can u do another bruce x male reader angst
Definitely 😌 I’ve got a lot of angst in me.
Since you didn’t specify, I took it and ran with it. Anywayss Enjoy 😉😮💨
Soo, this is longer than I planned 🧝🏻🥹 And there’s gonna be a part 2, probably 🫣😮💨
Warnings of sorts: major injury, character death, diverging from canon.
Small summary: After an attack by the Joker, the bat family is thrown into an unlikable situation, unfortunate even. M/n is stuck in the hospital, barely living. And who knows what happened to the rest? Alfred won’t really talk about it.
“This is your legacy. Watch careful, love, as it all falls and burns. To the ground with your house of stone.”
They were tied together by the moon, under the stars of a clear sky, on the rooftop of the manor. A lapse in time, a glimpse of the universe. They were happy in that moment. Only them and the quiet world.
M/n recalls it being a clear sky. Yes, it had to be in order to light up Bruce’s face just so. Or maybe it was the man’s eyes, those who lit up the whole sky. Often times, M/n thinks about this and that, and everything is muddy, but the brightest memories still shine through.
That’s what makes him sure they’re real. They are too strong to be stomped down by the heaviness, too alive to dissipate.
There are days in which he feels he forgets everything, but then Alfred visits, and the memories are alive again. Painfully so.
“Master M/n,” Alfred would say, “How is your morning?” And M/n would understand it was indeed morning.
“Hello, Alfred.” Momentum, he remembers both of their names. “I see you better today.” He tries for a smile, uncertain of the success.
“That is great news, sir.” M/n can’t make out the details of Alfred’s face, but he hears the extension of a smile in his voice.
Later, they are drinking tea, the tension in M/n’s shoulders not soothed by the liquid, “Alfred, when can I come home?” Silence follows.
M/n sees the movement of Alfred placing down his cup, “Soon, sir. Probably next week, if things go well.”
“Yes, but you’ve been saying this for a while now.” He recalls in the haziness. “I reckon, if I stay here more, I’ll go crazy, Alfred. I wanna come home. I wanna see Bruce and the kids.” His voice is overwhelmed with tremors. He can’t feel his face half the time, but now he feels the stinging in his eyes.
M/n is almost startled by Alfred’s hand over his own. “Master M/n… I’ll see what I can do. I’ve been trying, remember?”
Right. He… remembers. “Thank you, Alfred.”
Later that week M/n is allowed to go home. Happiness fills him. Like fireworks on the night sky, his chest is filled with emotion.
Yes, he is finally going home.
Alfred comes to pick him up around 1 p.m. He is moved in a wheeling chair through the hospital. He can’t see all the faces around him, but the doctor and the few nurses he does see and recognize, he says goodbye to. He is happy, so he leaves them all with a smile.
In the car, Alfred tells him all about the changes around the house and the land around it. Like how the rose garden is gone —there is a momentary pang in M/n’s chest, but he doesn’t let himself be deterred by it—, or how the paintings from the hallways had been moved to a guest room now turned storage room, or how Jason moved all of his stuff back into the mansion, but he didn’t actually come around to inhabit his old room, or how Damian is now taking care of most of the affairs of the mansion and company.
“Since you’ve been gone, young master Damian has been given a lot of new responsibilities.” Alfred adds, not as an after thought, but carefully building up to it. “He should be home, at the moment, but there is always the possibility of him being away. He is leaving two weeks from now, for a conference in Vienna.”
“That’s wonderful. Such a nice place. I… Bruce took me there. Yes. A few years ago. Very nice.” M/n is sure his smile persists. How could it not? He is finally going home. To his Bruce. To his sons. To his life, after the endless time in that horrid hospital room with white walls and shadows and the buzzing of the fluorescent light above, barely perceptible.
The car parked, Alfred helps M/n up the ramp and into the foyer.
