It was unnerving, the feeling of his eyes following her as she weaved between tables and dodged customers with no spatial awareness.
There was an electricity in the air, reminding her of when she had accidentally electrocuted herself at her first job when plugging in the motorized cart.
The last few hours of her shift seemed to pass agonizingly slowly. She tried to slip out the back, she really did. She was almost home free, speed walking to her car when she noticed the giant fucking barnacle on her windshield and knew exactly who had done it.
She had spun on her heel, almost throwing open the front doors to the restaurant to storm up to a completely unbothered Bruce who definitely had noticed he hadn’t seen her leave. “My compliments to the chef.” He dabbed at his mouth
“He did a line of cocaine off between a servers back dimple dermals last night. I don’t think he cares for your compliments.” Bruce’s expression remained carefully blank.
“I take it your shift is over?”
“You have five minutes to get that barnacle off my car.”
Bruce stood, lifting the chair up slightly as he pushed it back against the table. “I’m afraid that won’t be happening.”
She couldn’t remember being so angry before. He had never provoked her like this—had never challenged her like he was now and she hated it.
Outwardly, she was silent as she spun on her heel and walked out, shooting one last glare at the nosy staff suspiciously congregating in perfect view of Bruce’s table.
Inwardly, she was going absolutely insane. She was going to gnaw the barnacle off with her teeth. She was going to key his Maybach, she was going to break his phone and throttle him with his own tie.
She was going to scream and scream and she was going to stomp his foot. She was going to break the window just to have the barnacle off her car and she was going to be using his giant, hard head to do it.
She was standing beside the drivers side door of her car, running her hand on the handle of the locked car to avoid pacing.
She needed an anchor, a tether. She wanted to be calm, but felt increasingly unable to. Bruce, on the other hand, seemed to feel nothing but calm, even as he chased her half across the country after half-ignoring her for years. She hadn’t looked too far for his car, but she doubted it was too far.
“Get this off my car.” She repeated, proud of how level her tone was.
Bruce stopped hardly a foot away from her. She didn’t turn to face him fully, but she straightened her shoulders. That make Bruce any shorter, didn’t make her any more intimidating.
“Will you be returning to Gotham?”
Her grip on the drivers handle tightened. She exhaled, Bruce wasn’t used to being told no.
He wasn’t used to being the one ignored, so she released the handle and leaned against her drivers side door, crossing her arms as she looked first his chest, the peak of chest hair and the few wrinkles on his shirts he usually kept impeccably smooth.
“I genuinely don’t want to return to Gotham.” A muscle in his jaw ticked. “Let me pay for an apartment here.” She shook her head, “I was serious Bruce. I don’t want that life anymore.”
“You would rather be broke and homeless?”
“It’s just difficult now. It won’t be like this forever.” She was going to argue that she was moreso unhoused—she had felt better sleeping in her hammock, in her car than she had in that egregiously large bed but knew Bruce cared little for what she said, especially evident as he closed the distance between them, raising a hand to her softly cup her cheek.
Was she breathing? He drew a circle on her cheek with this thumb, before his hand trailed slowly along the side of her face, he drew another circle just above her jaw line before lowering to her neck.
“I don’t know what to do with you.” Bruce sounded almost reverent, completely at odds with his choice of words and his hand on the back of her neck, which tightened to keep her firmly in place.
It seemed he knew exactly what to do with her and it involved keeping her from running from him, again. Though she didn’t really think of it as running.
He didn’t need to follow her across the country. “I’m missing work for this tantrum of yours.”
“I didn’t ask you to. You were welcome to go back at any time.”
“You refused to come with me.”
“I am still not going.” She refused to flinch from eye contact, even as he looked more monster than man. Then, a flash and Bruce loosened his grip on the back of her neck, but didn’t remove it entirely as he pressed his forehead to hers, his eyes were closed.
She averted her gaze as her mind was racing, when was the last time he had been so close to her? “Please, just let me—just let me pay for a hotel. Until you get an apartment. I just—” She was too scared to look up, she didn’t want to see his expression. “—Want to know you’re safe.”
“Will you remove the barnacle?”
“Yes.”
She allowed herself to relax under his touch, his breath ghosted her face.
“Okay.” She ducked out from under Bruce, unlocking her car and sliding into the driver’s seat and barely stopped herself from locking the door. He leaned against the door she had been and she chose to organize her center console as she waited for the barnacle to be removed.
-
It had taken ten minutes for the barnacle to be removed. Then, she had been so engrossed in pretending that Bruce wasn’t outside of her car that she didn’t notice he had moved until he was sliding into her passenger seat.
“Excuse me?”
He looked unbelievably awkward in her car—his head almost touching the ceiling, his knees touching the dash until he adjusted the seat. “You’re excused.”
“I think you made a joke, just then. It wasn’t funny either, which is on par with your sense of humor.” He ignored her jab and moved to adjusting his seatbelt before clicking into place and reaching over to grab her phone.
“What is this, an iPhone 14?” He tapped a code on her screen, frowned when it didn’t immediately unlock and tried another, “What’s your password?” She snatched it back from him. She couldn’t remember Bruce ever having this much audacity. “Nunya.”
“Nunya? Your password was—”
“Nunya business.”
Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose, “You are a child.”
“That is what happens when you--”
“I practiced consensual intercourse with a woman well into her twenties.”
“Please never say it like that again.” She unlocked her phone and handed it over without thought.
A few seconds after Bruce had opened her maps, typed in directions and then gently placed her phone on her magnetic mount she remembered that Bruce was no longer entitled to that level of trust. She took a sip of her day old Dasani.
