Batman can save Gotham, but not his marriage
Pairing : Bruce wayne x neglected!wife!reader
Synopsis: Being Bruce Wayne's wife is glamorous, apparently. The galas, the dresses, the mansion. What they forget to mention is that your husband is technically present but practically absent, and the only way to get his attention is for a stranger to talk to you for ten minutes. Spoiler alert: it works.
Warnings : batboys (mainly Damian ofc) and a little angst, but happy ending don't worry !
Harrison Mercer's gala was like any other gala.
That is to say, it was posh, boring, and full of people smiling for reasons that had nothing to do with joy. Waiters circulated with trays of champagne and appetizers, the band played something from the last century, and everyone talked to everyone else without really listening.
You knew all about it. Four years of marriage to Bruce Wayne had made you perfectly fluent in that language.
You were wearing a long, black, understated dress. Not understated as in invisible, understated as in deliberate. Your jewelry was discreet and probably cost more than most people's cars in that room. Your hair was styled, your makeup flawless, and you smelled of that cologne Bruce had given you for your wedding anniversary last year, which was just another way of reminding him that he could still do good things when he put his mind to it.
He was on your arm when you came in. His hand on the small of your back, an automatic gesture, present without truly being there.
Twenty-three minutes later, he was gone.
On the other side of the room, Bruce was laughing with three men in suits. Not his real laugh, the other one, the one he used for galas, fake, charming, and perfectly measured. He was in his element. He always was in those moments.
You took a glass of champagne from a passing waiter's tray and looked around the room.
That was it. That had been exactly it for months. You were looking around the room while Bruce filled it.
You turned around. A man, around forty, with a pleasant smile, the quiet confidence of someone used to this kind of evening. "Thomas Elliot. I don't think we've met before."
You shook his hand and gave him your first name.
"I know who you are," he said. "Everyone knows who you are."
"That's the advantage and the disadvantage of being Mrs. Wayne."
"You've been looking around the room for twenty minutes."
You looked at him. "You've been watching me for twenty-three minutes?"
"It's hard not to." He raised his glass slightly.
"Again, everyone knows who you are."
You smiled in spite of yourself. It wasn't the most subtle compliment you'd received, but it was the first of the evening.
Out of the corner of your eye, you looked for Bruce in the room. He was still with his investors, his back turned.
"Tell me about yourself," you said to Thomas Elliot.
And you positioned yourself, quite naturally, so that you were perfectly visible from where Bruce was.
Thomas Elliot was in real estate, he had a sense of humor, and most importantly, he looked at you when you spoke. You hadn't expected that detail to matter so much. And yet...
You didn't notice him coming.
It was the change in Thomas's expression that alerted you. Something slightly less at ease, a quick readjustment, and you knew before you even sensed his presence.
Not behind you. Next to you, in that space he always occupied as if the room belonged to him, one hand resting on the small of your back with a possessive pressure. He was smiling. That particular smile, polite and icy, the one you had learned to read as a warning sign.
"Thomas Elliot," he said, with that way he had of pronouncing a name as if he knew every detail. "I didn't realize you knew my wife."
"We've just met," said Thomas, his smile now clearly that of someone reassessing his options in real time.
"Ah." Bruce said nothing more. He just kept smiling, his hand still on the small of your back, and waited.
Thomas Elliot wasn't stupid. "Good evening to you both." He raised his glass in your direction and walked away with a dignity that was perfectly appropriate under the circumstances.
Bruce watched him for a second too long.
"You were gone," you said.
"I had some associates to greet."
He turned to you. You looked around the room. There was a moment, then: "Shall we go home?"
The limo ride was silent.
Not the silence of couples who don't need to speak. The other. The one with weight, with substance, who takes up all the space without being asked. Alfred was driving on the other side of the tinted window, and the lights of Gotham were flashing outside, and Bruce was looking at his phone, and you were looking out the window, and nobody was saying anything.
At one point, he put down the phone.
Wayne Manor was lit when the limousine stopped in front of the entrance. Which meant the boys were still up, which at that hour meant Dick had convinced the others to wait for him.
Dick was in the living room with Tim, who was busy doing who-knows-what on his laptop, and Jason, who was pretending to watch television. Damian was sitting on the floor against the sofa, a book on his lap, in that position he sometimes adopted that made it seem as if he were there by chance, even though he had clearly decided to be there.
Dick stood up with that smile of his, the one that assessed a situation in a second and a half.
The smile remained but became more cautious. "Nice gala?"
"Perfect " you said with irony . "The orchestra was playing Vivaldi. Or Beethoven. I can't remember, I had plenty of time to concentrate."
Dick looked at you. Looked at you again. "Great."
Tim looked up from his screen for a second. Jason didn't move. Damian closed his book silently.
"Good night," Bruce said, crossing the living room toward his office.
The office door closed behind you.