The door opens before Alfred goes for the handle. Beyond the opening door, the tired face of one Damian Wayne comes as the most welcoming sight. As soon as the boy’s —he is still the small boy M/n used to read to sleep, or sing to— eyes landed on his parent, he visibly relaxes. His stance falls into something more fitted for his age. M/n can’t see a smile on his face, but that isn’t saying much. He can’t really see much anyway, in the light. Nonetheless, even through the sting caused by daylight, M/n can’t help the unabashed happiness slipping onto his every feature. He extends his arms, wide and welcoming. And Damian falls to his knees, into his parents arms.
“Hi, dad.” The boy whispers softly.
“Hello, baby.” M/n feels tears soak his shirt. “Oh, baby. What happened, love?” The man gives Damian’s head comforting caresses.
“I just missed you.” Damian gets out through a shudder. Oh, why is his baby crying? No, he shouldn’t be crying. M/n is here now, it’s okay.
“I missed you too, honey.” Damian lowers himself until his head rests in his father’s lap. M/n’s hand still moves through Damian’s raven locks.
Damian squeezes M/n’s waist, “I’m sorry, dad. I’m sorry.” His son is trembling. He must be so tired. Did he sleep well? His poor baby. M/n should’ve been here for him.
“Why are you sorry? You have nothing to be sorry for, love.” M/n feels his own eyes sting harder, but not from light.
“I’m sorry I didn’t come see you. I’m so sorry.” Damian’s voice is muffled by him being pressed against M/n.
“Hey. Hey. Honey, it’s okay. Alfred told me you’ve been working so hard. My baby isn’t a baby anymore. You’re taking care of the family. I’m so proud of you, Dami.” M/n feels a tear falling. Alfred places his warm hand on M/n’s shoulder, but he can only look at Damian’s blurry form falling apart at his feet.
“No, dad. I… I didn’t come because… I was afraid. Of what I’d see. So I used everything as an excuse to stay away. I’m sorry, dad.”
M/n’s lower lip is filled with tremors, tears glistening in his eyes, “It’s okay, it’s okay, Dami. I’m home now.”
M/n holds his son for a while, caressing him, trying to reassure him with all the love he has.
“Where are the others?” M/n asks as Damian raises to shaky feet.
Damian visibly freezes, but forcibly relaxes himself, “Well… I’m not really sure what Todd is up to, but he literally moved his stuff here, then proceeded to up and go.” The boy pauses as he moves behind M/n, wheeling him to the stairs, where there is already a built in type of elevator just for him, one you see in movies. Damian attaches the back of his wheelchair to the machine. “And father… Father doesn’t leave his room during the day, only at night, but as Batman.”
“What?” M/n stares at his son incredulously, as he is raised by the machine, Damian following closely by, walking up the stairs.
“I know Batman is doing a great job, as always. But I don’t know how father is doing. He wouldn’t talk to us.” Damian looks into his parent’s eyes pleadingly. The boy can guess that his dad doesn’t see this detail. But, still, he can’t help but want to beg for M/n to make things better, like he always did.
“I’m sorry, baby, that you had to go through this. I’ll talk to Bruce myself. Only with a bit of help.” M/n chuckles as the machine gets to the top of the stairs.
Damian’s lungs and heart finally seem to realize that M/n is home, that he isn’t alone, that maybe they can do this. Call it false hope, but it’s everything the boy can cling to.
Once at the door leading into the master bedroom, M/n looks at Damian with the intent to reassure. As if telling him ‘it’s okay, you can rest, I’ll take care of things now’. And so, he is left alone by his son, followed closely by Alfred, who also seems different all of a sudden, lighter even. He is gonna make them a nice dinner, for four, and not for one.
M/n would be lying if he says he doesn’t hesitate. Because he does hesitate. And he hates himself for that. His Bruce needs him. This is no place or time for backing away.
“Bruce?” The silence is deafening. “Are you there, honey?” He wheels himself —his arms are weak, so he finds it a tiny bit more difficult than he originally thought it would be— closer to the door. Where he places his open palm on the hard oaken door. There is no answer from the other side, but M/n isn’t known for giving up easily. It’s how him and Bruce got together, then married. He knows when to push and he knows when Bruce is keeping himself from his own happiness.
