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Fighting the pain banging on his skull, Bruce straightened his tie and took one last look in the mirror. Nodding in satisfaction, he headed towards the door to the limo that waited outside. Each clack of his dress shoes on the marble flooring of the entryway seemed to echo in his brain. Shaking his head in a dismal attempt to rid himself of the faint buzzing sensation he felt, Bruce entered the limo. He gave his chauffeur a small, tired smile as he sat down, swallowing down the wave of nausea he felt as he leaned back in his seat. As the vehicle slowly pulled out of the driveway, he closed his eyes to rest them a bit, but made sure to keep the rest of his senses alert, just in case.
It had been 48 hours since Bruce had gotten any sleep, and had probably only gotten about 5 hours total the whole week, only when he really couldn’t work anymore. While Bruce had mastered the art of meditation to prevent the effects of sleep deprivation, he hadn’t managed to take even a short break to do that. He had been swamped with cases and the most recent Arkham jailbreak with nearly no support, most of his children being out of Gotham for one reason or another. In between those, he handled paperwork for the Justice League as the quarterly meeting was coming up soon. Bruce was only still up and running through sheer will and sneaking some of Tim’s energy drink stash the boy thought he had managed to hide from the rest of the family. He’s lightheaded, his temples are throbbing, and his stomach feels like rebelling, but Bruce would not skip the Martha Wayne Foundation’s Annual Gala for the world.
When the limo slowed to a crawl, Bruce slowly opened his eyes, blinking rapidly to straighten out his blurry vision. It worked, mostly anyway, and he looked out the window at the building the gala was being held in as the vehicle did a full stop in front of the red carpet leading to the doors. The paparazzi were already going full force with their cameras even though the car door hadn't opened yet. Bruce took a deep breath as his chauffeur rounded the back of the car, pasting a ditzy airhead smile on his face.
It takes all of his control not to start wincing from the cameras flashing at him as he stepped out of the car. Bruce barely remembered answering a few questions for the reporters, practically rushing inside to escape the lights and noise. Unfortunately, the gala didn’t really lessen either of those. He exchanged pleasantries with a countless number of guests, speaking on autopilot for what felt like forever while ignoring the way his heart felt like it was trying to beat out of his chest. In reality, about an hour had passed in this manner before he spied Oliver amongst the crowd. Bruce breathed a silent sigh of relief. Worse came to worst, Oliver would definitely be willing to pull a distraction for him so Bruce could leave early.
Striding towards his fellow vigilante, Bruce fielded the guests approaching him away as quickly as possible, probably being quite callous at the more aggressive ones. It was a bit of a blur, but Bruce was almost eighty percent sure he had unintentionally insulted several of Wayne Enterprise’s business partners and suppliers. He was probably going to regret that when his brain no longer felt like it was going to melt out of his ears, but sleep deprived Bruce could not give a shit at the moment. “Ollie!” he cried out, fake smile widening as the other looked up from his current conversation partner.
“Brucie!” Oliver shot back with the same fake enthusiasm, though he looked a little more genuine in his excitement than Bruce felt.
Oliver looked at the man he had been talking with, “If you’ll excuse me, I haven’t seen Brucie in forever! Need to catch up and all that.”
With that, Oliver brushed by the man and threw an arm around Bruce. In a small act of weakness, Bruce buckled slightly under his weight, the room briefly feeling like it was spinning. Oliver looked over in concern, and Bruce replied with a tight smile, sure that his old friend could see the tightness in his face and redness in his eyes and make his own conclusions. “Oh, Brucie, hitting the champagne that hard already? It’s not even 8pm! Let’s go over to the corner over there, I spy a sofa with your name on it.”
Gently guiding Bruce with his arm still wrapped around him, Oliver led him to the chaise lounge at the back of the hall. He pushed Bruce slightly, and Bruce practically collapsed onto the soft velvet cushions face down. “Oh man, are you actually wasted?” Oliver asked, the genuine concern in his voice warming Bruce’s heart, “Because I saw Lexie-poo earlier and I was really hoping you’d help me prank him later.”
‘Ah, of course.’ Bruce thought, now slightly aggravated but mostly amused. Even before they had become vigilantes, and Lex became Clark’s arch nemesis, they had loved playing pranks and one upping each other during boarding school. When they weren’t terrorizing the rest of the school’s populace, that is. This had unfortunately, or fortunately in Oliver’s personal opinion, continued the tradition well into their adulthood. Or, well, Oliver continued the tradition well into adulthood. Lex only retaliated to Oliver’s shenanigans, and pretended he was above such “childish nonsense”(spoiler alert: he absolutely was not), and Bruce liked playing accomplice to whoever was pranking the other at that point in time(the other two knew better than to try anything with him).
