Poker Face | Bruce Wayne

forty three

PRESENT DAY

There were very few times in Bruce's life when he could remember being so genuinely startled that he felt numb.

It was a foreign feeling. Not only as Batman— the man who could predict it all— but also as Bruce Wayne, the playboy billionaire who took everything in stride and rolled with the punches.

Right now, there was too much to think about. Too much to dissect, too much to unpack. That was probably a first for Batman and Bruce Wayne, too.

As his breath fanned out against the chilly air, Bruce decided that the best course of action was just to not think about anything at all.

This was evident because, if Bruce had even been remotely thinking in any way, he wouldn't be currently waltzing through the streets of Metropolis, still wearing a tux, cheeks stained in red lipstick no matter how hard he had tried to scrub it off in the bathroom mirror, and car keys discarded on some table back at the gala, effectively leaving him without a ride.

A few passersby gave him some odd looks, but anyone who was brave enough to be out past dusk in a big city knew better than to ask questions. He paid no mind to them.

To make it all somehow worse (Bruce doubted that was even possible at this point, though he dared the universe to try), he tipped his head up and glanced at the sky. It was clear and a brilliant shade of midnight purple, with a full moon, stars that were bright and blinking and shiny like everything always seemed to be in stupid, irritatingly perfect Metropolis—

Bruce scoffed out loud. He really needed to stop testing the universe, seeing that he ended up in situations such as these far too often for his liking.

Sometime later, he found himself in front of the entrance of the subway. At this point, his phone was going off every three seconds. He was tempted to just ditch it, but, even though he was currently going through what was most likely another mid-life crisis, he still wasn't that stupid.

He jogged down the stairs to the subway, brisk enough for people to not truly recognize his face. Bruce slid over the subway turnstiles with a grace he'd learned not from being a caped crusader but from when he was seventeen, and not because he couldn't afford to pay the fee, but simply because he didn't have the patience to wait to insert a coin.

As he walked to find the train he was looking for, he hid his face in the shadows of the station, which was surprisingly a little more difficult when you take away the all-black Kevlar suit and cowl, but Bruce never minded a challenge.

He situated himself on a bench towards the wall opposite the train tracks. Bruce went over the subway maps in his head— now those were from his early days as Batman.

Take line four from New Troy to Hamstead, and switch to line seven at Lafayette all the way to the Central Business District.

He leaned back against the cold, cement wall, exhaling deeply through his nose and allowing himself a moment to close his eyes.

Nope. Immediate mistake.

He should've kept walking, he suddenly realized. Because if he was walking, then he was constantly distracted, constantly keeping himself occupied— but if he sat in silence, focused on his breathing and his thoughts, then he was going to start thinking and Bruce would rather get hit by the train than do that—

"Bruce?"

His eyes snapped to his right.

A figure stood there. All black clothing: an oversized hoodie, cargo pants, boots, and backpack. He couldn't make out their face, or the frame of their body. Seemed short, about 5'8, voice sounded feminine. They didn't pose a threat, he concluded.