Poker Face | Bruce Wayne

thirty six

* The few lines of French dialogue will be translated at the end of the chapter

The Bowery. Bordering Burnley to the west and Crime Alley to the north; tucked under a web of bridges leading to the glimmering, picturesque skyscrapers of Uptown. Otherwise known as one of the most crime-ridden districts in Gotham City, and that was saying a lot. It was designed just as such to protect the wealthy's ignorance— after all, they couldn't feel guilty for what they couldn't see.

It was better for people like Bruce Wayne, with all of his money and land and good looks, to not acknowledge the existence of places like those. To spend his days inside— warm, comfortable, and away from the slaughter and pollution that made up the rest of the city. If Bruce Wayne, silver-spoon-fed Prince of Gotham, didn't understand the severity of the corruption, he simply couldn't be blamed.

But Batman— the vigilante who had been brutal and borderline cruel in his first years as a "hero," or whatever he'd considered himself back then— was always to blame. A majority of the media didn't want to forget how he'd once operated, regardless of how many times he proved that he had changed.

If it was in Bruce Wayne's nature to comprehend such things, he might say he... regretted the person he used to be.

Except that wasn't in Bruce Wayne's nature because Bruce Wayne, being the shiny little star of the city that he was, didn't experience inconvenient emotions such as regret.

Batman regretted most things.

It was irritating, having to play both sides. To be both the savior and the corruptor. The know-it-all and the fool. The Dark and the White Knight.

Neither could seem to do anything right— both were subject to harsh criticism in the papers— both deservedly so.

And in the middle of this never-ending identity crisis lied Bruce, the...

Who was Bruce?

Not quite a playboy, certainly not a hero. Perhaps the man who bantered with Oliver Queen over charcuterie boards. Or the father who scolded Damian for skipping school. Perhaps even that was all an act.

Bruce wasn't sure that Bruce existed.

For now, he was content (and the fact that that's the word he chose to describe his current situation was a problem in itself) nestled between the metal bars of a run-down billboard which featured the faded image of some broadway blonde that Bruce Wayne may or may not have spent a night with at one point. He genuinely couldn't remember. Eventually, they all became the same woman.

In the visor of his cowl, he watched the red blinking dot of a tracker he'd placed on a van a few blocks back— Oracle had been working for some weeks on getting information about a sex trafficking ring occurring in the Bowery. Allegedly, there was going to be a form of "hand-off" happening tonight, which Batman planned to stop.

So he waited. Patiently. The skin of Batman felt good— it felt more natural than the skin of Bruce Wayne. The drop to the nearly empty street below him was a good fifty feet. Bruce Wayne would've been scared— what a coward Bruce Wayne was.

He couldn't say much about Bruce, but at the very least, he could say that Bruce wasn't scared of some trivial fall. Thank God for that.

"Batman," the feminine voice of Barbara Gordon spoke into his ear.

"Oracle."

"There's a call for you."

He scowled, although she couldn't see. "It can wait."