-
She had expected to drive to a hotel, not a towering apartment complex in the middle of downtown. Their drive was spent in silence, other than occasional directions and the top 40 rock hits of the last decade on the radio, “I didn’t know you knew how to drive a stick shift.” She wanted to start mentioning all of things that Bruce didn’t know about her, but didn’t want to risk inviting further conversation.
She turned into the parking garage, “Or that you drove so well.” Bruce added, she waited an appropriate two seconds before slamming on her breaks, laughing when Bruce’s head bounced lightly off her ceiling, “Oops! Guess not that good.” Then, she stalled in the immediate aftermath for added effect.
She didn’t find a parking spot til the second floor, which would’ve typically been a godsend if she wasn’t in the car with Bruce Wayne—brooding extraordinaire.
She parked slightly too close to the SUV on Bruce’s side to see how the huge man would navigate sliding out without damaging either car.
“This doesn’t look like a hotel to me.” She commented when instead of attempting to squeeze out the passenger side, simply lifted himself over the center console and out of the drivers side. “You’re not looking hard enough.” His hand hovered at her lower back, close enough for her to imagine feeling the heat from his hand but far enough that he wasn’t touching her, unless she abruptly stopped and she was exceptionally careful not to.
Bruce guided her to the elevator, a dynamic that despite abandoning, she fell into without much thought.
It was habit, she told herself. They bypassed the receptionist, there was no keycard for Bruce to swipe when they reached the elevators, nor was there an option for a floor to be selected. Bruce entered a code on the pin pad she instantly recognized as her former phone password: 8008 and the elevator immediately came to life.
She to be less aware that this wasn’t a hotel. When the doors opened, the apartment wasn’t sparsely furnished, but the furnishing was boring.
A gray couch, a glass table, hardwood floors, a gray rug—everything was gray! One wall, facing the San Diego skyline was floor to ceiling windows, though the bottom level of curtains were half raised and created somewhat of a balcony effect.
“I was thinking more of a Motel 8.” Bruce snorted.
“This will be fine til you’re able to get situated in an apartment.” Silence came over the pair—she found it to be suffocatingly awkward, but he didn’t seem bothered.
“This was conveniently close to my work.” Bruce remained silent, but inched slightly closer to her. She wasn’t stupid, but knew that arguing with him was fruitless.
He had arranged this apartment before she had even agreed to return to Gotham so maybe, there was a part of Bruce that knew she was serious.
out of everywhere you've woken up after a night out drinking, wakin' up in your sullen, vaguely scary neighbors apartment after too many drinks might be the worst one.
tw questionable morality
You reached towards the clipped metal of an unfamiliar bed frame, not quite registering the scene. The edges of your vision are blurry, memories past your third margarita simply flashes of movement, a firm touch guiding you, hands fumbling with keys, a chill spreading up your arms.
Everything was upside down, you were peaking through spaces between the curved metal and trying to identify what you saw within them: green cabinets, a table that looked shaky with hanging pots and utensils in the background.
Too minimalistic, too clean to be your own apartment. You were half to an explanation, almost there, groggy, still waking up and slow to register that this was your neighbors apartment. Something you only faintly recognized from when he had first moved in and you, being endlessly and abundantly curious about everything that didn’t concern you, leaned to the side to peak past him while your hands were full of sliced, carefully wrapped fruit for him.
Really, you just wanted to see what your neighbors were talking about. How mean could he be? You found he wasn’t really mean at all. He just had that sort of stern, solemn look to him—perpetually anticipating the worst. He was off-putting, definitely, a little awkward and he greeted you quietly, eyes always averted.
Your head was pounding, a consistent and aggressive force not dissimilar to the one threatening to split from your chest. You want to stand, wanted to communicate this to your legs that definitely should be, at minimum, working to stand. Then came the realization you were on your back—everything wasn’t upside, this wasn’t some demented tilt-a-whirl, you had been comfortably on your back, now you felt the bile begin to rise. You clamped your lips tightly shut, the mortification of potentially throwing up all over your too handsome neighbor’s apartment enough to make you feel the need to skip out on your lease.
You couldn’t fathom why you were here. Your stomach was clenching, the weighted blanket draped half-over your lower half was too warm, almost burning. Who used a heated blanket in the summertime? You lowered your hand, searching for the fabric to toss it off but brushed against something very, very soft and too much like hair. Your hand stiffened, the weighted blanket moved, the weighed blanket let out a soft hum then looked up at you with eyes that were horrifically clear, aware.
The scene in front of you snapped into place. You were on your back, in a shirt that was too big, too soft, most definitely not the tiny minidress that you had left in. You were unbearably sore, and this was your neighbor laying on you—whose name you still didn’t know, something, something with a ’T’? Or was it a ‘D’? A ‘B’? though Mrs. Smithers had introduced the two of twice. You had once received mail for a ‘Benjamin’ that matched his address and he had taken it, though you swore you had heard another man call him something with a ‘D’’??
You hadn’t been sure when a good time to casually ask for his name was before and now, with him situated between your spread thighs wearing only his boxers and, your eye twitched, his socks, with his arms wrapped under your legs as he used your stomach as a pillow for his head you didn’t think that casual scenario would ever appear.
You swore his muscles rippling with just his breathing.
Even in your most depraved, filthiest imagining he had never been this built. You also hadn’t anticipated the excessive scars that covered him, especially the long, jagged surgical scar that went up the length of his spine. Your face heated at the sheer extent of the reddened marks from nails you assumed to be yours, immediately looking away. You needed to focus on the task at hand: find your underwear, find any article of clothes that belonged to you.
You didn’t get a chance to, as he began to gently push the shirt that was most definitely his up, slowly, until if he had pushed up just slightly more, your pussy would’ve been exposed. “W-wa-wait!” Your hands went beside his, pushing down at the fabric.
