batman voice ♡ bruce wayne
: ♥︎ content WARNING : Bruce Wayne (25) × Bunny!Reader, soft domestic fluff, implied secret identity, sore throat, emotional caretaking, secrecy in a relationship / based n this here!
: ♥︎ summary : Bruce wakes up with a raw throat after a long night of using his Batman voice. His girlfriend notices right away, fusses over him, and makes him her grandmother’s special herbal tea.
: ♥︎ doll notie note . . . GUESS WHO IS BACK?
Bruce woke to the kind of throat that felt like someone had taken sandpaper to the inside of it. He swallowed once, experimentally, and the raw scrape made him wince against the pillow. The voice that came out when he tried a quiet “damn” was lower, rougher, nothing like the easy public tone he’d spent years polishing. Of course it was. He’d been using that other voice for hours the night before; growling orders into the dark, forcing the sound down into his chest the way the training manuals never warned you about. First year of this, and already his body was filing complaints he hadn’t expected.
Morning light filtered through the heavy curtains of the east wing bedroom, thin and gray, the kind Gotham specialized in. Rain tapped steadily against the tall windows. The manor smelled the way it always did at this hour: old wood, faint polish, and the distant trace of last night’s coffee from the kitchen two floors down. Bruce sat up slowly, one hand at his neck, and tested the voice again.
It came out gravelly, almost unrecognizable.
The mattress shifted, she stirred beside him, hair a mess against the pillow, one eye cracking open just right after she heard him. She was still in the short silk pajama she’d worn to bed, pale blue, the kind that caught looked like water around her when she moved. She pushed herself up on an elbow, frowning the gentle way she always frowned when something was off.
“Bruce?” Her voice was sleep-soft. “You sound terrible.”
He cleared his throat and regretted it instantly. “I’m fine.”
“You don’t sound fine.” She sat up fully now, reaching over to press the back of her hand to his forehead the way she’d done a dozen times already in the months they’d been together, with cool fingers, but completely careful. “No fever. But that voice… did you catch something last night? You were out late again.”
He hadn’t told her where. He never did (and didn't intend to either).
The cover story, charity boards, late meetings, the occasional “friend in trouble”, had held so far because she never pushed. She just looked at him like she was doing it right now, with wide eyes, worried and open, and waited.
“Probably just the weather,” he said, and the rasp made the words sound like a lie even to him. “Rain’s been relentless.”
She studied him a second longer, then swung her legs out of bed. Bare perfectly pedicured feet on the cold hardwood. “Stay there. I’m making you tea.”
“I want to.” She glanced back with that small, certain smile she used when she’d already decided. “My grandmother’s recipe fixes everything.”
He watched her leave. The silk hem of her pj's brushed the backs of her thighs as she walked quietly, heading for the grand staircase like the enormous dark house had always belonged to her. Wayne Manor could swallow people; the high ceilings, the portraits that seemed to judge, the way sound disappeared into corridors... most visitors felt it. But his sweet bunny moved through it like she’d grown up here, barefoot and soft-edged against all that heavy stone and shadow.
Bruce stayed in bed longer than he needed to, listening to the distant sounds of the kitchen coming to life.
The kettle. A cupboard door. The quiet clink of porcelain.
His throat still burned every time he swallowed. He thought about the night before, the alley, the man who’d tried to run, the way the voice had carried farther than he’d expected when he’d ordered him to stop. As he thought, the voice had been useful, effective... and now this.
By the time he made it downstairs, the kitchen smelled of lemon, honey, and something sharper underneath—ginger, maybe, or the dried herbs she kept in a little tin she’d brought from the penthouse she still technically shared with her parents. She stood at the counter, hair pulled into a loose knot, bare feet on the cool tile. The short silk dress looked almost luminous against the dark wood cabinets and the rain streaked windows behind her.
She turned when she heard him, holding out a steamy mug. “Careful. It’s hot.”
He took it. The first sip was better than it had any right to be, smooth, slightly sweet, the heat sinking into the raw places in his throat and easing them. He closed his eyes for a second.
“Yeah.” He took another swallow. “Really good.”
She leaned against the counter, watching him with that soft look of hers. “You should rest today. Skip whatever meetings you had. I’ll call if you want.”
“I’ll be fine by afternoon.”
“You always say that.” She reached out and adjusted the collar of the shirt he’d thrown on, fingers brushing his neck. “Just… take it easy? Your voice sounds like it hurts.”
It did. More than he’d admit.
He drank more of the tea, already thinking about asking for a second cup later, and maybe a third. Part of it was the relief in his throat. The rest was the way she moved through the kitchen, quiet, elegant even in pajamas, the silk shifting when she turned to rinse a spoon or check the rain outside. She belonged here in a way that still surprised him. The manor’s darkness didn’t seem to touch her, or maybe she simply refused to see it.
Bruce set the mug down and rested his hands on the counter, feeling the residual heat in his palms. Outside, the rain kept falling. Somewhere in the city the things he’d left unfinished last night were still waiting. He could already feel the pull of the other voice, the other hours. But for now there was tea that actually helped, and Anna standing barefoot in his kitchen like the night and the voice and the secrets were someone else’s problem.
“Make me another one later?” he said, and the roughness in his throat made the request sound almost like a different man speaking.
She smiled, small and pleased. “Of course. As many as you want.”
© RSKDOLL 2025 — written by me and only me.