Chapter Text
Glitzy fundraisers always made Bruce’s head hurt, doubly so when they so happened to be Christmas themed. He could never be sure what made his stomach turn more: the frivolous small talk, the drunken debauchery, or the self-congratulation. He laughed and smiled on cue. He posed and slung his arm across a model’s shoulder. When the tray of champagne came around, he always reached for a full flute, took a sip, and then ditched the full glass on a side table or ledge. He was living the dream.
Today, in particular, he wanted nothing more than to leave the banquet hall. Last night, despite the aching early-December cold, he and Superman busted up a crime ring that had heads in multiple large cities around the country. It had been a last-minute thing—Bruce picked up some intel while on patrol about the ring leaders. The big guy was the only one who’d answered the call.
Bruce flexed his right hand and absentmindedly rubbed over the welt on his wrist. He needed to look lofty—casual and uncaring. Last night, a perp had gotten a well-aimed shot at the joint that allowed hand movement. The fabric was still bullet-proof, but it didn’t stop the nasty bruise that blossomed from the impact. Superman fretted over the whole thing—his ears picked up a nasty and nearly inaudible crack during the scuffle.
Apparently the force of the bullet left a minute fracture no thicker than a hair and no longer a pinky nail on one of the many bones in Bruce’s wrist. Sure, Bruce’s wrist ached, but he’d had much worse. He didn’t understand why Supes acted like he was made of glass.
Bruce flexed his fingers and worked out some resting discomfort. He’d have to find a way to reinforce the joints of the suit without losing flexibility.
“Brucie!”
Bruce turned on his heel with a flourish and pulled his thoughts away from his other suit. “Anna, lovely to see you.” He kissed her on both cheeks. “This event is absolutely gorgeous.”
The younger woman smiled. “Well, if we can raise some money for the orphans, all the better.” She brushed a strand of her blown-out blonde hair behind her shoulder.
The muscle in Bruce’s jaw twitched. “I thought the money was going to fund education for underprivileged students?”
Anna didn’t even shrug, she only swirled her champagne flute. “Isn’t it the same thing?”
Bruce forced a smile and didn’t reply. Instead, he scanned the ballroom with his eyes and searched for some woman he could flirt with for the next half hour before ducking out of the event altogether. His skin felt exposed, vulnerable. He needed to put on the suit again and head out to the streets. There was a mid-level member of the crime ring that had gotten away yesterday, and Bruce needed to get him into the commissioner—a little bit of pressure and the crook would fold like a house of cards.
Anna cleared her throat and stared at Bruce.
“Hm?”
“I was saying,” Anna started, the annoyance clear in her voice, “that I cannot believe Ella Spring rewore that dress. It didn’t even look good the first time—the cut of the neckline is all wrong.” buried
“Mhmm.” The neckline was wrong. The dress itself was a gorgeous deep blue, but the sweetheart cut was off, making the straight line waver and turned the seam up. Bruce hated himself for noticing.
“She should have the decency to at least get something new, after all the effort I put into this event. You know-”
“Excuse me?” A man in an oversized suit and thick-framed glasses stepped out from the crowd. “Clark Kent, Daily Planet. Could I ask a favour from you, Mr. Wayne?”
“Sure, sure.” Bruce buried his hand in his pocket and tried to appear casual. He welcomed the distraction from Anna (who was turning her head to look for the next most eligible bachelor) at any rate. “I can always make time for Central City’s leading paper.”
“We’re based in Metropolis, Mr. Wayne.”
Anna rolled her eyes.
“Yes, yes. I know. You’re the Superman paper.”
Kent cleared his throat. “We write about much more than that.”
“I’m sure you do.”
Anna composed herself—she pulled her back straight, brushed a strand of hair aside, and let her hand rest on Bruce’s upper arm. “I’ll let you two speak. I should make my rounds anyway.”
Bruce swept over her with his eyes. “Always the gracious host.” He winked. “We can catch up later.”
Anna laughed lightly and floated off into the crowd.
Bruce loosened his tie and turned to Kent. “Do you mind keeping this short? I’ve got, um, business to attend to, if you know what I mean.”
Kent barely hid his look of disgust, but he did hide it. If Bruce had actually been drunk, or if he had a less sharp eye, he wouldn’t have caught the journalist’s contempt. But as quickly as his lip had twitched in disgust, he schooled it back into a steady mask. “Of course,” he said. “I just have a few questions to ask you about public education in Gotham.”
Bruce chuckled. “That’s sly, you know.”
Kent blinked. “I’m sorry, I don’t follow.”
“Asking me for a favour and then digging in with a question. Sly.”
Kent actually looked a tad shy at being called out. “People are usually more forthcoming this way. Leading with questions scares people away.”
“Naturally.”
Kent fished in the pocket of his ill-fitting suit and pulled out a black notebook, no bigger than the palm of his hand, and a cheap ballpoint pen. “What do you think of the funding cuts to public education in Gotham? The projected increase in class sizes?”
Bruce shifted. Why was Kent asking him? “I haven’t been following the story too closely.”
“You’re here tonight,” Kent pointed out. “The entrance fee alone was no small donation.”
Bruce waved his hand dismissively. “A party is a party. If we can raise some money while we’re at it, then all the better. Right?” He scanned the room. A few feet away was a waiter, holding a tray of champagne. The perfect exit. He just needs to wait forty-five seconds—a minute at most.