“We’re neighbors.” You reminded.
He tilted his head, a movement too innocent for the devious quirk of his mouth—a man satisfied, smug and still annoyingly endearing.
You couldn’t remember stumbling home, you couldn’t remember running into him and more importantly, couldn’t remember why you were so sore, but in that moment, you would’ve given anything to relieve it.
“I— Make me breakfast first, at least.” His chest rumbled with laughter, the sensation vibrating against your stomach,
His studio was cast in the warmth of gentle sunlight, this was the type of moment that existed only in cheesy romcoms where your neighbor should’ve been looking up with a twinkle in his eyes, excitement should’ve been coursing through you--this should’ve been the beginning of the rest of your life.
This should’ve been a whirlwind romance waiting to happen, this was how they began, after all: the startling attractive neighbor, the one-night stand, him draped over her with a lazy smile. It was something so casual, so perfect, something so cliche, something you innately felt to be practiced.
None of that was happening. This wasn’t a romcom. You found the stillness in his eyes to be deeply unsettling. You felt yourself waiting for his mouth to split open, to stretch unnaturally into a gaping, toothy maw and for him to swallow your head whole, then bite it clean off your body.
In this moment, your neighbor was less man and more unpredictable monster. This was the man who always looked like he was having the worst day of his life, this was the stern man you waved at and watched the three second delay as he tried to remember how to be a person and move his hand in a weak wave back after your cheery ‘good morning’s.
He more thousands of red flags bundled together in the shape of a man so attractive that despite every ounce of reason within you telling you otherwise, you found your hands snaking through his short, messy blonde hair, “I like my eggs over easy, with both salt and pepper please.”
encompassing a failed trip to Ikea, her brief journey though the deserts of California (she didn't even KNOW California had so much desert) and being stranded in a picturesque, but unbearably boring coastal town before she finds her way to star city, working for queen industries.
part 1
Her hand shook as she looked over leasing documents. It was a small studio above another unique in a complex that was just house that had been converted—she had the second story, with an older woman above her that was a few blocks from her job and a straight shot to the beach.
It wasn’t particularly cheap, but not egregiously expensive and did have AC. If she squinted, she could’ve probably seen passing ships in the distance. She had a few interviews lined up for positions in her field—one being a Fish Biologist which wasn’t the worst. Her Bachelors had been in Aquatic Biology, but her Masters was in Geology with a specialization in Marine Geology and before she dropped out, had been trying to do a PhD in Geophysics—everything had pointed her in the direction of being a Coastal Geologist. She tried not to think of those years and what seemed like an endless stream of failures before she gave in, telling herself that she was living off Bruce’s dime, but she was looking for a job.
Except, she stopped after a few months and Bruce had never asked.
Half of the jobs she looked at paid less than being a server, which disgusted her but that she knew she shouldn’t be too surprised about.
She should be more worried about her thoughts kept circling back to what would Bruce think of the studio. It wasn’t in a horrible neighborhood, really it was a pretty nice one but she also thought her car was nice and he hated her Golf. She signed her name at the correct highlighted sections, she flipped to the next page and signed some more. It didn’t matter what Bruce thought—this studio was the end of their association. There would be no weekly texts asking about how San Diego was, if there was anything that she needed, how apartment hunting was going that she would ignore on principle.
She told herself that she wouldn’t miss them, but the near ancient part of her that had almost loved Bruce hadn’t entirely been snuffed out and to make matters worse—she had been near invigorated with his concern for her.
She could’ve shoved the thoughts down. It wasn't worth thinking if Bruce simply texted her a few times, called her a handful more.. Having him physically track her down across the country was enough to make her think that he might’ve loved her, despite the experience of years prior that had her knowing he didn’t.
She was signing on the second to last page now, plotting out her text to Bruce. Would it be just a few lines? Short and concise? She refused to be sentimental. The last thing that she wanted to say anything even alluding to potentially missing Bruce, though she would. It wasn’t the money, or the townhouse she would’ve never been able to afford otherwise (and likely will never be able to live in a building that nice again) He was a chapter of her life that was closing. Technically, her departure had been a break up but she refused to think of it as such—it was an arrangement ending, an obligation that met its natural conclusion.
Bruce would have to find another woman to hold onto his arm at events.
It shouldn’t be hard, she was certain that there were other women—he just didn’t bring them in public during her tenure.
Bruce hadn’t confirmed, but she wasn’t stupid enough to think that she was unique, or special. She hadn’t even been to Wayne Manor, that was huge.
One of those women had likely been invited, maybe she lived there.
She signed the few highlighted places on the final page, flipping the leasing documents closed and sliding it over to the leasing agent who was telling her more about what to expect, final walkthroughs, everything that went into an apartment that she couldn’t be bothered to pay attention to. Eventually, the leasing agent stood and she took that as a signal that she should as well, they shook hands, walked out together and she spent a few minutes staring at her steering wheel.
She debated on the merits of leaving without notice but knew she wouldn’t—she hadn’t intended to hurt Bruce by leaving without notifying him. She truly hadn’t thought he would notice.
She rested her forehead at the top of her steering wheel and decided the best time to tell him about her apartment would be when she was stepping out into the elevator for the last time.
-
She stepped into the elevator, her belongings only the duffel bag she had left with, then a grocery bag of miscellaneous condiments, half a bag of sourdough and varying cheeses. She hadn’t selected the floor to the lobby yet, she had drafted her text to Bruce, but kept drafting, revising, editing and scrapping.
She had just recently deleted two paragraphs of absolute nonsense. She was putting too much thought into this—neither of them would be devastated by the end of their arrangement. Neither of them held a deep enough emotional stake.
