Who: Bruce Wayne (& Friends) From: UTR Prompt: One Writer: Mandy Warning: It's not in chronological order. Skips around.
Bruce ran his hand along the polished wood, examining the grain. Seven years in this world and this is what he'd built.
"Step away from the cradle, mister." The boisterous voice broke him from his revelry. "We all know your reputation for robbing them." Carrie stood in the doorway, hands on her aching hips.
Bruce pressed his lips together, suppressing an amused smile. He turned his head to look back at his wife, his expression serious. "Not funny."
"Hey. I'm the one with a sense of humor in this relationship. I think I get to decide what's funny or not." Carrie said, grinning as she approached him. Her body felt like it had been hit like a truck, but it was hard not to smile when she saw Bruce doting over the nursery like that. The kid hadn't even been born yet, and already he was getting all misty-eyed.
Bruce laughed. "Fair enough." He took a step, closing the distance between them. She was glowing. When she wasn't going into moodswings that bordered on psychotic rage, at least. Carrie definitely had her moments when she scared even the Batman. He wrapped his arms around her and leaned down to kiss her.
"Hey, watch the boobs," she warned before kissing back. She looked around the room. They'd gone with an undersea theme for the nursery. It was sort of cheesy, but babies didn't mind cheese. Although, she was pretty sure you weren't supposed to feed them cheese until they were older. Man, cheese sounded really good right now.
Carrie poked at the tropical fish hanging from the ceiling. "Surprised you didn't pick out a bat mobile." Oh, that came out way more punny than she'd intended it to be. She facepalmed. "You know. For above the crib."
"Oh yeah," Bruce said, smirking. "You're the funny one."
^~~^^~~^
Bruce's feet sank into the Saharan sand as he made his way slowly toward the fringes. He had been here for days, and his water supply had depleted. Before leaving, he had planned for every thinkable contingency, but his camel fallen sick and died. It was probably ill when the man sold it to him. Bruce had many areas of expertise, but camel health was not one of them.
Bruce's unkempt hair was covered in loosely wrapped cloth like the rest of his body, but the ends that would normally shield his mouth from the sand hung limply in front of his chest. He could see nomads ahead, their cattle grazing on the scant grasses at the desert fringe. He opened his mouth to call out a greeting, but his throat was too dry.
It wasn't far, now. Just a few more steps until he would reach the grass. One of the men had spotted him and began walking toward him, extending a hand to him.
As Bruce stretched out his arm, he started to stumble forward. His fingers slipped through the nomad's as he fell. No. No, this couldn't be happening. He tumbled over and over, his body being sucked into the vortex that had opened beneath him.
^~~^^~~^
"That's a new disguise." He recognized Carrie's voice immediately, though his eyes took longer to adjust from the harsh desert sun.
"I.." Bruce blinked, rubbing his eyes. His arm was still outstretched, and his hand brushed over a familiar end table that had always been in the foyer. His fingers instinctively gripped the edge.
"You should probably get changed," Carrie said, tilting her head a little at his strange behavior. "Alfred said dinner..." She watched her boss closely for any sort of trouble focusing or walking. Maybe he'd gotten hit pretty hard when he was out on his mission. She frowned, stepping closer to him so that he could lean on her if he needed. "Boss? Are you okay?" He didn't look so hot.
Shapes and colors were starting to form. He wrapped an arm around Carrie's shoulders, putting his weight on her. "I just need to.. sit down for a moment.." Once his vision started to acclimate, he could give a turn to his emotions. Hearing Carrie's voice was a shock to the system after the isolation of the past month. He wasn't sure he deserved it.
Carrie didn't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out something was up. Just touching him was different. Over the past weeks, every time they'd bumped into each other had been electric. Everything they did was a thrill, and even sitting on a rooftop all night for a stakeout made Carrie's heart race. The sound of his voice excited her, and she couldn't be completely sure, but she had a reasonably good hunch that he felt the same way.
