Poker Face | Bruce Wayne

six

Bruce didn't like Meredith.

There were a lot of reasons behind that statement, though, in recent years, it was because she made Bruce Wayne uneasy, and Batman cautious. Bruce got uneasy because he knew that when he stared at her, he was going to be reminded of his past, and there was no avoiding it.

He was going to be reminded of the little things that he wanted to purge from his memory but couldn't. Her favorite restaurant, or her quiet laughter when he had gotten in trouble. How she used to crumple up napkins and force him to play mini soccer under the tables at stuffy charity events.

He was also going to be reminded of his mistakes. That was perhaps the more nerve-racking part. The way he always felt like he had to say something, anything, about what had happened, but was unable to bring himself to do so. The way he felt like he owed her, but he wasn't sure what. He supposed it didn't matter. He knew she didn't care anymore, anyway.

Batman, however, didn't have a personal connection to Meredith Elias. He only saw her as a stranger that occasionally occupied the front covers of discarded newspapers on alleyway floors. As a woman who spent her days in her uptown castle, away from the horrors that ran ramped through the gritty slums down below. But it was that sense of distance that created his caution. She was unpredictable. He couldn't read her, regardless of how much he liked to believe he could. She could know absolutely everything, and passively play it off as no more than a blank stare, or she could know next to nothing, and flash him a smile that said she held all of his secrets.

He didn't like Meredith because, up until the current week, there was a very definitive line on which Bruce Wayne and Batman walked with her. There was the Meredith that Bruce knew, and the Meredith that Batman knew. Clear cut, black and white. Not a lot in his life was that easy anymore, so, in a way, he took solace in the small comfort. The blissfulness of knowing where he stood.

And now she was arriving at a meeting with Batman, because of an issue brought up with Bruce Wayne. That confused things. That blurred his nice, even line. She was no longer a stranger to the Dark Knight. She was now Meredith Elias, who gave pretty speeches to the media that made him tear at a punching bag in the Batcave, wondering where he went wrong. The same Meredith Elias who offered him convincing words and teasing eyes in her office, as if the addition of a full cowl was useless because she knew exactly what he was playing at.

He was aware that he should've just been impartial. Meredith was coming to the League meeting for business, and both Bruce and Batman could do business. Business was cutthroat and dry, it didn't involve nerves and caution.

But now, as he looked up and watched her walk into the doors of the Hall of Justice at exactly 7:59, she was Meredith, an uptown princess who gave pretty speeches and teasing looks and kicked crumpled napkins under tables. He wasn't sure if the newly improved cowl could protect him from the unease of Bruce Wayne, but Batman was sure as hell going to try.

All conversation in the room fell flat, and he had a brief urge to hit the other members. The last thing they needed to do was give her special attention. Letting Meredith know that she had a place of any importance there would be their first mistake.

He eyed the woman as the sound of her heels clicking against the floor filled the room. She looked as she always did— long brown hair and blue eyes, red lips and a pantsuit in a shade of some neutral color. Today she wore gray. In one hand was a tablet, and in the other was a coffee.

Flash ecstatically broke the silence. "Meredith, hey!"

"Flash." Her voice was cold as she approached them.

Hal was immediately flying out of his seat and over to her, extending his hand. The look on his face said that he had now taken an interest in the businesswoman, but not for anything that had to do with actual business. "Meredith!"