Pairing: Bruce Wayne x f!reader
Summary: The Justice League members think Batman is in love with Bruce Wayne's wife.
Pretense was part of the uniform, one of the many accessories that came with being married to Bruce Wayne. There was the public smile, the attentive nod, the light laugh at jokes that were more networking than humor. There was the practiced patience of standing beside Gotham’s favorite billionaire philanthropist while donors praised his generosity and reporters angled for the most flattering shot.
Central City was no different.
The exhibition hall glittered with glass, an architectural marvel overlooking the bay. Artifacts rotated slowly under museum lights, historical pieces saved from war zones, sculptures donated by impossibly wealthy patrons. All of it in the name of charity. All of it surrounded by security that looked impressive enough to reassure civilians, but flimsy enough that you felt Bruce’s hand rest a fraction more firmly at the small of your back as you walked.
You leaned slightly toward him. “You look tense.”
Bruce’s smile didn’t falter. His eyes, however, tracked the exits, the balconies, the structural beams overhead. “Occupational hazard.”
“You’re not on duty tonight,” you murmured. “You’re allowed to relax.”
His mouth curved, barely. “I’ll try.”
He looked unfairly handsome in his tailored black suit, hair brushed back, cufflinks catching the light. The tabloids had long since moved on from calling him Gotham’s most eligible bachelor. A couple of years married, and the narrative had softened. Settled. Reformed. Lucky.
They were not wrong about the lucky part.
You accepted a glass of champagne from a passing server and turned to watch a small knot of people arguing amiably near a display case.
Bruce squeezed your hand once, quick and grounding, before letting go as someone approached to greet him. You listened to the polite exchange with half an ear, already cataloging the room the way Bruce had taught you, without ever meaning to. Old habit.
You were reaching for another sip of champagne when the lights went out.
For half a heartbeat, there was only confusion. A collective intake of breath. Then the alarms screamed to life, harsh and metallic, and the floor shuddered beneath your feet as something heavy struck the far end of the hall.
“Bruce...” you started, already turning toward him.
Not vanished in a puff of smoke or a blur of motion but absent nonetheless. The space beside you where he had been was suddenly empty, and your pulse spiked with a familiar mix of irritation and resignation.
You didn’t have time to dwell on it. The display cases along the walls shattered as masked figures dropped in from the ceiling, weapons humming with energy you very much did not want to be near. Someone screamed. Security scattered like startled birds.
You set your champagne down carefully on a nearby table and straightened your spine.
You moved the way Bruce had taught you, calm and efficient, guiding people toward the exits, keeping your voice low and steady. “This way. No running. Watch your step.”
The air crackled, and suddenly there was a red blur tearing through the hall, lightning snapping at his heels.
“Okay!” Barry Allen’s voice echoed, far too cheerful for the circumstances. “Everyone stay calm, we’ve got this under control...whoa!”
A green construct slammed into the floor, blocking a blast aimed at a cluster of civilians. Hal Jordan hovered above them, jaw set. “You guys pick the worst places to rob.”
The villains snarled back, emboldened but clearly unprepared for two members of the Justice League.
You allowed yourself a brief exhale. Good. Backup.
Then the temperature in the room seemed to drop.
It wasn’t literal. It was presence.
A shadow detached itself from the far wall, resolving into something tall and armored and unmistakable. The cape unfurled like a living thing, and suddenly Batman was there, moving through the chaos with terrifying precision.
Barry skidded to a stop mid-run. “Uh. Hi?”
Hal’s eyes widened. “What the hell is he doing here?”
Batman didn’t answer. He never did, not when it wasn’t strictly necessary. He disarmed one attacker with brutal efficiency, sending them sprawling, then pivoted seamlessly to shield a group of fleeing civilians.
Your heart did a small, treacherous flip.
There he was. In his other skin. Cold, unyielding, myth made flesh.
And then his head turned, and the white slits of his cowl locked onto you.
He crossed the distance between you in seconds. He stopped just close enough that you could see the faint scuff marks on his armor, the subtle rise and fall of his chest.
“Are you injured?” he asked.