‘I got an apartment. Thanks for everything.’
She sent it, sliding her phone into her pocket as she hit the button for the lobby.
-
She didn’t bother unpacking the grocery bag, just placed it into the fridge and surveyed the studio—where should she put the sleeping bag?
She tried to remember what she learned from scrolling past Feng Shui videos.
Then she decided she was way too tired and simply unrolled her sleeping bag in the corner closet to the windows, tossed her camping pillow onto and slid her duffel bag off to the side.
She settled in quickly, but just staring up at the ceiling with her hands folded over her chest. Bruce hadn’t replied to her text.
She hadn’t expected him to, she was no longer his responsibility—Bruce no longer got anything from associating with her. She had left the brownstone knowing this.
Her lease was month-to-month. If her interviews didn’t pan out, she could pack up at anytime. It wasn’t as if she purposefully made her way to San Diego, she had just been attempting to outrun Bruce and how had that gone for her? She had only stayed due the serving job being easy money and the perfect location to hang her hammock.
She settled on saving a few thousand. It wasn’t particularly important where she lived, she just wanted to catch up for all the years she had lost.
-
She had only two days of peace before she was woken to a loud, repeated knocking at her door. She had initially ignored it—her shift ended at 2am and it was too bright out for her to be awake.
The knocking didn’t cease, but did grow annoyingly consistent and steady.
With a groan, she crawled out of her sleeping bag, “I’m on the way, Jesus Christ!” She had been too tired to shout, it came out as more of a slightly louder speaking voice.
She didn’t have a peephole, or any meaningful way to see who had been knocking, so when she opened the door her eyes widened at the sight before her. Bruce—slightly crumpled, a few strands of hair askew. He didn’t wait to be invited in, he stepped past her, gently moving past her and sliding his shoes off before he stepped too far past the threshold.
“You don’t even have a mattress.”
She didn’t close the door. “You’re not camping. You’re in a building, civilization surrounds you.” He continued, not even needing to walk further to inspect the studio. He moved towards the fridge and physically recoiled at how little was inside.
“This is all beer, condiments. That milk expired last week.” She still hadn’t closed the door. Bruce grabbed her milk, turning around and scanning under the kitchen bar, frowning, then turning back around to open cabinets.
“What are you snooping for?”
“The trashcan.”
“I don’t have one. Just put it back.”
Bruce looked up at her, his scowl having progressed into a glower. He tucked the expired milk under his arm, “You’ve lost weight.”
“It’s rude to comment on someone’s weight.”
“You left your door open.”
“I’m waiting for you to leave.”
Bruce turned away, moving towards the bathroom, peaking inside, “That is restaurant toilet paper?” She ignored him, he closed the door and moved towards her closet, but closed it quickly when he realized there was nothing inside but spiderwebs. Finally, Bruce turned to look at her, lips in a thin line.
“This is no way to live.”
“I’ve kept the door open for you.”
Bruce walked over, she almost let out a sigh of relief at him leaving, but that horrible, awful man pressed the door closed. “We will need to furnish this place.”
“WE?”
-
Bruce stood awkwardly beside an Ikea couch.
“This is too big. Per my measurements, you can only fit an arm chair. Maybe if you chose a loft bed.” He was typing a note in his phone. This was the fourth couch they had looked at, she leaned down and dragged a hand across the fabric but instantly recoiled, “This would give me rug burn.” Bruce ran a hand across the couch where hers had been.
“Let’s just move on to the armchairs.”
She looked towards the basket he carried, filled with only one item inside after almost four hours of Bruce dragging her around Ikea, holding household items up like an offering she was constantly declining, other than a turtle wall lamp. “I am not buying an armchair.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
“Don’t piss me off.” Bruce’s eyes widened slightly and she realized that she had never, not once spoken to him with such vitriol. She had been short with him, snarky recently, but she had never openly disrespected him. She felt a lump in her throat—guilt. She pushed the feeling down, she didn’t want to be here. She was tired, she hardly slept. Bruce hadn’t cared, well—she hadn’t mentioned it.
That was irrelevant. It should’ve been obvious that she was dead on her feet. If Bruce Wayne cared past this being an attempt at stripping her control, he would’ve noticed. He would’ve never ignored her protests.
Though if she thought about it—did she really know Bruce? She thought she might’ve, but that as years ago. Additionally, she was blinded by love. Bruce had never seen this side of her—the one that bent rules, challenged the parameters of academic life, got into way too many arguments with strangers and had impulsively backpacked across almost every state and a multitude of countries for her research.
She watched a couple laughing in a distant living room mock up.
That had been when she still believed in academia, before she realized how much work went into publication, how little money there was to earn, before she fully understood that academia was only a pastime for the wealthy.
“You’re tired.” Bruce stated, ignoring the outburst. “I’ve been tired.” Bruce looked down at the turtle lamp, “This is good for now. We can check out, grab food.” He was mostly talking to himself, eyes glued to the turtle lamp.
She pushed past him, she had known Ikea was intended to be a maze but had never found navigating the store too hard, it was fun even, “I’m not hungry.” She knew that Bruce was only a few paces behind her, although now lapsed into silence.
He had remained silent during checkout, his expression of indifference only cracking when she paid for the lamp and a dark chocolate bar she had tossed in at the last second. He tried to reach for the items, but she had quickly tucked them under to her before he had the chance.
Just before they reached her Golf, he finally spoke though she thought it was mostly to himself, “I don’t know how I thought any couch would fit in that.”
