Poker Face | Bruce Wayne

twenty

PRESENT DAY

Bruce Wayne had always been a very handsome man, much to Meredith's chagrin.

As a cute kid with wide eyes and full cheeks, as an awkward pre-teen with a permanent scowl and long hair, as a young adult who had a cunning grin and drank too much and whispered pretty things in her ear that only a mischievous, inebriated playboy-in-training would ever say.

And now, with cheekbones cut by the gods, a sharp jaw and piercing blue eyes, he really was Gotham's most eligible bachelor. He'd developed these broad shoulders, framing the expanse of his chest and the shape of his arms, always teasingly outlined by whatever thousand-dollar suit Giovanni had him dressed in that day.

It was frustrating for Meredith, to say the least, to have to sit in meetings with such a man. She couldn't say he was ugly— because he very much wasn't— but she couldn't ever admit he was attractive, either. She'd worked tirelessly to make herself so unavailable and unattainable to any man, and it was frankly just uncomfortable to be seated across a long table from him, the handsome boy who had once made her heart do ridiculous things that would've led doctors to believe she was in cardiac arrest.

She hated long meetings such as the one she was in right now, headed by the chair of WayneTech, which meant she couldn't do much talking because she, unfortunately, wasn't an engineer. So instead she had to settle for listening, and she usually would be fine with that, but this time, Bruce sat across from her in a light gray suit and crisp black tie, and Meredith couldn't say she wasn't slightly distracted by him. (If for no reason other than the fact that he was simply some nice eye candy.)

It was also a little fascinating to watch Bruce— to compare the mannerisms he had as a child to the ones he had now— how he still twirled a pen in between his fingers when bored, or how he bit the inside of his cheek when he listened intently. For business purposes, it was also interesting to watch how Bruce so foolishly convinced the rest of the board table that he was a moron— Meredith knew how smart the man was, with his extensive knowledge of botany and mechanics and math and science and so on— Bruce Wayne was no dolt.

Meredith would watch him run numbers during business proposals, most times doing it in his head, where he'd get this spacey look which she knew meant he was calculating something. Very rarely, she'd get to see him scribble a number or two down on the papers in front of him, and he'd always turn up with the answer she'd gotten, sometimes even faster than she had done it.

But then, when asked by one of the presenters what he thought, Bruce would feign wide eyes and a sheepish grin and pretend that he didn't understand what was going on, and everyone at the table would either roll their eyes or chuckle at the "idiotic womanizer who didn't know anything about his company."

As he walked out of the room, she'd catch him crumple up the sheet of calculations and very discreetly toss it in the trash. A time or two she'd even gone back to pick them up, inspected the flawless work like some sort of teacher, and left irritated because she didn't get why Bruce portrayed himself to be such a dumbass.

The presenter from WayneTech was babbling about some new innovation, other men at the table clamoring in agreement and taking notes every time a new point was brought up.

She stared at Bruce from across the table.

He had become increasingly interesting these days, and Meredith wasn't sure why—

The playboy looked up and locked eyes with her.

She immediately looked down, waited a few beats before she realized she was the Meredith Elias and glanced back up.