The voice was different. Deeper. Filtered. But you heard what lay beneath it all the same.
You shook your head. “I’m fine.”
He scanned you anyway, gaze flicking over you with a thoroughness that would have looked invasive if anyone else had been watching closely enough. His gloved hand hovered near your elbow—not touching, not quite, but ready.
Behind him, you could practically feel Barry and Hal’s eyes widen.
Batman nodded once. “Stay behind me.”
“As if I wouldn’t,” you murmured, just for him.
Something in his posture eased. Just a fraction.
He guided you toward the nearest secure exit, positioning himself so that his body blocked you from the worst of the chaos. A blast went off somewhere to your left, and he shifted instinctively, cape flaring to shield you.
Barry’s jaw dropped. “Is...is he…being gentle?”
Hal squinted. “Is that Bruce Wayne’s wife?”
Batman stopped at the edge of the hall, where emergency lighting cast everything in stark red shadows. He turned to face you fully.
“Wait here,” he said. “I’ll clear the rest.”
You reached out without thinking, fingers brushing his armored forearm. The contact was brief, easily missed, but his hand closed over yours for a heartbeat.
“Be careful,” you said softly.
His thumb pressed once against your knuckles, hidden from view. “Always.”
Then he was gone again, swallowed by smoke, vengeance personified as he tore back into the fray.
You leaned against the wall and let yourself breathe.
From your vantage point, you watched Barry and Hal regroup, their expressions oscillating between focus and bafflement as they fought alongside Gotham’s Dark Knight. The villains were subdued quickly after that, no one was stupid enough to stick around once Batman had joined the party.
Within minutes, the hall was secure.
Emergency responders flooded in. Civilians were escorted out. The adrenaline drained from your system, leaving you pleasantly tired.
Batman reappeared at your side as if summoned by the thought alone.
“Still all right?” he asked.
You smiled. “Told you. Hard to scare me.”
A huff of something like amusement escaped him before he could stop it.
Batman inclined his head to you. “You should rejoin your husband.” Then he straightened, already retreating behind the mask. “Excuse me.”
He disappeared into the night as efficiently as he’d arrived.
The moment he was gone, Barry rounded on Hal, eyes bright with excitement. “Did you see that?”
Hal crossed his arms. “Oh, I saw it.”
“I think,” Hal said slowly, “that Batman has a thing for Bruce Wayne’s wife.”
Barry made a face. “No way. He’s not...he wouldn’t...she’s married.”
“So?” Hal shot back. “Since when does having principles mean you don’t have feelings? Did you hear his voice? He sounded like he was one bad day away from writing poetry.”
Barry snorted despite himself. “Batman doesn’t write poetry.”
“In the Batcave,” Hal said darkly. “Crying. Surrounded by bats.”
Barry hesitated. “He does always get weird when Bruce Wayne comes up.”
“Exactly!” Hal jabbed a finger in the air. “Brooding vigilante hates billionaire playboy who somehow landed a smart, self-made woman and settled down. Classic.”
Barry glanced toward you, then back at Hal. “You think he’s been pining?”
“I think he sees her face on billboards and charity galas and tells himself it’s fine,” Hal said. “It’s not fine. Look how miserable he is all the time. I've always wondered what's wrong with him.”
Barry winced. “That’s…kind of sad.”
You returned to Bruce Wayne not long after, finding him emerging from a different corridor, tie loosened, expression carefully arranged into concern.
The night ended the way these things always did: with sirens fading into the distance, reporters swarming like carrion birds, and Bruce Wayne reappearing at your side with a perfectly calibrated expression of concern.
You took his arm as cameras flashed.
“Mr. Wayne,” someone called, breathless with excitement. “Can you tell us how it felt to have Batman personally assist in evacuating your wife?”
Bruce’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. His hand rested warm and steady over yours.
“We’re grateful no one was seriously injured,” he said smoothly. “That’s all that matters.”
You smiled on cue, letting the attention roll off you. Somewhere behind the press barricade, you caught a glimpse of red and green disappearing into the night.
You didn’t see the looks they exchanged.