She slid into the drivers seat and carelessly put the lamp in the backseat, but waited until Bruce situated himself in the passenger to hand him the chocolate bar. He looked at her hovering hand in the same way she imagined one would look at being handed a radioactive core—revulsion, terror, confusion.
She just shoved the chocolate into his chest, allowing it to slide down into his lap and turned over the Golf, shifting into reverse and breezing through gears as she progressed to the highway. “You’re going twenty over the speed limit.” She sped up.
-
Bruce hadn’t spoken for the rest of the drive, the man had remained silently behind her until they reached the door to her studio and when he tried to step in, she placed a hand flat in the center of his chest.
“I’d rather you not.” He looked at her face (she refused to meet his eyes) then down at her hand and nodded before stepping back and allowing her to close the door in his face. Had she ever spoken to Bruce with such measured control? Then she remembered she had forgotten the turtle lamp in the car, before remembering that it didn’t matter—she was going to leave.
She settled into the sleeping bag, pulling her phone and calling the restaurant. “What’s up?”
“I quit.”
“Bro.”
She hung up, tossing her phone on top of the duffel bag and burying her head under the sleeping bag.
-
She spent the next four days doing absolutely nothing.
She only left the sleeping bag to use the restroom and hold her head under the faucet for water when her mouth became dry enough it felt her throat was cracking and breathing had become too painful to continue.
On the fifth day, she rolled her sleeping bag up, emptied an already barren fridge and tossed the five additional items she had acquired into her duffel (tooth brush, toothpaste, Walmart hair brush, two scrunchies she found at the bottom of her glovebox) and locked the door behind her, sliding the key into the lockbox the landlord hadn’t yet got around to removing before she lightly jogged down the steps to her Golf.
She spent a few minutes staring at the steering wheel, before finally deciding to drive. She drove aimlessly on the five, impulsively decided to merge onto the 805, then the 15 before realizing that the last place she wanted to end up in was Temecula and swiftly merging onto the 215, realizing that this was getting her nowhere and merging back onto the 15 by the time, she squinted, reached Victorville.
When she reached Barstow, she merged onto the 40 and had pulled over with her head in her hands by the time she reached Tehachapi and promptly pulled up directions to Pismo Beach. She had never expected this much desert in California.
-
By the time Bruce messaged her again, she had been almost four weeks past Pismo Beach, stranded in Crescent City for the past three—her water pump had progressed from just being leaky to being a few miles away from catching on fire.
She knew that she should’ve replaced the water pump years ago—the 2015 Golf’s were notorious for being horrible in regards to them, but she hadn’t needed the car. She had thought if she just didn’t use the car, the maintenance magically didn’t need to happen.
‘You quit your job?’ Why was he still keeping tabs on her? She just cleared the notification and went back to staring at a distant semi isolated island her map had called Battery Point, though from Third Street she could hardly make out details.
She was anxious, waiting for her Golf to be repaired, the shop hadn’t the parts for her car and she hadn’t felt such aching anxiety until forced to wait for the parts to arrive. The feeling of being trapped, of being stranded it was different than how she had felt in San Diego.
The option to leave had always been there. She had chosen to stay, then chose to leave.
She kept expecting to see Bruce, knocking at her hotel door, materializing behind her, but he likely still thought she was in San Diego.
The repair of her Golf brought other problems for her: it took a substantial amount of money from her savings and she had only been passively picking up jobs as she made her way through California—enough that she knew she needed to find some work in Crescent City before she left. Except, she didn’t have a car so she was limited in variety and distance, but it wasn’t a huge city, she could definitely walk.
Though that implies she would be able to find a temporary job in a small city.
She pushed herself up, turning away from the coast line and heading down 3rd street in the direction of her inn, but telling herself she would stop a block away at the library to print—she rifled through her pocket to see how much change she had—minimum four copies but not more than seven.
-
Star City wasn’t the worst. Similar to Gotham with its vigilantes—though she found they were less gritty than Gotham’s: Speedsters, Arsenal, Green Arrow. She had picked up another waitress job, then got a better paying job with Queen Industries, working in one of the smaller acquired companies trying to advance tidal energy.
It wasn’t something that she particularly liked—less field work, more studying and deconstructing what those in the field had sent her and only venturing out when she needed to see what her research produced, but it paid exceptionally well. She wasn’t entirely sure how she ended up with such a well-paying job despite little experience, but chalked it up to her masters. It had been a few months since the last time that Bruce had messaged her, she infrequently thought of him—mostly when she was standing in the grocery store line, for the sole reason they printed those awful gossip tabloids that were spaced sporadically at checkout lines. Bruce Wayne, front page even when she was in California, for Christs sake, always another tabloid, another woman (never the same.) Passively she thought of him when she saw items he might’ve liked: a watch, food, a pastry that they would’ve split.
She had expected to feel a tinge of sadness, but found herself to be primarily uncaring, so far removed from the situation that the idea she had been in their position was near unbelievable.
She had downloaded Hinge, Tinder, Bumble but had no luck—the apps didn’t even work half the time she found (an almost endless loading screen that only occasionally gave way to one match, before freezing her phone and crashing) and after a series of her deleting, redownloading, rinse and repeat, she somehow ended up banned from each platform, one after the other like a series of dominos. She had tried to reach out to their support to plead her innocence, but they had never replied and she had never pushed.
Thus, she was here.
Sitting in a bar, looking awkward with her back straight and legs tightly pressed together with her ankles crossed.
She tried to look at the other patrons for an idea of how to sit without looking like an undercover cop, but they were all men and her dress was too short to be manspreading. She sipped at her drink, steeling her face into anything other than a scowl in attempt to look half friendly. Or maybe a scowl was better? It hadn’t deterred Bruce, but his resting face was equally as unwelcoming.