Only now was different. Now when he wrapped his arm around her, there was a blunt deadness to it. Maybe she was just too worried about him to be thinking straight. She led him to a seat and then kneeled down in front of him. "What happened?" she asked quietly, unsure if she would receive an answer. She reached up tentatively to wipe his hot forehead, pushing away the head covering. Her eyes widened when she saw his head and face bare. He was young. Older than her still, but decades younger than he had been when he left the mansion.
He reached out, rough fingers brushing Carrie's smooth cheek, almost afraid to believe it was real. Not only was he saved from dying in the desert, but things finally felt right. He didn't feel like he was a danger to his wards any longer. He wasn't leaning off the edge of the abyss. "I'm home," he said.
^~~^^~~^
"In sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; from this day forward until death do us part."
"I do," Bruce said, turning away from the minister to look down at Carrie. She was stunning. Carrie had actually worn a dress, much to everyone's surprise. He'd never seen her in a dress. He'd never seen her with her hair up and her makeup done. The words of the officiate didn't make it to his ears. He found himself pulling her into his arms and kissing her, hoping his timing was right.
They walked back down the aisle and there was a twinge of guilt as Bruce thought of the faces that should have been in the crowd. He squeezed Carrie's hand as they walked out of the hall, leaving the music playing behind them.
"It's too bad we couldn't get married in costume," Carrie said after they'd climbed into the limo. "It would've been awesome to drive away from my wedding in the Batmobile. Or the jet."
Bruce chuckled. "No one is writing 'Just Married' on the back of the jet," he said as he loosened his tie. The limo was taking them to a very expensive hotel where they would be staying before the flight for their honeymoon left in the morning.
A bellboy helped them move their luggage up to the room. Once they'd tipped him and locked the door, Carrie started trying to unzip her dress. She was reaching back with one hand, and while she was quite flexible, there was something inhuman about the design of this dress.
Bruce had already been removing his jacket and tie when he saw Carrie's struggles. Smiling, walked up behind her to help. "You looked beautiful up there," he said as his fingers worked the zipper.
Carrie smiled, closing her eyes. She took a deep breath. She was alone with him now, and that stupid ceremony was over. She could finally relax. For a little while, at least. "You weren't so bad yourself," she said, a wry smile tugging at the corner of her lips. She leaned back against him as the dress opened, hoping to feel his warm fingers against her bare skin.
Bruce finished assisting with the dress and ran his hands back up her back, fingers running along her shoulders to push the dress down over her arms. He kissed the back of her neck lightly while his hands returned back to his own clothing, unbuttoning his shirt.
Carrie sighed, stepping out of her dress once it was unfastened. "You know," she said as she opened her suitcase to reveal the red and yellow of her suit. "Some people have sex on their wedding night."
Bruce was folding his pants and smirked. He pulled the cowl out of his suitcase and laid it down on the bed. "Who said we weren't going to have sex?"
"Why, Bruce!" She said with a mock gasp, her hand on her cheek. "How very modern and kinky of you."
He grinned, shaking his head. "Work first. Then sex." He started pulling on the suit. "What will it be? Roof top? Alleyway? The hotel we're spending a thousand dollars to stay in tonight?"
"Surprise me."
^~~^^~~^
The dark-haired teenager squirmed in her seat. "Why do I have to be here?" she whined, leveling a powerful pout at her parents.
"To support your brother," Bruce said, unaffected by his daughter's sulking. He placed a hand on Carrie's knee. His wife was fanning herself with the program.
"But he'll probably be off at college for my graduation. It's not fair! Why should I have to suffer through the boredom when he gets off?" the girl asked, crossing her arms over her chest.
"Don't worry, Cassandra," he said, looking over at his daughter with a knowing smile. "He's just as bored as you are. Probably worse because he's expected to behave as though everyone is watching the graduates instead of complaining to their parents." The smile came through in his voice, letting Cassandra know that he wasn't upset with her. Sometimes it was hard for the girl to tell.