Barry Allen had replayed the footage in his head at least a dozen times by the time he and Hal Jordan regrouped on the Watchtower.
Not the fight. Not the villains.
The way Batman had moved toward you.
“Tell me you noticed it too,” Barry said, pacing. “Because I feel like I hallucinated that.”
Hal leaned back in his chair, arms crossed. “I noticed.”
“He didn’t even hesitate.”
Barry grimaced. “It was…intimate.”
Hal scoffed. “Don’t say intimate.”
Hal’s jaw clenched. “He had his hand on her elbow like...like he was afraid she’d disappear.”
Barry stopped pacing. “Okay, now you’re making me sad.”
“I’m making me angry,” Hal shot back. “He’s always lecturing us about boundaries and civilians and keeping emotion out of the job, and then he pulls that?”
“Maybe it was just...” Barry hesitated. “Concern?”
Hal stared at him. “For one specific civilian. Who happens to be Bruce Wayne’s wife.”
Barry rubbed the back of his neck. “I mean…Batman doesn’t exactly like Bruce Wayne.”
“That’s putting it mildly,” Hal said. “Every time Bruce Wayne’s name comes up, he shuts down like someone insulted his mother.”
Hal leaned forward. “He hates him.”
“Because Bruce Wayne has everything he can’t,” Hal said flatly. “Charm. A public life. A wife who looks at him like that.”
Barry swallowed. “You really think he’s in love with her.”
Hal didn’t answer immediately.
Then: “I think he’s been in love with her for a long time.”
They decided, very reasonably, they thought, to investigate.
Batman didn’t appreciate it.
They found him in the Batcave satellite hub on the Watchtower, reviewing holographic schematics with his usual grim focus.
“Hey, Bats,” Barry said brightly. “Got a minute?”
Batman didn’t look up. “Make it quick.”
Hal exchanged a glance with Barry. Showtime.
“We were just curious,” Hal began, casual to the point of falsehood, “about why you were in Central City.”
Batman’s fingers paused over the controls. Just for a fraction of a second. “Unrelated investigation.”
“Right,” Barry said. “Totally. Makes sense.”
Barry pressed on, gently. “So, uh…Bruce Wayne.”
Batman’s shoulders went rigid.
“What about him?” Batman asked, voice cool.
“You’ve worked with him before,” Barry said. “Charity stuff. Gotham initiatives. Just wondered what you think of him.”
Batman turned slowly, cape whispering against the floor.
Hal raised his hands. “No reason. Just small talk.”
Batman’s gaze flicked between them, sharp and assessing. For one awful moment, he wondered if this was it, if Superman had finally said something, if the walls were closing in.
“Bruce Wayne is irrelevant,” he said briskly. “And his personal life is none of my concern.”
“Got it,” Barry said quickly. “Didn’t mean to pry.”
“Then don’t,” Batman snapped. “Focus on the mission.”
He turned back to his work, dismissing them.
The moment the doors sealed behind them, Hal let out a low whistle.
“Oh yeah,” he said. “He hates Bruce Wayne.”
Barry winced. “Or he’s jealous.”
Hal shot him a look. “That’s worse.”
The final nail went in a week later.
Batman was supposed to be reviewing mission reports, metahuman sightings, arms trafficking, things that mattered.
Instead, when Barry breezed by unannounced, he found Batman standing utterly still in front of a floating screen.
You were mid-interview, seated elegantly at a Gotham charity luncheon, hands folded in your lap as you spoke about education reform and community rebuilding. You smiled when the interviewer laughed, eyes bright, posture composed.
Batman hadn’t realized anyone was behind him.
Barry followed his line of sight, then froze.
Batman shut the screen down instantly. “This is not what it looks like.”
Barry didn’t move. “You were watching Bruce Wayne’s wife.”
Batman’s jaw tightened. “I was monitoring public coverage.”
“She is frequently present at high-risk events,” Batman said, defensive now. “Awareness is prudent.”
Barry’s voice softened. “You don’t watch anyone else like that.”
Barry left without another word.
That night, he found Hal.
“He watches her interviews,” Barry said.