She spent close to an hour alone, resigning herself to needing to head towards a better, more mainstream bar with men closer to her in age, or at least some damn silver foxes. Just when she had begun to stand, the bell above the door chimed.
She wouldn’t say she voluntarily sat, more that his visage was more akin to a mirage in a desert than a man in a bar and she felt that she had been awkwardly half standing too long to play it off as her leaving, rather than just stretching.
The man was handsome—slightly long red hair, tall and muscular but not egregiously so. He had a serpent tattoo on his arm, shown due to his sleeveless shirt. He wore a pair of cowboy boots that she thought out of place, with starched jeans.
He had slid beside her casually, ordered a drink and completely ignored her existence. She looked around, attempting to be casual but knowing that she was horrendous at rubber-necking: they were the only two at the counter, so he had to be slightly interested in her.
Or too drunk.
She could smell the alcohol wafting off of him, pungent enough to almost be sickening. This wasn’t his first bar of the night and she knew he hadn’t been hidden somewhere: this bar was too small and he too attractive. She weighed her options, on one hand, she had been ‘with’ Bruce (not interested in anyone else) for so long that she didn’t fully remember how to flirt and knew she would despise introductory questions—having to pretend to be interested in someone’s favorite color was going to piss her off. To her, those questions were what one asked when holding each other, she would be running her hand along his arm and desperately wanting to know more.
On the other hand, she thought he was bad news. She could see the red flags when the man hadn’t even said a word to her, but lord, was he attractive.
So she leaned forward, resting her cheek against her palm, “You okay?” The red head looked at her, eyes widening slightly as if he hadn’t expecting her to speak to him, or hadn’t known that she was there. She preferred to think that it was the first option, she didn’t have the energy to deconstruct the second.
The man looked down at his drink, and she regretted ever talking to him. She was about to become this man’s therapist when she had only wanted to screw him all night long and disappear before he woke up. To her surprise, he turned towards her with a weak grin plastered on his face, “Of course, doll. Why, what’s a pretty lady like you doing here with only half a drink?” He flagged down the bartender and ordered her replacement of her own and over the course of her brand new lemon drop, they talked until the bar closed.
Conversation came easy with him, the man, Roy, was hilarious. He complimented her humor, he understood her references. They talked of his father, a forest ranger and how much time Roy had spent outside with him, then how nature became a way to connect with him once the man had passed. Roy was drunk enough to not notice how she had steered the conversation away from her own parents.
She shared her summits—how she wanted to climb higher mountains, but she was horrible at bouldering and couldn’t imagine liking ice pick climbing anymore. That had been when they exchanged numbers, with an offer of meeting Roy at a climbing gym to practice.
They spoke of their work: Roy working in private security and her working as Geomatician, opening an entirely different topic of conversation about what her duties consisted of.
From there, came her schooling, then their various travels.
She had intended for their interaction to end with them both naked, but somehow and against her better judgement, she had ended up helping Roy get home.
She had let Roy lean against her as he poorly explained the directions to his apartment, just a few blocks from the bar, resulting in them both stumbling and looking like some sort of congealed mass of twitching limbs and fits of giggles. It was freeing, to be so completely understood by another person, an instant connection and closeness that she was unfamiliar with, but not particularly against and when they reached Roy’s door and he had struggled to find his keys, she had rifled through his pockets for him until she pulled the bundle of keychains out and opened the door for him.
It had been too dark to make out the details of his apartment, though she could still tell it was rather barren, Roy somehow managed to have a few more pieces of furniture than her, who was still using her sleeping bag and her only source of light was the turtle lamp she had begrudgingly taped to the wall when she realized that she couldn’t function in total darkness.
“Where’s your room?”
Roy had gradually becoming increasingly more dead in her arms, by this point, he was only able to raise a shaky hand towards the end of the hallway, hardly half way before it immediately fall back down to his side. She struggled to get him to the end of the hall—practically dragging him along. There were three doors, she opened the one closest to her and she instantly knew that it wasn’t Roy’s room. It was too decorated—a little girl’s room, filled with stuffed animals, posters, pictures and a made bed. She had cabinets of toys, a plush rug, it was the most full room that she had seen so far, she instantly closed the door and moved on to the one at the end of the hall.
Her hand shook as it hovered over the doorknob, though she knew it was ridiculous. She opened the door to a blissfully empty, plain room. The bed had one pillow, a fitted sheet and a quilt bundled up in the corner.
“Yer jostling me too much.” Roy groaned.
The bedside table was a series of empty cups, Tylenol and a stack of huge technical books taking up most of the space. She could see sticky notes poking out and as she got closer, saw that the top stack was something related to engineering.
“I’ll show you jostling.” She grumbled, helping Roy into the bed, leaned over him to grab the quilt. He wasted no time bundling under the quilt and mumbling, likely to her but quietly enough that it was to himself. Then she grabbed his empty cup and went back to the kitchen she had identified earlier, washing the cup and placing it on the dish drying rack before she grabbed a new one and opened the fridge.
There was a Brita, but it was empty.
Okay. Okay. Okay. She filled the Brita, then took the same cup from the drying rack and filled it froth tap. When she was returning the Brita to it’s original spot, she took the chance to throw away the molding cheeses and hunt down the horrific smell wafting from the inside that she eventually tracked down to the milk.
She checked the expiration dates on some of the other items and threw them away too before she stopped opposite to the first room that she had opened, the third room turned out to be a bathroom with a medicine cabinet filled with varying pain medications. “Jeez, how much do you get drunk?” She mumbled as she grabbed the Advil, just incase the Tylenol wasn't enough and made her way back to Roy’s bedroom, placing the two items beside the table.