Bruce was already loosening his tie, the computer on, on his way to becoming Bruce Wayne, the boss of Wayne Enterprises, before he'd even taken off his jacket. You watched him with that particular calm you had when you were too angry to show it right away.
"Can you tell me something?" you said.
"At what point exactly did you decide that taking me to this gala tonight was a good idea?"
He looked up. "Excuse me?"
"Because from my point of view," you said calmly, "you could just as easily have driven me there and gone home without me. The result would have been exactly the same. I would have just saved an hour in a silent limousine."
"Twenty-three minutes, Bruce!" You placed your bag on the armchair. "Twenty-three minutes after we arrived, you were gone. I had time to finish a glass of champagne, pour myself a second, look around the room, and time exactly how long it takes your husband to forget you in a room." You paused. "The answer is twenty-three minutes. In case you were wondering."
"I had Hendricks and his associates; it's a contract that represents-"
"Oh, please." You interrupted him without raising your voice, which was actually much more effective. "Don't talk to me about Hendricks. I don't care about Hendricks. I don't care about his contract. I don't care about anything Hendricks represents for Wayne Enterprises. And I say that after shaking Hendricks' hand tonight with a smile because that's what I do, Bruce. That's what I do at every gala, every dinner, every event. I smile, I remember names, I ask the right questions, and I wait for my husband to remember I'm in the same room as him."
Bruce took off his tie. "You're exaggerating."
He held your gaze for two seconds. "Okay. Maybe not."
"Maybe not," you repeated softly. "That's generous of you."
"No, you didn't. That's the problem." You sat down in the armchair, not because you were tired of standing, but because you wanted this conversation to last long enough for him to really hear what you were saying. "You never want any of this. You don't decide to forget me. You don't decide to come home at three in the morning without warning. You don't decide to stare at your phone the whole way home. It just happens. And I wait. I've been waiting for months for things to change, and nothing changes because you don't even see that there's anything that needs changing."
Bruce remained standing on the other side of the desk. He didn't say anything, which with him could mean many things: that he was searching for his words, that he was processing it, that he was preparing to argue. You weren't quite sure which one it was tonight.
"And Thomas Elliot," he said.
You closed your eyes for a second.
"Really?" you said. "That's where we are."
"You positioned yourself so I could see you."
"Yes, Bruce, I positioned myself so you could see me." You looked at him. "And you know what's sad about that? It worked. A man I didn't know two hours ago noticed within ten minutes that I was looking around the room. You only crossed this room when it seemed necessary to establish that I was your wife." You paused. "I've been your wife for four years. I didn't need Thomas Elliot to tell me that."
The silence that followed was long.
Bruce ran a hand over his face. "I don't know how to do both at the same time."
"Wayne Enterprises. The rest." The rest was Batman. You never spoke about it directly in this room, but you both knew. "And you. I don't know how, and instead of saying it, I let you compensate. Without saying a word."
"Without saying a word," you repeated. "Yes. Because I didn't want to be a burden. Because I know what you're carrying. Because I always thought if I waited a little longer, things would sort themselves out." You stood up. "They didn't sort themselves out."
"I'm tired, Bruce." Your voice was calm, but it was the calm of someone who had held on for too long. "I'm not saying I'm leaving. I'm saying I'm tired and I need to sleep somewhere else tonight."
There was something in his face at that moment, something brief and not entirely controlled, and you saw it and didn't have the strength tonight to go there.
"Good night, Bruce Thomas Wayne."
You picked up your bag and left.
In the hallway, four pairs of feet retreated silently with suspicious synchronicity.
Dick, Jason, Tim, and Damian looked at you with expressions ranging from slightly guilty to completely impassive, depending on the individual.
"You were listening at the door," you said.
"Absolutely not," said Tim.
Damian didn't say anything, which was his way of saying yes.
You looked at all four of them. You were too tired to be truly angry with them, and they probably could see it.
"Good night, ummi," Damian said.
You placed your hand on his cheek for a second. Then you headed towards the guest room at the end of the hall.
The room smelled clean and empty. Not your scent. Not Bruce's. Just the smell of laundry detergent.
You turned off the light.
In the hall, the boys exchanged a glance.
Then the four of them went downstairs to the office.
Bruce looked up when the door opened. He saw Dick first, then Jason behind him, then Tim, and finally Damian bringing up the rear with that expression he sometimes had, cold and measured, the kind that was worse than any anger.
"We didn't hear you coming," said Bruce.
The silence that followed was uneasy.
Dick took a deep breath. "Bruce-"
"No." Dick shook his head. "You don't know yet. Otherwise, she wouldn't be in the guest room." He stepped forward, and for once there was no smile, no lightheartedness, just Dick Grayson looking at the man who had raised him with something close to disappointment. "She told you she was counting the minutes. Twenty-three minutes, Bruce. She was counting because she had nothing else to do in this room."
