Ghost King Meets Batman

June 23rd

[Hey everybody! This is an awesome piece that was sent in by sleepisnotrealbruh please comment and tell them what you think! If you want to send me art that is still an option! I love that my art can inspire your art! If I get too many at one time I might just dedicate an entire chapter to it. Please just PM me and we can go over the details!]

June 23rd

[Please understand that we're going back a little bit for this. This chapter starts the morning of the 23rd, the day Nico left. No one has noticed that he is missing yet. Also, this is going to be a rough chapter so get your tissues ready!]

[Bruce's POV]

It was a busy morning with an important conference at Wayne Enterprises he had to attend, a board meeting right after that, and a charity luncheon at noon. This was the part of billionaire life Bruce Wayne could do without. Though the media may know him as an extravagant socialite but the truth was a lot less glamorous. He hated these shallow functions. Rubbing elbows with Gotham's elites-- an oxymoron if there ever was one-- and politicians. If you asked him, these people were the true scum of Gotham.

With his hobby, Bruce knew too much about these people to be fooled by their pristine reputations. It was a lot harder to smile and make pleasant small talk if you knew their dirty little secrets. For instance, if Batman was digging into an embezzlement scandal in someone's company that they have been using to fund their drug habit instead of paying their employees, then Bruce Wayne would have a hard time remaining pleasant.

Over the years he had grown accustomed to the nature of these so-called elites and used it to his advantage. They were gossip piranhas and could smell a juicy story a mile away. They were very adept at finding the chinks in a person's character and using it as a way to get inside someone's guard and rip their reputation apart. Once one got through, a feeding frenzy started and they would swarm until there was nothing left. Bruce had seen them do this many times. Some people deserved their fates but many hadn't. Many truly nice people had lost everything to the swarm.

The more genuinely nice someone was, the more likely the piranhas would seek out their weaknesses to exploit them. They only respected power, and kindness made one vulnerable. Bruce had learned to walk the line between courteous and rude. They were piranhas, maybe, but he did not fear them. Batman had taken measures to protect himself from them and their sharp teeth. He had been playing this game since he was a child-- analyzing them. He knew who was in whose pocket, who were secret business partners, and who hated each other. No one understood the rules as well as he did.

Rule 1: Never show that anything worries you.

Rule 2: Never raise your voice or lose your temper in public.

Rule 3: Never obviously evade a question in an interview.

Rule 4: Donate to reputable charities.

Rule 5: Know your company inside and out.

Rule 6: Your spending should reflect your earnings.

Rule 7: Never stop smiling.

Rule 8: Defend your family no matter what.

Rule 9: If you are going to lie, do it well and don't get caught.

Rule 10: Never spend more time with one family than you do any other and send gifts/cards/invites to parties, holidays, and events.

Those were the main rules. If you followed them you would probably be fine. Just stick to the rules. Bruce had spent the last decade trying to instill these rules in the boys so that they would follow them without even thinking about it. They were extensions of himself in the sense that they were now the known faces of Wayne Industries, whether that was fair or not. They were under just as much scrutiny as he was in the eyes of the public. He wished it wasn't this way, but there wasn't much way around it. The boys had needed a home and the publicity came with the territory.