#repuatation

a battinson fic, fem!reader, reader insert, riddler is conspiring against reader, reader has a budding relationship with b. wayne, as well as an established business-ish relationship with the batman, ongoing/not finished.

synopsis: A doctor of criminology, Y/N has been secretly conspiring with the masked vigilante of Gotham, the Batman. Despite her secret, she has rose to a sort of fame within the police department, and at a banquet honoring her success, she is shot. Bruce Wayne rescues her, and fights an ever-growing attachment to her. Meanwhile, she conspires with the Batman to catch the perpetrator that is targeting her. As tensions rise and she discovers that the shooter is much more dangerous than she previously believed him to be, she fights internal battles of complicated feelings towards the two banes of her existence: Bruce Wayne, and the Batman.

content warnings for this chapter: alcohol, mention of bruises and cuts

a/n: writers block has been real. also I am so hyperfixated on the absolute DILF of a man, doctor stephen strange, which is making it so hard to write bruce. god be with me, and as always, enjoy.

taglist (?!): @darling-imobsessed

. . .

CHAPTER THIRTEEN -

Billionaire Bruce Wayne was now, for the second time, standing in her mess of an apartment. His humble way of blending into the scene as if he lived in the same sort of conditions only made her feel more nervous about his being there. She was pouring a glass of wine as he sat in her small living room, hands tucked between his closed knees as he looked around at the bare walls and the scuffed floors.

As she entered into the room, the stagnant atmosphere became a tad less airy. He held up his hand to stop her as she tried to hand him the second glass of wine that she had poured for him. “No, thank you.” He shook his head slightly, and her frown must have been just as physical as it was mental because within an instant, he added, “I don’t drink.”

“Well, I’m not going to dump it back into the bottle,” She poured part of his glass into her own, filling it a bit more. “Just a little bit. It won’t hurt you, Mr. Wayne. A man such as yourself should take a load off once in a while.” She smiled cheerfully as he accepted the drink, though he sat it off to the side rather than sipping on it.

She hadn’t opened the wine in over a year; it was a gift from Commissioner Gordon as a sort of thank-you for agreeing to cooperate with the GPD on some cases if they needed her to. She wasn’t much of a drinker herself, hardly had time for any guilty pleasures or vices with such a crime-ridden city as Gotham. And what with keeping the Bat off of her ass and out of the big house, it seemed that in the times that she needed a drink the most, she had too much responsibility to have one. So one could only assume the outcome of adding together finely aged wine and a stressed-out woman on an unwilling tolerance break.

They talked about everything. Everything. God, there wasn’t a subject she thought they hadn’t hit on. Perhaps she was just talkative when she had a glass and a half of wine, or perhaps she was finally relaxing after what felt like a billion years of not doing so. And Mr. Wayne, well, she had never found him to be more charismatic. After he had allowed himself the partial glass of wine, he seemed a lot more comfortable and dare she say, happier. He smiled, he laughed, he joked. An entirely different side of him emerged—charming, witty, and funny. This was the side of him that society would have expected of him had his parents not tragically passed away—this was the most eligible bachelor that the city spoke of.

She almost hated it.

She hated how unlike himself he seemed to be. They say that alcohol brings out the realness of a person, but in front of her now was a more superficial persona than that of which appeared on the televisions. It only deepened the curiosity that was nagging at her chest—hiding something, hiding something, hiding something. Bruce Wayne was hiding something. It seemed to be the only thought on her mind, despite the murders and the stabbings and the shootings. Bruce Wayne was hiding something. And she needed to figure it out.

“You certainly know how to play a role.” The laughter had died down a few minutes prior, and being unable to bear his joyfulness any longer, she decided that it was time to go in on him. Making her way into the kitchen for more wine, she felt his eyes on her, intense and questioning. She heard the chair beneath him creak and could only surmise that he had intended to follow her into the kitchen.

“I have no clue what you’re talking about.” His reply is like a dagger with a jagged edge; he should have known that she’d be onto him, for it wasn’t stupidity that she had earned a PhD in. She spun around to face him, wine glass in hand. It wasn’t just the wine that she was drinking in as she took in the image of him leaning against the very kitchen table that he had laid upon half naked and injured not-so-long-ago.

“God, you are so hiding something.”

In a stroke of confidence, she stalked over to him, crossing the kitchen, and closing the space between them with a solid three strides. Placing a slightly shaking hand on his chest, she looped two fingers in between the buttons of his shirt and pulled downwards. The expensive material of his shirt split with ease before her eyes, buttons popping open one by one. Much to her expectance, fresh bruises and cuts mingled with the ones that were fading and becoming more yellow. His chest could have passed for an abstract painting; blotches of yellowed greens speckled like flowers upon the vast expanse of his broad shoulders, purples, reds, and blues exploding like fireworks in a dark night sky trickled down his stomach to the beginning of his hips and pelvis. She allowed the bruises to speak the words that she dared not say, and the room fell silent in the loudness of their calling.