Hal’s eyes went dark. “Of course he does.”
Barry sank onto the couch. “That’s…that’s really rough, man.”
“Rough?” Hal scoffed. “It’s inappropriate.”
Barry frowned. “I think it’s just sad.”
Hal rounded on him. “He’s Batman. He’s always on us about professionalism. And now he’s pining over a married civilian?”
“Unrequited love isn’t a crime.”
“It’s a scandal waiting to happen,” Hal snapped. “Bruce Wayne’s wife? You know what the media would do if they even suspected something?”
Barry hesitated. “He’d never act on it.”
Hal crossed his arms. “You sure about that?”
Barry looked down. “I just think…being Batman in Gotham is already hell. Loving someone you can never have on top of that?”
Hal didn’t soften. “He doesn’t get a pass just because he’s miserable.”
They cornered Red Robin a few days later.
Tim Drake landed lightly on the Watchtower platform, mask still on, clearly expecting a briefing, not an interrogation.
“Hey,” Barry said, trying to sound friendly. “Got a question for you.”
Tim stiffened immediately. “About what?”
Hal smiled in a way that made Tim’s instincts scream. “Bruce Wayne’s wife.”
Tim’s head snapped up. “What about her?”
Barry raised his hands. “Easy. We were just wondering...have you ever met her?”
You flashed through his mind instantly: the way you’d insisted he eat more, the way you’d sat with him after nightmares, the hand on his shoulder that had felt safe when nothing else did.
“She’s a great woman,” Tim said sharply.
Hal’s brows shot up. “So you do know her.”
Tim realized his mistake too late. “I mean...I don’t know her well.”
Barry tilted his head. “But Batman does.”
Batman’s orders rang loud and clear in his head.
Protect the mission. Protect the secret.
“I’m still pretty young,” Tim said finally, carefully. “Batman…knows her better than I do.”
Barry’s mouth fell open. “He talks about her to you?”
Tim bristled. “That’s not what I said.”
Hal laughed, sharp and triumphant. “Oh, he pines.”
Barry groaned. “Oh my god, he pines so hard he’s briefing his sidekick about her.”
Tim stared at them, baffled and increasingly alarmed. “You’re reading way too much into this.”
Hal clapped him on the shoulder. “Kid, you’ll understand when you’re older.”
Tim watched them walk away, unease curling in his stomach.
Somehow, impossibly, they had come closer to the truth, and still missed it entirely.
Back in Gotham, you poured Bruce a cup of tea and kissed his temple as he passed you, already slipping into shadow.
“You look tense,” you murmured.
You smiled, unaware that half the Justice League was currently convinced your husband spent his nights in the Batcave, brooding over you from afar: a tragic, noble fool in love with Bruce Wayne’s wife.
The universe had an impeccable sense of timing.
On the one day the Justice League was away, negotiating a fragile ceasefire on a red-skied planet whose sun hummed wrong in human bones, you were scheduled to speak in Metropolis.
Bruce hadn’t argued. That alone should have warned you.
“You’ll be fine,” he’d said, calm in the way that always meant he was anything but. “Metropolis is one of the safest cities on the planet.”
You’d smiled, adjusted his tie, kissed him. “I’ll be surrounded by reporters and security. What could possibly happen?”
Lex Luthor struck fifteen minutes into your panel.
It started with the lights.
They dimmed, not out, just low enough to make people uneasy. The massive screen behind you flickered, your face fracturing into static before resolving into a familiar, smug expression.
The audience gasped. Security surged forward.
“Good evening, Metropolis,” Lex purred, his voice amplified and everywhere at once. “And good evening to Gotham’s most beloved philanthropist by marriage.”
Somewhere across the galaxy, Bruce Wayne felt his blood turn to ice when he received a distress message.
Protocols shattered. Priorities reordered with brutal clarity.
He fired off encrypted signals faster than conscious thought.
Nightwing.
Red Robin.
Batgirl.
Immediate response. Metropolis. Luthor. She’s there.
The reply pings came back almost instantly.
On my way.
Already en route.
I’m five minutes out.
It wasn’t enough. It would never be enough.