If the rest of the Justice League found out about their friendship, Bruce was sure he and Oliver would be bombarded with questions, with Superman at the head of the interrogation. But, the pranks were pretty harmless all considering, and all three of them found them quite cathartic, even if only Oliver would be willing to admit it. Lex might be a villain, but Bruce had already lost so many loved ones to villainy that he held onto whatever friendly interactions he could with who he had left. Which sounded a bit depressing now that Bruce was thinking about it, but it worked for the three of them. Even if Bruce was like ninety-five percent sure Lex knew exactly who was under the mask of the Green Arrow. Oliver’s goatee was just too recognizable, and he didn’t really change personalities or body language between his civilian and vigilante personas. In comparison, he was only fifty percent sure Lex knew he was Batman, but that was neither here nor there, so he usually erred on the side of caution during their interactions.
Despite that, when it came to Oliver’s pranks, Lex’s retaliations were never violent or mean spirited. It had been Lex’s turn last time, and Bruce helped Lex break through Queen Tower security to fill Oliver’s elevator to his office with fake blood the night before they were supposed to have a meeting in the morning. The face Oliver had made when the red liquid waterfall came out of the elevator à la The Shining and coated him in corn syrup and food dye was priceless, seeing the man stained red for the whole meeting and for several days afterwards even more so. And if Lex had sent Bruce a copy of the security footage of the whole incident, Bruce was never going to admit he had replayed it a few times in the past several weeks whenever he needed a small pick-me-up.
In any case, it was now Oliver’s turn for payback, but Bruce truly did not have it in him to help the man plan or execute a prank. He groaned miserably, its sound muffled by the fabric he was still face down on. Bruce felt one of Oliver’s hands pat him on the back, “Long day?” the blonde commiserated in a semi serious, semi joking manner.
Bruce turned his head slightly so it was sideways, and tilted it slightly to look into Oliver’s slightly amused eyes. “You could say that.” he grumbled, squinting a bit at the light that hit his sensitive eyes.
Humming his understanding, Oliver continued to stroke Bruce’s back. It felt quite nice really, and Bruce nearly dozed off right then and there. If trouble occurred, he was sure Oliver would wake him up for it. After a while, Oliver’s hand suddenly halted, and Bruce was shaken into mental awareness. He forcefully relaxed his body and sharpened his senses, wondering why Oliver had stopped despite not hearing any ruckus or sudden change. It took a bit for Bruce to let his guard down again when the familiar gait echoing louder in his brain finally registered. “Bruce.” Lex said genially as he approached the two men on the couch, “Queen.” he greeted smugly, purposefully using Oliver’s last name to get a rise out of the blonde.
“Lexie.” Oliver grumbled out as Bruce mumbled a greeting of his own, the blonde most likely glaring playfully at the other, “It’s been a while.”, Oliver eventually spits out, and Bruce could just imagine the slight pout on his face for not having retaliated against Lex’s latest prank yet.
“It has, I hope you managed to get all that red out of your tiles. I’ve heard food dye can leave quite a stain.” Lex remarked in his deep baritone, and Bruce could already see the smirk the man most likely had on his face.
“It was about time for some interior design changes anyway.” Oliver shrugged off, genuinely unbothered, “The incident only sped up the process.”
Bruce stifled a snort to hide his amusement. Lex had somehow found out about the interior decorating changes planned for Queen Tower, and had planned his prank accordingly. Considerations like that were just one of several reasons Bruce didn’t regret his continued friendship with the man. He felt Lex’s gaze turn back to him, “Now will either of you tell me why Bruce looks like he’s smoked one too many? Because I thought we all quit that nasty habit ages ago.”
“Speak for yourself, I find them great for relaxation.” Oliver retorted lightly, before resuming his previous ministrations, “Brucie here has been quite the busy bee, it seems. Looked like he was about to collapse when I saw him so I brought him over here to get a bit of a break.”
The cushion next to Bruce sank a bit as Lex sat on the opposite side of Oliver while letting out an exasperated sigh, and Bruce nearly wriggled in appreciation as he felt long nimble fingers begin to play with his hair. “Of course you did.” Lex sounded resigned, “Why you put so much effort into this hellhole of a city, I’ll never know. Either way, you’ve got to start treating your body better, it’s really not healthy to work yourself into the ground you know. And none of us are getting any younger.”