Hazy in the stupor the wine had held her captive in, she traced a gentle fingertip from dip of his neck, over to his collarbone, and downwards, paying careful attention to touching each and every one of his bruises, scars, and cuts. She could have stayed there for hours, for the rest of her life, for the rest of eternity, tracing each and every inch of his past, manifest upon the canvas of his skin. She felt his watchful eyes on her.

“You are entering dangerous territory, Doctor.” His words were soft, but there was a firmness about them, a seriousness. His shoulders shrugged off what remnants of his shirt still remained on his body, his left hand found its place under her chin and forced her face upward in one swift motion, his right hand cupping the back of her neck to hold her firmly in place, fingers inching into the roots of her hair. “You don’t want to ask questions that you can’t handle the answers to.”

“I am going to find out.” It was a promise, not a threat. She watched a small smirk grow on his lips, almost as if he were challenging her; daring her to try. “You a druggie? A drug runner? Gang member? Gang leader, maybe? That would be kind of hot, actually.”

Before the laugh forming in her throat could reach her lips, he spun their bodies, forcing her back against the surface of the table that he was leaning against a second ago. He hovered over her, face stern, lips pressed in a thin, unamused line. His voice was hardly above a whisper when he finally spoke, and the hand that he had behind her neck now held the back of her head as he had attempted to shield her from hitting the table too hard. “Do you truly think so lowly of me?”

“What do you expect me to think, Mr. Wayne?” Her hands were lying flat against the table as she looked up into his eyes in the dim light. “Billionaires with clean money don’t typically look like they get hit by a damn car every other night.” There was a pause between the two as the weight of the words dispersed into the air. “I could help you, Mr. Wayne, if you’ve got yourself into trouble.” Her hand found its way to his cheek, thumb stroking his skin gently.

“No, Y/N,” His demeanor was much calmer now, much more composed. “No, I don’t need that. I don’t want that.”

“Then what do you want?” She tilted her head beneath him to meet his gaze properly, the hand that was resting on his cheek urging him to meet her eyes. The uncertain look in his eyes questioned her intentions, prompted her further. “I can’t stop thinking about you,” Her eyes were darting back and forth between his, trying to find even an ounce of reciprocation behind his emotionless pupils. “I want to be so much more than you are willing to offer, hell, I doubt you’re even emotionally capable of providing what I need. But that’s okay. Just tell me what you can give me, and I’ll take it.”

His silence was anything but encouraging to her. Here she was, pouring out her heart to a man that she was almost certain would never let her in. She was well aware that she could possibly be running circles around Bruce Wayne for the rest of her life. And at the moment, in this instance, with her hand upon his cheek and his fingers kneading gently in her hair, a life of running in circles around him sounded like the only life she would ever want.

“Will you dance with me?”

The question caught her by surprise. He offered a gentle nod to a record player—outdated, dusty, and never used—that sat across the kitchen on a long-forgotten shelf. Hell, she wasn’t even sure if it worked, let alone if she could figure out how to properly use it. Nevertheless, her heart was pounding at the sweetness and purity of the offer, and who was she to refuse? The century-old saying nagged at her in the back of her mind: beggars can’t be choosers.

She gave him a swift nod, and he carefully lifted her laying body back to its standing position, following her over to the record player. She smoothed a hand over its surface, instantly clapping her hands to submerge the collected dust into the air. She had hardly a selection of records, and by ‘hardly’, a more truthful statement was ‘none’. She had simply what had come with the player, which she had inherited from her mother long ago. She wasn’t even sure what the record was. She remembered, vaguely, in happier days as a child, when her parents would sway and spin each other around to soft music as she watched from the top of the staircase. She was shocked to find that the player started up with hardly any trouble.

“I don’t know how to dance.” She warned, feeling his presence disappear from behind her. As she turns her head to the side, she finds him sipping on the glass of wine she had given him much more fervently now, though his ‘fervent’ drinking seemed to her to be much more like regular sipping.

The record slowly came to life with a few cracks in the sound; a light, static-y blanket of white noise accompanied the flourishing music as Billy Joel’s “Vienna” began to fill the void of silence in her flat. Music had never been played in her apartment, and a small pang of melancholy nostalgia filled her lungs as she remembered her parents; the childish memories of her first impressions of what love was meant to look like were being dusted off and slowly revealed in their glory as the music drifted slowly through each crevice of the open space.