“Bruce, I’m home now. You can open the door.” M/n says a bit louder. And this time he is startled by the sound of hurried steps and crashing from beyond the door.
The door opens before he can say anything.
And his Bruce is there. He looks tired, and his features are clearer because in the manor there is darkness. And M/n sees how much Damian is becoming more and more like his father, for Bruce falls to his knees in front of him, hands grabbing at his face and hair, cupping his cheeks in hurried strokes. M/n believes the tears that fall from Bruce’s eyes and onto his blotchy cheeks. He doesn’t know how many times he’s seen Bruce cry before. It hasn’t been much, but there were plenty times to know that M/n’s husband doesn’t trust people with his tears and his pain. And most of the time, he doesn’t even trust himself with it. It pains M/n to see the man he loves in pain, so he ends up placing his hands over his darling’s hands, keeping them on his cheeks.
“… M/n” His husband’s voice is coarse, unused.
“Bruce.” M/n says his name, to ground Bruce with his own voice. “What happened to you, my Bruce?”
Bruce doesn’t say anything at first, but after long seconds, there are those same two words that came out of his son’s mouth, “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, love.” He has never seen Bruce like this. This broken. Falling apart. What happened? Where are Dick and Tim? Nobody said anything about them yet. What were his memories trying to keep away from him? M/n really needs to know. “I can’t remember what happened that well. Please, tell me what happened, my Bruce.” M/n squeezes Bruce’s hands into his own and brings them to his lap.
M/n is afraid of the unknown. What is he missing? Why is everyone so down? Why was he in the hospital for weeks on end?
“What did you do, love? Why are you upset?” Bruce raises to his feet, slowly and weak, and M/n has never seen him like this. Bruce goes behind him and wheels him into their bedroom.
Bruce lifts him up with care. Closer to his face, M/n can see his expression better and it hurts him to see his husband in this pain. Bruce places him on the bed, with soft movements and soft touches.
“Talk to me, Bruce.” M/n cups Bruce’s cheeks in his palms when the man sits next to him on the bed.
“No, no, I can’t, M/n, I can’t, no.” Bruce shakes his head. M/n can’t help but feel out of balance, out of place, out of touch. He has never seen his husband this startled. They’ve had moments in which they’ve shared their fears and problems and what not. But M/n has never seen his Bruce this shaken up.
“Come on. Talk to me, Bruce.” He presses on.
“I.. Oh god…” Bruce whispers through a clenched jaw.
“Love, please…” There is desperation in M/n’s voice.
“God… God, how, how can I tell you? How can I possibly tell you?” Bruce puts a distance between them as he rises from the bed. Covering his face, he blocks away M/n’s view of his expression.
“Bruce? Bruce… Bruce!” M/n raises his voice, feeling his tongue become numb and surplus in his mouth.
“Ah, I, I…” Bruce takes a deep breath looking at the ceiling, “Di…” His voice fades. “Dick and Tim,” M/n fees the air become stale around him, and the constant pressure in his chest that never seems to go away increases. Breathing suddenly becomes harder and there is the faint feeling of suffocation. “They are gone. Because of me. I …killed them.”
And that suffocating feeling is back tenfold.
The world is swimming around them and he can feel it all flowing beyond the ground, and he is falling too, into his own hell. He doesn’t know where he is anymore, but his body is too small for him and his heart is so big and so loud it breaks at his thoracic cavity. His lungs aren’t big enough, however, cowering before his beating, pumping heart, smaller and smaller by the second. There isn’t enough air. There will never be enough air. This is how he is dying. He wants to die. He wants to die now, to disappear.
He hears screaming. After long seconds it becomes obvious it is him who is screaming, clawing at his throat, eyes hurting with tears that burn him to the core. He scratches his throat like he wants to get out of his own skin. And if he were any more conscious, he would now exactly how to kill himself in that moment. The words keep repeating in his head, however, in an endless loop that wants to keep him there, caged in his disbelief.
Because, when he wakes up, he is in the rose garden, somehow.