“There’s probably a lot of people here who can speak to the issue—have you met Lucy Hill?” Bruce continued. “She used to be a teacher before she became a model—well, I heard she went to a semester of college for it. But still.” The waiter was nearly there. Bruce mentally planned his exit—grab a flute of champagne, spill another one on Kent, waltz out of the conversation in the confusion, and send Kent a cheque to cover the dry cleaning tomorrow.
“Well, Mr. Wayne, I actually think you’re exactly the right person to be talking to about this.”
“Oh?”
“You’re nearly the sole funder of Moira Andrews, the grassroots leader running for congress. The one pushing for stronger public education and public health care.”
Bruce frowned. “My company donates to many political candidates. I don’t really know—”
“I’m not talking about your company, Mr. Wayne. I’m talking about you, personally. You’ve funded Andrews' campaign not only through anonymous donations but through small increments that made it much harder to trace back to any individual. Why?”
How does he know? Bruce knew Kent was sharp—one of the top journalists in the country—but he never thought he’d care about something like this.
Bruce was saved from answering—the waiter came by on cue. Bruce lifted two flutes filled with bubbling champagne off the tray. “Have a drink, Kant.” Bruce grinned, wide and open.
“It’s Kent—and no, thank you. I’m here for work.”
Perfect. Bruce pushed the glass toward Kent anyway, tilting the rim toward the lapel of his old suit, with a grin plastered across his face. The champagne should’ve spilled entirely over the front of Kent and the glass should have shattered on the marble floor.
It should’ve.
It didn’t.
Instead, Kent held the flute in his hand. Not even a drop had landed on his jacket. “Mr. Wayne.” He pushed his glasses up his nose. His eyes looked positively red.
“Sorry, sorry. A little clumsy, I guess.” How did he catch that?
Bruce reached his hand out to take the glass, still full, back. Maybe he should just drink both. It would get him out of this interaction.
As he wrapped his hand around the glass, the sleeve of his jacket pulled back and reveal his black and blue wrist.
Kent paused. His eyes flitted from Bruce’s wrist, to his jaw, and back to his wrist. Kent stepped back, sizing Bruce up with a dumbfounded look plastered across his face. “It’s you.”
Bruce raised an eyebrow and laughed uncomfortably. “Of course it’s me.”
“No—no. I mean it’s you.” Kent locked eyes with Bruce. “You’re Batman.”
Bruce’s insides froze. His heart slammed into his gut again, again, again. He tried to laugh. The sound that he choked out sounded like a dying bird. Kent had accomplished what no criminal had managed in the past three years—he’d caught Bruce off guard. Completely. “I know I have a reputation for getting into antics, but I can assure you that dressing up as a bat is one thing that I’ve never done.” Bruce shrugged, trying to make himself appear casual. “Not yet, in any case.”
Kent wasn’t paying much attention. He ran his hand through his hair, his jaw slack with shock. “I can’t believe how well you’ve pulled this all off. God—why didn’t I notice before? This is just—I don’t even know what to say. Here you’ve got me at a loss for words.”
Bruce swallowed. Had his mouth always been this dry? “Mr. Kent.”
“Well, this changes things. For sure. Everything is going to be different, from now on,” Kent rambled on. “But it’s good, right? This is good.”
You bastard. How could this be good? Bruce flexed his wrist and tightened his grip on the champagne glasses. Were there always so many people in the hall? It seemed positively cramped. He set the two still-full glasses on the ledge behind him and pulled at his collar. Was there any point in denying it? “Mr. Kent,” Bruce repeated.
“I mean—wow. This is not how I expected this night to go. At all.” He stopped speaking for a moment. “But you know who I am, right?” He looked at Bruce expectantly.
“Yes.” Of course, Bruce had been lying at the start—anyone who was even half paying attention to the news knew the names Clark Kent and Lois Lane. Top-notch reports. National award winners. They’d taken down multiple corrupt companies and businessmen and their combined age was barely fifty.
Kent shook his head. “Of course you know who I am. ‘The Superman newspaper’—and they say you don’t have a sense of humour.”
The blood pounded in Bruce’s head. His shock was wearing thin and revealing his anger underneath. “I’ll have to ask for your discretion.”
Kent chuckled. “And another one. Just cracking jokes tonight.”
Of course, he’ll share my secret. He’s a goddamn reporter after all. Bruce shifted his weight to the balls of his feet. His gut squirmed with nausea.
Kent’s faced stiffened—he looked less dumbfounded and more serious. “Bruce—do you mind if I call you that?—of course I’ll be discreet.”
Across the room, a woman in a black dress raised her hand in their direction.
“That’s Lois—we do have assignments here tonight, so as much as I’d like to stay and chat, I’ve got work to do,” Kent explained. “But we’ll continue this conversation later?”
He wasn’t really asking a question, Bruce decided. They would continue this conversation later. Whether Bruce wanted to or not.
As he watched Kent shift off back into the crowd, Bruce vaguely wondered what would be the price of Kent’s silence. Most people had one—even if it was extraordinarily high. But a reporter like Kent? He might not. Bruce frowned. He might have to come up with another way to keep his secret under wraps. Kent might’ve started the game of blackmail, but Bruce would be damned if he let him win. At least not without a fight.