Lost in her thoughts, she hadn’t realized that he was behind her once again, patiently waiting for her attention. As she turned her body towards him, he placed one hand on her side, just above her hip, tilting his head to properly look her in the eyes as he fumbled with her other hand, intertwining his fingers with hers. She hesitantly placed her hand in the crevice where his neck met his shoulder, thumb caressing his cold, pale skin. Eyelids heavy, she shuffled a step closer to him, weary smile spreading across her face as she realized his serious expression, even in a time in which seriousness was the last emotion one should feel.

“Do you ever smile?” She muttered just above the volume of the music; head tilted lazily upward to make sure she could capture every vision of his face that she could.

“No,” He quipped slyly, a small smirk forming nonchalantly at the corner of his mouth. “I don’t smile, and I don’t laugh either. And, please, don’t ask if I sleep or eat.” His smile grew wider with every word, and he hung his head with a small chuckle.

She replied with a grin of her own, moving her hand up his neck to bring his head back up. They were shuffling around in the foyer, chest to chest, and she slung her arm around the back of his neck, resting her chin on his shoulder to bring their bodies even closer together. She could feel the beating of his heart against her chest, and his body guiding hers felt to her like a ship rocking gently on the sea—if she closed her eyes and thought hard enough, she could almost pretend that they did this all the time. They spun together in a slow, loose circle, feet moving synchronously to the song. She was breathing him in, and she hoped he couldn’t tell—but it was almost impossible not to bury her nose in the dip of his collarbone and inhale, filling every inch of space in her lungs that her body could allow. The hand that rested on her side slowly found its way to the vast space in the middle of her back, palm flat against the curve of her spine. His fingers drew gentle patterns into her clothed skin and held her close, as though he kept his hand there as a security measure, to ensure that she wouldn’t slip away from his fingertips.

She was humming along to the melody as an instrumental break interrupted the words. His hand was gliding gently up and down her back as she began to wonder just how often it was that Bruce Wayne got to endure anything as romantically intimate as a slow dance—and she began to realize that perhaps a dance to him was worth a million kisses; the way he held her seemed to be, in every way, much more telling of his feelings than any peck on the lips. He held her as close to his chest as humanly possible, he held her as though it would be his last time touching a woman—a person—at all, he held her as though they had danced that very dance to that very song a billion times before. He held her as if he cared about her. He held her as though he loved her.

She wouldn’t allow herself the luxury of believing such a cruel joke. Even as he parted from her for just a moment, leading her hand upwards to spin her body around in a circle and bring her back to him, she couldn’t allow herself to believe that his feelings were more than anything miniscule. Even as the end of the song neared and he spun her again, this time dipping her body as the music faded away, she wouldn’t allow herself to even think that the pair of them would be in love in that timeline, in that universe, in that instance. Even as her heart pounded in her chest at the proximity of their faces, inches apart, she could hardly admit to herself her own feelings.

It was as though she could envision fireworks exploding behind the silhouette of him. She swore, to God and to Heaven and Hell and to the ends of the Earth, that she had never beheld a more beautiful sight. His eyes, a bright blue, but dark and wavering in the dim light of the foyer gazing at her with unadulterated admiration. His hair, messy and unkept, shirt ripped and opened, tucked into his pants by a single corner. As he stood upwards, straightening his posture, his eyes never left hers. They stood, silent and unmoving, hearts beating as one. She could feel her face moving closer to his and understood that she had no control over it. Millimeter by millimeter, she was closing the space between their lips. Their noses touched, and he retracted himself, hesitant but firm, an inch or so. Her hand gripped the back of his neck like a vice, unwilling to allow him to slip away again.

“It’s okay,” The words eased from her lips in the gentlest of whispers, afraid that anything too abrupt, even the sounding of words, might scare him away, like a fearful deer approaching an open hand.

Their noses pressed together, gently and slowly, as she cautiously ventured across the line of boundary that he had so forcefully drawn nights prior. Her thumb rubbed comforting circles into the back of his neck and her lips parted, praying that she could mask her inexperience.

“Please let me kiss you, Bruce.”

It was impossible to miss the instantaneous change in his demeanor. The way his name, his true name rolled off of her lips, hesitant, gentle, yet confident and sweet like honey. His resolve was melted, complete molten ash under her fiery-hot fingertips, utterly at her disposure. He didn’t say yes, didn’t nod, didn’t give her an answer at all. He wouldn’t allow himself to think about it too much, to psych himself out of it. He wanted her too much.

The instant that their lips brushed one another was like fireworks exploding in a dark summer’s night sky. Deafening and powerful, though it began as just a hesitant brushing of their lips against one another. It took less than a second for him to pull her in, eliminating all space between the two of them. He stumbled backwards, his back leaning against the island bar separating the kitchen from the foyer.