By the time a jet tore through Metropolis airspace, the city was already in chaos. Lex’s private security, augmented, armored, overconfident, had locked down the perimeter around the conference center.
Nightwing dropped in from above, escrima sticks flashing. Batgirl disabled the building’s internal systems. Red Robin coordinated evac routes, his voice steady even as his eyes scanned for you.
For one suspended second, the world narrowed to the sight of you standing there: unhurt, furious, very much alive.
His shoulders sagged, just barely.
“You all right?” he asked.
You nodded. “Lex talks too much.”
Lex was apprehended within the hour.
The aftermath, however, was messier.
Too late to be useful. Too late to feel anything but sidelined.
Lex was cuffed, the civilians safe, and Gotham’s vigilante family standing shoulder to shoulder like they’d planned this for weeks.
Hal hovered above the scene, incandescent with irritation.
“Oh, come on,” he snapped. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
He called the League so they could watch it live.
Batman didn’t look at him, only at the footage.
“…Okay,” Barry said slowly. “That feels excessive.”
Hal descended, fists clenched. “This is exactly what I’m talking about.”
Batman finally stepped into the camera's view. “If you have something to say...”
“You called your entire crew,” Hal cut in. “For one civilian.”
Barry frowned. “A very important civilian.”
Hal shot him a look. “She’s not League. She’s not military. She’s not even in Gotham.”
Batman’s voice went cold. “Watch your tone.”
“Oh, so now you care about tone?” Hal snapped. “You’re always lecturing us about professionalism, about emotional distance. And then you pull this? This is getting out of hand.”
They didn’t confront him that night.
They started following him instead.
Hal didn’t even feel bad about it.
Batman thought he was alone, back in the Watchtower’s auxiliary hangar, exhaustion finally settling into his bones.
He activated a secure line.
Hal slowed his breathing. Barry stilled time just enough to listen.
Batman’s voice, unguarded and low, carried easily.
“I just needed to hear your voice.”
Barry could not believe his ears.
“I know it’s late. I won’t keep you.”
“I wish I could see you.”
Another pause. A faint exhale.
“Who cares about that. It doesn’t matter to me.”
Barry swallowed. “Oh no.”
“I’m fine,” he said quietly. “I just…missed you.”
Barry stared at Hal, horrified. “That’s…that’s really bad, right?”
Hal’s face was thunderous. “He’s trying to seduce her.”
Barry’s voice wobbled. “What if she doesn’t know?”
They argued until morning.
The intervention was a disaster.
They cornered Batman in the briefing room the next day, both of them grim, resolved, utterly convinced of their moral high ground.
“This stops now,” Hal said without preamble.
Batman stared. “Excuse me?”
Barry folded his arms, clearly uncomfortable. “We heard the call.”
The blood drained from his face so fast Hal nearly missed it.
“You were listening,” Batman said carefully.
Hal took that as confirmation. “So you admit it.”
“That you’re emotionally compromised,” Hal snapped. “That you’re pursuing a married civilian.”
Barry winced. “He’s not denying it.”
Batman’s voice dropped to something lethal. “Explain. Slowly.”
Hal launched into it: every look, every moment, the call, the words. The imagined affair. The impending scandal.
Batman listened in silence.
Once. Sharp. Disbelieving.
“You think,” he said slowly, “that I’m trying to get Bruce Wayne’s wife to cheat on him.”
Hal crossed his arms. “You said ‘I miss you’.”
Barry’s eyes widened. “You...”
Batman pinched the bridge of his nose. “Because she’s my wife.”
Batman looked up, eyes blazing. “Yes.”
Barry whispered, “Oh my god.”
Hal shook his head. “That’s not funny.”
Barry’s brain visibly rebooted. “You’re…Bruce Wayne.”
Batman didn’t confirm it.
Hal sank into a chair. “So all of that...”
“...was me,” Batman said flatly. “Being worried about my spouse.”
Barry groaned, hands over his face. “We thought you were a tragic creep.”
Batman’s mouth twitched despite himself. “I noticed.”
a/n: Divider credit to @strangergraphics-archive