Bruce grunted a bit before falling silent, knowing better to start an argument when he felt so comfortable. Lex likewise also kept his mouth shut after he finished his short lecture. Both Oliver and Lex had tried countless times before when they were younger to get him to stop putting so much effort into Gotham, to ramp it down a bit because he’s only one man. It’s a tired argument at this point and they both know Bruce’s stance on the topic, even if they don’t fully understand, Lex especially.
He’s sure the three of them make quite the sight, Gotham’s prince and one of the richest men in the world, being treated like a sad wet cat by two of the other richest men in the world. The three of them rarely interacted with each other so intimately in public, and Bruce was sure if it wasn’t for the fact that he probably looked as shitty as he felt, none of this would be happening. The current situation reminded him fondly of when the two did similar actions whenever Bruce got sick when they were still in school. He’s sure everyone else at the gala is absolutely bewildered though.
Bruce can feel the stares that the people around them are trying to pretend they aren’t doing, and Bruce cannot wait for the headlines tomorrow. Maybe they would say they were in a scandalous love triangle, or had a wild orgy after the gala. Whatever it was Bruce was sure he was going to send into their group chat and make fun of them. Unfortunately, like always, he can’t have anything nice for long as his comfortable almost-nap is interrupted by a group of armed men bursting through the doors. “On the ground! Be silent and don’t move or we won’t hesitate to shoot!” the man Bruce assumed was the leader bellowed, before lifting his gun and firing a few warning shots into the ceiling.
Thankfully, this was Gotham, and the upper class was intimately familiar with this exact scenario. Most of the Outsiders on the other hand…Bruce winced as his headache intensified with the screams and shouts from the few Outsider attendees that had been invited as they got roughed up a bit. He really needed to update protocol for gala attendees in Gotham if this was always how they were going to react during these incidents. At least Lex and Oliver learned and adapted, now if only others could do the same. Bruce slowly rolled himself off the sofa to kneel on the floor with his back to the wall, opening his eyes properly to scan the party crashers.
No recognizable insignias, costumes, or gimmicks he noted, so probably just one of the many unnamable gangs that ran about in the city. Well, at least it wasn’t one of the mob bosses or one of his rogues, so things could’ve been worse. It also looked like the attackers were a bit inexperienced, usually they would have insisted everyone's hands be in the air to prevent any funny business. They hadn’t, and Bruce was definitely going to take advantage of that, as well as the fact that all their current attention was focused on the attendees in the front.
He noticed Oliver and Lex had kneeled slightly in front of him, facing each other so that their sides faced the entrance. They placed themselves on either side of him like when they were sitting next to him earlier. The familiar positioning caused Bruce to side-eye the chaise lounge longingly for a brief second before making eye contact with the other two men next to him. Meanwhile, the thugs congregated at the front of the hall and began taking any valuables they could from the gala attendees.
The three of them looked at each other contemplatively, and Bruce performed a swift motion with his hands, pulling up an old secret code from their school days they used to help wreak havoc upon the school’s populace. He personally hadn’t used the code in ages, but it wasn’t exactly something he could easily forget. ‘Plan?’ he asked by first moving his hand to the area near the corner of his left eye where it met his nose. Bruce lightly scratched the area with his left pointer finger before moving the hand up to tap his temple with the same finger and lifted his right brow for a brief moment. He was way too done and tired to really think up a plan himself. ‘Lex?’ he inquired, swiping across his lips with his right thumb from right to left, then raising his right eyebrow once again.
Lex tapped his right temple twice with his pointer and middle finger before clenching his left hand slightly into a fist before quickly releasing it and splaying all five fingers like he was reenacting an explosion. ‘Bruce, distraction.’
Bruce raised his right pinky to show his understanding. Lex quirked a small but real smile, before switching his attention to Oliver, and looked knowingly at the blonde. He ran his right pointer and middle finger over the shell of his ear, as if he were adjusting hair he no longer had behind his ear. Then Lex tugged on his left earlobe once, before he lowered his hand. He followed up with bending his wrist forward as he tucked his pinky and ring finger towards his palm. He pinched his middle and pointer finger against his thumb and lifted his wrist from its bent position as his right brow lifted in question. ‘Oliver. Call backup?’
Oliver frowned a bit at Luthor actually acknowledging he knew Oliver’s identity for the first time, but also raised his right pinky before quickly tapping it against his chest where Bruce knew his JL communicator was hidden. Meanwhile, Bruce corrected his mental file on Lex from the previous ninety-five percent to one hundred. Luthor hid a grin as he tapped the top of his right wrist with two fingers and his right brow arched again. Oliver took a moment to consider before he formed an upside down victory sign with his right hand, curling his fingers twice, then rubbed his left eye with his other hand as if dust had gotten into it. ‘Five minutes, probably’.