When she pulled away, her fingertips curled into the roots of the back of his hair, she was in a daze. His kiss was a million times more intoxicating than all the wine she had consumed. His gaze into her eyes was deep, and a tinge fearful. He was trying desperately to hide it, but she wouldn’t have ever missed it. As curious as she was of it, she could only think about the taste of wine on his lips, and the somehow familiar smell of his cologne, which made her think of long, dark nights out in the city with the Bat.

The Batman.

God, could she go a fucking instant without him on her mind? With the billionaire in front of her, having just kissed him after pining over the moment for days, dreaming of it both in night and day, her mind wondered where the masked man was in that instant. She had to physically shake the thoughts of the vigilante out of her head, but she could barely get control of the flashbacks of her kiss with him. The way he held her in his gloved hands, the way his jaw worked his lips against hers, all of it clouded her mind.

“I have to go,” His thumb swiped along her jaw as he frowned apologetically. “I’m sorry.”

All she could do was nod, feeling speechless and weak in the knees at the reality of it all. Her heart was pounding in her chest as he slipped past her, the feeling of his hands lingering painfully on her body like a first-degree burn. The sun had long set, the lighting in her flat barely sufficing to properly see. Her elbows rested on the kitchen island as she hung her head, hearing the door shut behind her. Had she done something wrong? The familiar feeling of dreadful insecurity filled her stomach, as heavy as lead. She couldn’t tell if her heart was fluttering with bliss or palpitating with aching pain. She lifted her head to gaze out the slightly gapped blinds at the glistening light of the moon. Much to her dismay, the clouds from the passing rain had enveloped the moon in their darkened blankets, floating slowly through the dark canvas of the sky. Where the moon had once shone, instead shone a weak, off-yellow oval, a dark symbol carved into its center.

I knew it from the first Old Fashioned, we were cursed.

Taylor Swift - Getaway Car

20201031

Fever dream high

In the quiet of the night

You know that I caught it

Bad, bad boy shiny toy with a price

You know that I bought it (oh yeah, you're right, I want it)

My interpretation is that she and Joe were almost like ‘friends with benefits.’ They were just messing around throughout the summer. But he had a price. It was she fell in love with Joe.

Killing me slow

Out the window

I'm always waiting for you

To be waiting below

She doesn’t know if he likes her back and it’s killing her. She’s waiting for him to reciprocate her feelings or give her a sign that he does.

Devils roll the dice

angels roll their eyes

What doesn't kill me makes me want you more

Taylor is willing to go through the stress and pain of confessing her love to Joe because she wants him so much. She’s playing out how the situation could go. He could “roll the dice” and begin a real relationship or he could “roll his eyes” and reject her.

And it's new

the shape of your body

it's blue, the feeling I've got

And it's ooh, whoa oh

It's a cruel summer

Taylor still doesn’t know him that well. He’s still new to her. She’s upset because summer is almost over; she’s scared they won’t be able to see each other anymore.

It's cool

That's what I tell 'em, no rules In breakable heaven

I’m guessing she told Joe that there weren’t any strings attached to their relationships. There are no rules to it. She was fine with just messing around.

but

Ooh, whoa oh

It's a cruel summer

With you

She realizes that there are feelings and she broke the unbreakable heaven.

Hang your head low

In the glow of the vending machine

I'm not dying (oh yeah, you're right, I want it)

We say that we'll just screw it up in these trying times

We're not trying (oh yeah, you're right, I want it)

Taylor didn’t want to start another relationship again because she is so used to heartbreak. She doesn’t want to try because she is convinced it’ll fail.

So cut the headlights

Summer's a knife

I'm always waiting for you

Just to cut to the bone

In this verse she is anticipating Joe to ‘cut to the bone’ and reject her or leave her. The headlights are a sign that she doesn’t know how the relationship will go

Devils roll the dice

Angels roll their eyes

And if I bleed

You'll be the last to know

She doesn’t want to tell him that she is hurting because she doesn’t know if he’ll want to start a relationship with her, especially after her bad reputation.

I'm drunk in the back of the car

And I cried like a baby coming home from the bar (oh)

Said "I'm fine", but it wasn't true

I don't wanna keep secrets just to keep you

Taylor doesn’t want to keep her feelings as secret just to make sure he stays with her.

And I snuck in through the garden gate

Every night that summer just to seal my fate (oh)

And I screamed for whatever it's worth

I love you, ain't that the worst thing you ever heard?

Finally she can’t take it anymore and just admitting she likes him. She is convinced he doesn’t want her so “it’s the worst thing he’s ever heard.”

He looks up, grinning like a devil