“Thanks.” Came Roy’s sleepy voice, “Sorry. You must’ve wanted a different outcome.” He reached for the water and almost knocked it over, she helped push the cup into Roy’s outstretched hand. “No, I had fun. I’m okay with just making sure you get home safe.” Her own sincerity surprised her. She meant that. She hadn’t been too attached to her original intentions.
She thought Roy might’ve tried at a laugh, but ended up just being a rumbling from his chest as he placed the cup back, a little too closer to the edge than she would’ve liked, so she pushed it back slightly. “You can stay, if you’d like.” He pushed away from the edge, patting the warmed space that he had been.
She shook her head, forgetting that Roy couldn’t see her before she spoke up, “I appreciate it, but I’ll pass this time.”
She didn’t fancy getting thrown up on. She also found that she simply didn’t want to, she hated that this was the moment she missed Bruce—he had taken care of her in similar ways, more times than she could count.
She had never been able to hold her liquor too well, Bruce had never complained and he would’ve slid into bed with her, rubbing circles on her back. The room was too hot, she was sweating, “I’ll lock the door behind me.” She heard his whispered thanks as she shut his bedroom door behind her.
She felt unbearably sober on the walk back to her apartment. She only slightly and occasionally swayed, the cold air did wonders against whatever buzz had remained after literally tucking Roy into bed. When the alcohol as no longer warming her, she wished that she had taken a jacket from Roy, maybe negotiated to sleep on his couch as by the time that she had made it to her apartment, there was no stretch of skin not covered in goosebumps.
Her feet ached, the sun was rising. She climbed the steps to her apartment and paused just a few steps before her door, deciding that she must still be slightly drunk because she felt dangerously closed to relieve when she saw Bruce was scowling beside her door. His arms were crossed as he leaned against the wall, no tie in sight.
Bruce didn’t wait for her to reach him, in a few strides he had closed the distance between them. “Where was your phone? Where were you? Why did you walk?” A thousand questions that made her groan, relief not yet fading as he draped the jacket of his suit over her shoulders, pulling her into his arms to warm her.
Oh. She was swaying, not entirely sure where she was attempting to go with Bruce: was she trying to get out of his arms? Was she trying to lead him into her apartment? He remained steadfast, as if he wasn’t entirely sure what she was doing either.
“Thanks for not breaking down my door.” Bruce huffed. Her arms were tucked between them,
She closed her eyes, drunk enough to be committing the moment to her memory.
She inhaled, expensive cologne that she referred to as ‘bergamot’ when she day dreamed about him. She hadn’t a clue what a ‘bitter almond’ was intended to smell like, but she assumed it would be Bruce accompanied with the light, floral scent characteristic of his expensive laundry detergent. The same brand stocked in the brownstone, promising ‘Lilly of the valley’, ‘sweet musk’ and ‘sandalwood’ but found smelt like a chemical concoction on her own clothes despite being nigh irresistible on Bruce.
She visibly relaxed into him, she knew she did, the familiar settle of her body against his, the way her head leaned in towards his chest. She couldn’t help it—her drunk self had been essentially pavlov’d into believing that Bruce Wayne = Safety.
“Let’s get you inside.” She nodded, but only began moving when Bruce started shuffling them towards her front door. His hand trailed down her side, dipping one heavy hand into her pocket as he retrieved her keys and opened the door. He clicked his tongue as he took in her sparse decor.
“I don’t want to leave you here.” His hand was rubbing small circles on her back. Her body was pliant, checked out, but not her mind.
“I didn’t ask.” He stepped in and closed the door behind them. Her apartment wasn’t much warmer than outside. Bruce guided her towards the corner she had laid her sleeping bag, but didn’t lower her when they reached it. She was slipping from him, sand pouring from an hourglass as she moved to envelop herself in the sleeping bag. She was so tired, she knew it.
Bruce grabbed her arm before she could fully touch the ground, resulting in her awkwardly suspended in the air, “Shouldn’t you change?”
“When you leave.”
“It’s nothing I haven’t seen.”
She rolled her eyes, too tired for a proper rebuttal, but refusing to allow Bruce more than she had already given—too much. Her small acquiesce was kicking off her heels before settling inside of the one-person sleeping bag, awkwardly reaching to pull the zipper halfway.
Her outfit was uncomfortable, definitely not meant to be slept in, but she refused to undress in front of Bruce and was too tired to gather clothing to change in the bathroom. The privilege of something so domestic as dressing her was firmly revoked from the likes of Bruce Wayne.
She expected Bruce to leave, but to her surprise, her horror—Bruce laid down with her. She imagined a hairline fracture in her resolve, a small splinter that would spider out if she allowed this, if she didn’t, if she, if she, “Oi.” Oh my god, what was she saying? What does that mean? She had never said that in her life, it was the alcohol, “Old man, the floor won’t be good on your back.”
Bruce did not care. His only vocalization being a grunt as he pulled her bundled form closer to him. She was more drunk than she thought, definitely, it was simply Pavlovian habit that stilled her from pulling away, that had her refraining from lecturing Bruce about boundaries and how he should get the hell out of her apartment. It was Pavlovian habit that she settled closer to him, sleeping better than she had in months despite the uncomfortable bunching of her dress.
-
When she woke up, dazed and warmer than she thought her apartment could achieve, she wondered why she was still tucked her sleeping bag, rather than sprawled out with the zipper entirely undone.
Then, Bruce moved beside her and everything came back to her with horrific clarity. She moved to sit up, but Bruce had his arms were tightly around her, likely worried she would make a run for it when he slept (she would’ve.)
