It wasn't the wedding, really, so much as it was going back. He tried to stay calm, but his anxiety only grew and grew as the date inched closer and, finally, arrived. He knew he had to go. He wanted to go, to be there for Eddie and Stephanie, to support his friends and witness living proof that hope still existed. But the family was more fractured than ever, and he knew most saw him leaving as abandonment. Betrayal. They didn't understand, and he was beginning to realize that he couldn't make them. Bitterness, resentment, guilt, failure, all things he'd been trying so hard to work past, and here he was returning to the source of it all.
Months, and it felt like an eternity. Like six years all over again, foreign, but he shoved all of that down because today wasn't about him. It was about Eddie, about Stephanie, and about five minutes before the ceremony began his nerves shifted; he'd never dreamed he would ever walk anyone down the aisle. But there he was, and there she was, and she was beautiful. He was incredibly proud to be the one at her side, to be the one who gave her away, and as he sat and watched everything else melted away. Nothing mattered but this. And it was good for him too, maybe, to witness happiness, to know that love still existed even if he would always be an outside observer looking in. He could live with that.
Because it was spark of what had once inspired him. Not his own happiness, but that of others. Their well being. Their futures. Maybe he was starting to remember.
After, and Bruce was tempted to just sneak away. He'd walked Stephanie down the aisle. He'd congratulated the happy couple. He could leave his gift and go, slip away before any scenes could be caused because of his presence there. Now wasn't the time for a reunion with Damian, he was barely on speaking terms with the others, and he'd seen Banner at the ceremony; he wanted Selina to be happy, yes, but he didn't think he could stand watching her with another man. Not yet. And so he lingered by the entrance, content to watch from afar as he tried to decide whether to stay for the reception or go. Dressed in grey, no tie, and he hadn't been clean shaven in weeks. His gaze followed the newlyweds on the dance floor and he smiled to himself, a wistful thing.
And then he turned, unthinking, just in time to collide with a very solid someone. "I'm sorry," he began, his words overlapping theirs, instinctively moving to steady the other person, but then he realized who it was and froze. Part of his mind tried to remember how long it had been since they'd seen one another, and the rest desperately scrambled to find something to say that sounded calm and reasonable.
"Selina." Suddenly, he wished for a drink. "Hello."