Lex huffed quietly in irritation at the length of time, but lowered a hand to his right shoe, and pulled a tab of cloth on the back of it to reveal the handle of a switchblade in his heel. He sneakily removed it and handed it to Bruce, who hid it in his pocket just in case. His vision went blurry momentarily as he shakily rose to his feet, and put on a show.
Bruce pretended to be drunk, not difficult with how badly his sleep deprivation was affecting him, and spied a lithe young man with blue eyes and black hair amongst the goons. Perfect, he couldn’t believe the coincidence, though he mentally prepared himself for all the tabloids to be in outrage and the future jibes his children would throw at him when they found out. “Dickie!” he cried out, stumbling towards the man and leaping onto him with complete disregard to the gun in his hands, “It’s so good to see you tonight, you told me you couldn’t come tonight? And you brought all your friends from the police department with you, how sweet!”
Now everyone’s attention was on him, allowing Oliver to whip out his communicator and press the button to begin contact with the watchtower. Bruce briefly noticed Oliver’s lips began to move before focusing whatever remained of his scattered attention on the man he was still embracing. “I-What?” the man exclaimed, looking baffled and completely unsure how to handle a whole billionaire hugging him like he was his child. He looked frantically at the other grunts, who stared back, just as baffled.
“That’s not your son, you dumbass, now get down on the ground with the others!” the leader eventually called out, and pulled him off of “Dickie”.
Brucie just giggled, a light and airy sound that chimed like bells and showed how little there was in his head. “You’re funny.” He chuckled, eyes shiny and doe eyed as he tilted his head to look at the man.
The man just grunted and tugged at him harshly, and Brucie pouted, “There’s no need to be so rude.” He mumbled, and eyed the nearby buffet tables, specifically at the large bowl of punch. “Ooh, I’m thirsty, let’s get a drink first!” he exclaimed as he tugged his arm out from the leader’s hand and practically skipped towards the punch as the man stalked after him.
Purposefully slowing his pace to let the man catch up to him, Bruce waited till they were both near enough to the buffet table and quickly determined the required force and angle to accomplish his goal. He then “tripped” on nothing but air, falling on the table hard enough to send the full bowl of punch into the air. It made a nearly perfect parabola in the air before it upended itself and its contents upon the leader of the gang. The now drenched and sticky man looked at Brucie furiously as he roughly removed the punch bowl from his head. He threw the bowl at Brucie, and it missed him by an inch as he idly sidestepped its trajectory and heard the glass shatter to pieces behind him. Brucie tilted his head, frowning with puppy eyes filled with confusion. “That was mean.” he whined, before looking at his “son”, “Dickie, I don’t think your friends are very nice. Are you being treated well at work?”, he commented worriedly.
“I’ll show you mean you worthless fucking piece of shit!” the leader seethed, lifting his gun less than five feet away and aimed right to Brucie’s chest.
It looked as if Brucie was finally understanding his situation and began looking frightened, tears welling up in his wide eyes. Just when the man was about to press the trigger(and right when Bruce had just flicked out the switchblade Lex had given him), Lex appeared out of nowhere, dashing forward and sweeping the man’s legs from underneath him. The bullet hit the ceiling as the gun fell out of the man’s hands. Grabbing the gun in one swift motion, Lex immediately replaced the safety. The other thugs were frozen in confusion, their guns aimed at the ground. As the leader began getting up and opened his mouth, most likely to order his men to shoot, Lex smashed the butt of the gun into his temple. This time when the guy collapsed, he didn’t get back up.
Some of the other goons finally smacked some sense into themselves, finally lifting their guns to aim at the two billionaires. But it was too late, as at that moment several Justice League members barged into the hall. Within seconds, all of the criminals had been rounded up, disarmed, and tied up for retrieval by the Gotham police. Among the Justice League members that had come to provide backup was “Batman”, who thumped his way over to Brucie who had already shoved the knife back in his pocket. “Any injuries?” Dick grunted, trying his best to mimic Bruce’s speech while in costume.
Bruce decided he might as well go big before going home, and immediately started sobbing. Big fat tears rolled prettily down Brucie’s face as he began to babble nearly incoherent sentences about being so scared and his son getting arrested even though it wasn’t his fault. He could see Dick, as well as the Justice League members in the near vicinity, visibly freeze, looking absolutely perplexed and unsure what to do. Being able to cry on demand really was a skill Bruce needed to utilize more often honestly. He hadn’t used it since boarding school when he could use his crocodile tears to convince staff he was just a sad innocent orphan who wouldn’t be able to harm a fly.
