Poker Face | Bruce Wayne

one

Bruce Wayne did not get nervous.

He'd seen too much. He'd experienced too much. He'd walked and crawled and fought through life without so much as a complaint. He didn't ask for praise, or for thanks. For any type of credit. He was wordless.

Sitting in the silence was a clear space for him to control his emotions. To squash down nervousness, fear, despair, hopelessness: the logical human reactions to the terrors he faced. To burn them until there was nothing left but dry, heaving anger— that made him feel powerful. It made him feel inhumane. A god among men, as the tabloids liked to plaster all over the news.

But, there was one thing. Just one. It was so insignificant, so inconsequential. One small thing that gave him a queasy pit in his stomach which went against everything he portrayed himself to be.

He tried everything to get rid of it. His usual approach of being trapped in his thoughts until he rationalized why he felt anything but indifferent, failed. He turned to Tibetan mediation from his weeks with the Shaolin monks. Fail. He internally chastised himself countless times, externally took it out on low-life thugs, and reminded himself that, frankly, it just wasn't a big deal.

Nothing worked. It didn't matter what he did or how he did it. He couldn't control it. Bruce wasn't an idiot, and even though he had rightfully earned himself the label, "World's Greatest Detective," he could still take things at face value.

With boiling irritation, he chalked up the uneasy feeling to one thing: nervousness.

The elevator doors slid open with a cheerful ding, ringing in his ears against the otherwise deafening silence. He was greeted by the usual red-haired woman at a desk, who gave him a warm grin that didn't quite reach her eyes. Janette, he's fairly sure her name was. He fixed his suit jacket with a cool smile as he stepped into the long hallway.

"Mr. Wayne." Her tone was smooth and monotone as she unabashedly raked his figure, landing on his silver watch. Greed flickered in her weathered eyes before she took a deep breath and looked back up at him. "Ms. Elias is ready whenever you are. Can I interest you in a tea before you go in? Chamomile— relaxes the nerves. We could get to know each other better."

Bruce was aware her intentions were obviously on his money, but the choice of words made him apprehensive. He was a good actor— it probably should've been his career, if he had chosen a more... traditional path in life— so knew his underlying stress wasn't showing. However, the inner detective in the back of his head suggested that somehow the woman could still sense it.

He gave her a fake chuckle, the one he used when clinking champagne glasses with fellow socialites. "I actually had some just before I got here. Thank you though, Janette. You're always so very kind when I come in."

The woman's pale skin flushed pink and she looked back down at her computer. He took that as his signal to walk to the room at the end of the hall.

By rough calculations, it was only around thirty feet long. That distance would hardly take his confident strides more than a few seconds to close, yet for some reason, it felt like an eternity. The door was open ahead of him, revealing the end of the conference table and a large window behind it. The hallway was illuminated in a faded orange glow from the approaching dusk, almost seeming hellish.

Ironic, considering he had once quite literally walked himself into the doors of Apokolips to save Superman from the hands of Darkseid.

Bruce reached the entrance to the room. He took in the only figure occupying the seat at the head of the table. She didn't look up or even address him, too busy writing something down on a stack of papers in front of her. He took his usual place at the opposite end.