Her head was pounding, there was no one to put a glass of water and Advil on her nightstand. There was no one to even buy her a nightstand, the Advil would’ve gotten lost in the pile of miscellaneous belongings she had accumulated but could’ve left behind and never thought about.
Bruce stirred, grip loosening slightly as she towards him and felt her chest tighten at the sight in front of her. His hair was slightly ruffled, his shirt entirely unbuttoned with a sheen of sweat coating his bare chest, a smear of her makeup was on his cheek.
He was so unbearably handsome, the salt and pepper hair, familiar creases by his eyes, his forehead wrinkled from constant scowling, the stupid, startling blue eyes, 5 o’clock shadow. It was reminding her of feelings that she would do well to push down.
She wanted to make a joke, something about Bruce Wayne being disheveled, but found only an uncomfortable, slithering sensation that embedded itself in her chest as Bruce’s eyes opened—clear, aware and sickening soft, she almost thought Bruce was looking at someone important to him. In this moment, she could’ve fooled herself into thinking that she was someone that, The Bruce Wayne might’ve loved.
The version of her from four months ago would’ve folded. She told herself that the hopeless romantic in her brain that refused to die despite being repeatedly bludgeoned was what he was counting on, that stupid part of her seeing what she wanted to see.
Bruce rested his head in the crook of her neck, nose nuzzling into the soft area behind her ear.
Her apartment was silent, passing cars and sirens of Star City paling in comparison to his breathing, his fingers trailing languidly along her arm. She shivered as Bruce’s stubble brushed against sensitive skin with his slight movement.
She didn’t pull away, she was nauseatingly sober. She stopped trying to get up, allowing herself to settle against Bruce while her mind raced. She was embarrassed over the part of her that wanted to soak up any scraps of affection that Bruce would’ve tossed her way, but not enough to push. Hadn’t she done enough running? Wasn’t she tired? She had spent so much time as an unemployed sugar baby she had almost forgotten how stressful having no safety net was.
She hadn’t had to work doubles in years and after them, she now felt heavy and tired, could barely remember how she had been able to do double after double and still maintain her apartment and clean her car weekly. Then when she got her Geomatician job, she thought, finally, the light—no more doubles.
She in fact, was essentially on call. Though it balanced out by having only three hours of genuine work, she had initially used extra time to get ahead on her next projects, but was sure to only submit them slightly early, to avoid more.
It was not fun to have her hours of free time balance out though working outside of her online hours. It only became more tolerable when she had begun to fill her free time with reading.
These were what she used to rationalize cuddling closer to Bruce, trying to remain casual but finding that there was no way to casually press yourself against another person without transitioning into molding yourself around them.
She realized this quickly, then, with equal speed, gave up worrying about how to be casual when Bruce slid his leg between her own, resuming the tight grip that she had awoken to, she briefly amused herself with the idea of making a joke about him not getting any ideas about strong arming her back to Gotham, but felt a hint of genuine concern that he might take that as something akin to permission.
She had meant to stay awake—really, she probably needed to check on her emails, but her work phone hadn’t screamed at her, so she was probably fine. She was so warm, so comfortable, Bruce was so familiar to her, she had been pavlov’d into falling asleep when he held her.
Especially when her head was pounding, the light peaking through the blinds was already painful. She couldn’t resist—she had never stood a chance.
-
When she woke again, Bruce was shifting beside her. The light was in full swing, but at some point her and Bruce had switched places and he was now blocking out the light—she was tucked into his chest, face buried between his pecs.
The old her would’ve been fine dying here, smothered to death by practical musculature that was simultaneously imposing and threatening, but also slightly softened by age that she used to relentlessly grope, caress and poke at, until her hand would be inevitably swatted away.
She needed distance. Close proximity with Bruce filled her head with nonsense—memories of her reading beside him, freshly pedicured feet in his lap that he would absentmindedly massage while on his phone. Camping—not glamping, days of backpacking and summiting mountains together were not glamorous, yet he hadn’t complained. He had fared considerably better than she thought was possible.
He had been with her when she was getting certified in Search & Rescue, had been beside her after she had recovered her first corpse and decided that she hadn’t the stomach for it.
She was going to be fucking sick.
“Bruce, let me up.” She recognized how he purposefully stilled his breath, pretending to be asleep.
She almost scoffed at his blatant audacity. “Bruce,” she began, patience a thin line as she tried to escape his clutches, cursing herself for allowing herself to stay as long as she had.
Bruce wasn’t a loving but distant partner. If this entire post sugar baby debacle had proven anything to her, Bruce was a shark: he pulled when she wanted distance, pushed when she was hesitant and though she didn’t understand why, she could assume it was the same reason that Bruce Wayne did anything—power, control.
His grip loosened enough for her to push his arm off of her. When she sat up, she spared a second to look down at Bruce: arm behind his head, hair tousled and messy, oh god. Deliciously messy, enough that her hand twitched to run her fingers through the strands and make more of a mess of him.
When she lived in Gotham, she had never once seen his impeccably pressed shirt wrinkled, at some point he had unbuttoned it halfway and she was exposed to his chest, freshly shaved considering how bare it was, his suit jacket was crumpled under him, serving as a discarded pillow.
She knew that she needed to kick Bruce out. She could admit now she had been running from him—whenever he got too close, when she got too close to forgiving him, she had packed up. She had wanted a multi-month cross country roadtrip, it should’ve taken her months to drive from New Jersey to California, but because she had been, she groaned, fleeing from Bruce, it had been too quick. She hadn’t even gotten any souvenirs!
Bruce tilted his head, too much clarity in his eyes for someone who had just woken up. She wondered how long he had been awake before her, what had he bene doing with that time? “You need to leave.” Her voice was hoarse, but didn’t crack—that was a win.