Having disposed of the gun immediately after the Justice League barged in, Lex hurried over towards Bruce with Oliver following closely behind. Brucie was immediately wrapped in Lex’s arms, and he began sobbing harder. Now all of the Justice Leaguers had completely stopped whatever they were doing to stare slack jawed at the two billionaires, now three after Oliver soon joined the hug. Both of them began speaking at once, murmuring mindless reassurances and checking him over to make sure he was alright.
Looking over their shoulders, Bruce glared at the petrified heroes until they returned to whatever task they had been completing originally. Superman eyed him as if to convey, ‘We are definitely talking about whatever this is later.’ before he continued interviewing and reassuring the other gala attendees. Dick, however, remained motionless, still gaping at the scene in front of him. The young man eventually managed to get over his initial shock, nodding at Bruce briskly before he stiffly walked away. Bruce just knew pictures of Oliver’s and Lex’s hug as he cried was going to be shared into the family group chat as soon as Dick took off the cowl, and mentally braced himself for his children’s responses.
“Let’s get you home, shall we?” Lex’s words cut through Bruce’s foggy thoughts, his caring face and tone holding an actual hint of concern.
Well that supported the theory that Lex still didn’t know he was Batman. Though, he could also just be genuinely concerned for a friend regardless since it didn’t look like he held any reservations with Oliver despite knowing he was a part of the Justice League. It was hard to read the man even on a good day so Bruce really could never be completely sure. Lex eventually unwrapped his arms, before running his right pointer finger over the top of his left ring finger twice. Once from end to tip, then the second from tip to end. He then lightly pinched the very top of his right wrist with his left thumb and pointer finger. Lastly, Lex tapped his right ring finger once with his left pointer finger and his right eyebrow raised in question. ‘Leaving, will be back. Short time. Wait?’
Bruce could tell the heroes were looking at them again, but they were now easily ignorable and he pushed them to the back of his clogged up brain. Both he and Oliver raised their right pinkies in agreement, and with a grin and a wave, Lex walked off to do call a car or whatever. Soon after, a calloused hand squeezed his and Bruce turned to look at Oliver as the man released his hand, a wry grin unfolding on his lips. The blonde tapped his right temple twice with his pointer and middle finger, before dragging his right pointer finger from the corner of his lip to his temple in a wide arc while his right eyebrow raised upwards. ‘Bruce. Alright?’
Brucie returned it with a wobbly teary smile while raising his right pinky in response. With his left hand, he formed a circle with his thumb and pointer finger as the rest of his fingers flared outwards, then tapped the circle where his fingers met on his lips twice. Then he flicked down his right temple with his pointer finger, as if turning off an invisible switch. ‘Yes. False alarm. Tired.’
Nodding once in relief, Oliver silently brought out a handkerchief and handed it to him. Brucie dabbed his damp eyes and face as the two stood silently, simply enjoying the time being next to each other. A few minutes later, Lex tapped both of them on the shoulder, and when he had both their attention, he pointed silently at the exit, the inaudible question self-explainable. Oliver and Bruce both grinned and raised their right pinkies before following Lex out the door. They were soon herded into a limousine, Lex casually instructing the driver to head to Wayne Manor.
Bruce handed Lex his knife back and then pulled his phone out. He quickly texted Alfred that they would be having two guests for the night. As he returned his phone to his pocket, he looked at two of his longest friends, who looked back at him in return. Without warning, all three of them threw their heads back and began laughing their heads off. “Oh my goodness, I can’t believe you called that poor young man “Dickie”. You know Richard’s never going to let you live it down, let alone your other children.” Lex wheezed while clapping a hand over Bruce’s shoulder.
“You told me to be a distraction!” Bruce tried to protest, but his chuckling gave away his true amusement at the situation, “I improvised with what I had!”
“And man did you improvise.” Oliver giggled, “I think that was the most cinematic punch bowl catapult I’d ever seen, a solid 10/10. I don’t think I’ve seen you bullshit that much since that time we got caught off campus after curfew when we-”
Lex swiftly covered Oliver’s mouth with one hand, “We swore never to talk about that incident ever again!”, the man insisted with narrowed eyes, knowing exactly what Oliver was about to say, but Bruce and Oliver could spot the smile threatening to escape Lex’s serious expression.
As Lex and Oliver continued to banter, Bruce slowly leaned back into his seat as he tuned out their conversation. He closed his eyes to the white noise chatter in the background, and the weight of tonight and the past several days began to slough off his shoulders. Some of his closest friends were right next to him, Bruce could finally rest for a bit. They would take care of him, they always had. And with these thoughts, Bruce drifted off to sleep, unaware as the conversation between the other two men died down as they noticed their friend had fallen asleep.