"I have a question," Tim said. His voice was calm, almost gentle, which was the most formidable version of Tim Drake, and everyone in this room knew it. "Do you remember the last time you asked her how she was doing? Not how the evening went. How she was doing."
"Take some time to think about it," Tim said.
He didn't hesitate long before closing his mouth.
"Great," Jason said. He was leaning against the wall, arms crossed, looking at Bruce with that expression he reserved for situations that angered him but where anger alone wasn't enough. "So it's been a while. All this time she's been smiling at your galas, remembering your investors' names, waiting for you to come home, and where exactly were you?"
"No, really. Where were you? Because physically you were there, that's for sure. But the rest..." He uncrossed his arms. "She must have made her own husband jealous to get him to walk through a room. Do you realize how problematic that is?"
Damian still hadn't spoken.
He stood slightly apart, as usual, and watched his father with that peculiar patience that wasn't patience at all, but something far harder to bear.
"Ummi never asked for anything," he said finally. Slowly. Each word carefully chosen. "Not once. She came into this family and learned everything, accepted everything, carried everything without ever demanding anything in return. She loved you with all that entails." He paused. "And what did you give her tonight? A silent limousine and an argument in an office."
"She's still there," Damian said. "It's not a done deal."
"Then act accordingly," Damian said. "Tomorrow morning. Not after your emails."
He left the office without waiting for a reply. Tim followed him. Jason walked past Bruce without looking at him. Dick was the last to leave; he stopped in the doorway.
"She still loves you," Dick said simply. "That's why it hurts. People who don't care don't count the minutes."
He turned off the office light as he left, leaving Bruce alone in the dark.
The next morning, you woke up in the guest room with that brief disorientation of first moments in an unfamiliar place. Then you remembered. You stared at the ceiling for a moment. Outside, the park was gray, a quiet February gray.
The knock at the door was hesitant. Not the usual Bruce knock.
The door opened. He was in civilian clothes, no suit, no visible phone. He looked like someone who hadn't slept much and wasn't trying to hide it.
He came in, left the door open, and stood by the wall.
"I don't know how to do both at the same time," he said. No preamble. "I said it last night, but I hadn't really said it before. Not to you. Not clearly." He paused. "I should have."
You sat up in bed. You said nothing.
"That's not an excuse," he said. "It's just the truth. And while I was trying to manage both, you were managing everything else without me asking and without me even realizing it. And I'm sorry."
You looked at him. There was something different about the way he was this morning. Less armed. It was costing him, this way of standing in the doorway of a guest room in his own mansion, searching for his words, and you knew it, and it didn't solve everything, but it was real.
"I'm not asking you to stop everything," you said. "I never asked you to."
"I'm just asking you not to forget me."
"I know." He moved forward, sat on the edge of the bed a reasonable distance away, elbows on his knees. "I'm taking Monday and Tuesday off. The word sounded slightly foreign coming from him. "And Saturday, the six of us are going out. You choose where."
He didn't flinch. "Shopping."
You looked at him. "Jason's going to hate it."
"Dick's going to love it."
"Tim will bring his laptop."
"Tim always finds a way to have his laptop with him."
"And Damian will pretend for two hours that it's underneath him and end up carrying all the bags."
Bruce gave something that resembled a genuine smile. "Probably."
Something loosened in your chest. Not everything. But something.
"On the nightstand. Monday and Tuesday."
You looked at him again. He didn't look away.
He nodded. He stood up. He stopped.
"Are you coming back to our room?"
You thought for a second. "Maybe..."
He waited for you to get up, and as you passed him in the doorway, he placed his hand on the small of your back, that automatic gesture he'd always had, except this time he was really there. Really there.
But you didn't move away either.
In the hallway, Dick was sitting on the floor against the wall with two cups of coffee, looking like he'd been waiting there for a while and wasn't at all embarrassed. He looked at both of you, assessed the situation in a second and a half, and held out a cup in your direction.
He smiled. The real deal.
Further down the corridor, a door was ajar. Jason stood in the doorway, arms crossed, pretending to look away. Tim was somewhere behind him with his laptop. And Damian, at the end of the corridor, was waiting for you with that peculiar patience he sometimes possessed.
"Sabah al-khayr ummi," he said.
You placed your hand on his cheek for a second.
The following Saturday, Jason spent the first three hours with his hands in his pockets, keeping a carefully calculated distance from the group. Dick tried to be the first into each shop. Tim was doing something on his laptop, and Damian pretended for exactly two hours that it was all way beneath him, then ended up carrying four bags without anyone asking him to and without making a single comment about it.
Bruce stayed by your side all day.
His phone had been on the nightstand since Monday morning.
Sometime in the afternoon, between shops, he took your hand. Just that. Without looking around to see if anyone had noticed, for no particular reason.
You didn't let him pull it away.
Sabah al-khayr/an-noor : are terms used to greet each other in the morning ♡
thank you for reading my fic !!