"Give her a break," Carrie said, nudging Bruce in the side. "Here." She pulled out the small handheld game that she'd been hiding and passed it across Bruce to her daughter. "Keep it out of sight, and turn it off when they get to the 'W's."
Bruce raised a brow, turning to look at Carrie with an amused look on his face.
"What? She's right. It's boring. This speaker has got to be at least three hundred years old, and he's never met our son before in his life. Why should I be interested in what he has to say?" Carrie kept her voice low so that nearby socialites couldn't hear what she was saying. She'd agreed to send the kids to private school, but she didn't have to like the other parents.
Bruce just shook his head, grinning, as he turned back to look up at the stage.
^~~^^~~^
Dick climbed up the steep mountainside, pausing periodically to pull his hood tighter around his face as the snowfall began to pick up. He had run into a series of dead ends. He’d kept his head about him, favoring ration over the emotional responses the other ex-sidekicks were feeling. He’d pushed aside the frustration of so many failed attempts because he knew it would only make him less efficient.
He’d come to the Himalayas on a lead, and he had just about exhausted it. Each of his trips across the globe had been the same. He had heard rumors from locals about a male outsider about Bruce’s age moving through the area. Once he had found one of the rumored outsiders, but it was a scientist who was very clearly not Bruce. Other times, it seemed like the man had already left the area and the trail had gone cold. The fact that there was a trail lead Dick to believe those hadn’t been Bruce. Bruce could cover his tracks better than that.
His lead was dead. There was no denying it now. No one had been on this mountaintop for months, not even Batman. On the positive side, Dick could now say he had scaled the Himalayas. He was beginning to get tired of only bringing home trophies and conquests, and he could tell the others were too. No one was as impressed as they should be by news that Dick had scaled the world’s tallest mountains when it was followed with "Oh, and I didn’t find Bruce."
While Dick was gathering his gear and starting to prepare for the descent, he caught a flash of blue light out of the corner of his eye. He turned in time to see a vortex open up a dozen meters away and someone tumble out of it. It looked like the guy took a pretty hard fall, and he definitely wasn’t ready for this sort of weather. Dick moved over to him as quickly as he could while he was wearing all of his gear.
"Hey, buddy," Dick said. The man had fallen face-down and was struggling to get up. His hair was white and he was wearing a bathrobe. Dick gently helped the man roll over to sit. "Bruce?" he exclaimed when he saw the man’s face. Sure, there were doppelgangers here. There had, at one point, been at least five other men with Bruce’s face. But as soon as Dick got a look at this man, he knew it was Bruce.
"Richard?" Bruce asked, squinting. His head was throbbing. "Why-"
Dick cursed under his breath as Bruce started to black out. He would have time to worry about specifics later. Right now, he had to get Bruce back to New York.
^~~^^~~^
"Now you don’t have to see them again for a whole year," Bruce said as they walked in. He took off his suit jacket, draping it over a chair. "These galas have their function."
"See all of the annoying assholes at once so you don’t have to spread it out over the year? Yeah, I guess one night of intolerable boredom is better than dreading every Friday night." Carrie kicked her heels off behind the couch. "You promised me a foot massage."
"You can go on to the bedroom," Bruce said, pulling his tie off. "I’ll be right there."
Carrie crossed her arms over her chest. "’Right there’ as in you’re going to go out and fight crime for a few hours?" She’d dressed up and gone out and behaved like a proper lady for hundreds of people she couldn’t stand, and she was going to get her foot massage, damn it.
"No crime," Bruce said, fingers tracing a cross over his heart. "Something more important." Carrie looked skeptical, but she headed into the bedroom to change out of her dress clothes.
Bruce walked quietly down the hall and pushed open one of the doors slowly. He smiled as he looked at the outlines of his two sleeping children. He realized that his journey hadn’t ended when he’d been pulled out of the Sahara. It hadn’t been the desert sun that had melted away his anger and self-loathing. It was this.