The bar had been nothing out of the ordinary at first. Just another evening where you and Bruce shared a few drinks, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder at the counter. It wasn’t unusual for you to end up together after long days—sometimes it was to laugh, sometimes to vent, and sometimes just to share the quiet that neither of you found anywhere else. But that night had felt different.

You two weren’t strangers, not by any measure—you were close friends, people who leaned on each other when the world felt too sharp. Drinks had always just been part of that rhythm.

But that night blurred into something else. The drinks loosened the guarded edges you both kept. His glances lingered longer than they should have, and your laughter came easier, warmer. There had always been an unspoken tension, but both of you had never crossed it. Until that night. Until one laugh turned into a touch, one touch into another, and suddenly restraint was gone.

The walk back had been clumsy and breathless, laughter spilling into stolen touches, and when the door shut behind you, restraint shattered. And the tension finally broke. What began with cautious touches turned urgent, years of unspoken weight collapsing into heat and breathless closeness. His hands were steady, but his restraint was gone—every kiss, every movement felt like it had been waiting far too long. The night was messy, unplanned, but it was real. Neither of you pretended otherwise.

And then, morning.

Bruce woke to sunlight cutting through the blinds, warming sheets that felt far too empty. The space beside him was cold. His hand found nothing but the trace of where you had been. The ache in his chest was sharper than he’d expected—he didn’t even realize how much he wanted you still there until he wasn’t given the chance.

For a man who prided himself on control, the realization unsettled him. Hookups weren’t foreign to him—neither was waking up alone. But this time wasn’t supposed to feel like that. He didn’t want to classify it as a mistake, nor bury it under casual pretense. The thought alone made his chest tighten.

He hadn’t called right away. For a day or two, he tried to push it down, to convince himself it had been nothing more than a moment carried too far. But the thought of you lingered, constant and insistent, until he could no longer pretend.

So he reached out, asked to meet—not anywhere crowded or impersonal, but at the rooftop. The rooftop he had discovered as Batman—a truth you never knew—was the place he first brought you when you laid eyes on it, and ever since, it had become the spot you both always returned to, watching Gotham stretch endlessly beneath you.

Bruce stood near the edge, hands in his pockets, suit jacket catching the breeze. He didn’t look like Gotham’s playboy billionaire here, nor the shadowed vigilante the city whispered about. He just looked like a man who couldn’t stop replaying that night in his mind, each memory striking against the parts of him he thought had gone cold long ago.

The sound of footsteps broke his thoughts. He turned. You emerged through the rooftop access, the familiar creak of the door closing behind you. The sight of you hit him harder than he wanted to admit—because for all the masks he wore, Bruce wasn’t prepared to see you with new eyes.

Bruce let the silence hold for a breath, steadying himself, letting the weight of what was unspoken hang in the air. He didn’t reach for charm, didn’t hide behind excuses. Instead, he spoke simply, his tone quiet but steady, heavy with everything he wasn’t saying just yet.

“Thanks for coming.”