Annabeth and the Nine Step Career Plan

A Detective's Interlude - Act I

The second fiscal quarter of the year has barely begun, April bringing whispers of torrential downpours that are soon to worsen. Gotham winters are bitter and unforgiving, angry wind biting at Bruce's hands through insulated gloves on patrol. The next season is meant to be a glimmer of hope that breaks the frost, but instead the skies are somehow darker, with heavy clouds and even heavier rains. Four months into the new year, and he is already feeling the dreariness that bleeds through the city air.

Bruce is broody in the winter, gloomy in the spring, and they are not the same.

Wayne Industries's first quarterly report has been promising. Revenue high, profits sizably large, and expenses manageable. The technology department had dipped a few points in the market early last year, but the plan of action that had been approved to remedy it is progressing as scheduled.

Gotham nightlife has been consistent. Not quiet, because silence is suspicious and signifies the arrival of a storm, but at the very least, there have been no major threats to level the city, and any minor ones have been quickly diffused by Batman and his team.

The company and the cape are both doing fine, but if neither of those aspects of his life is suffering, then Bruce himself certainly is.

It is like that phrase Dick had complained about, a few weeks into his second year at college. There are three points to the triangle. Good grades, enough sleep, and an existing social life. You must pick two. You cannot have it all.

At the time, Bruce had rolled his eyes and told Dick to prioritize better. Dick had rolled his own right back and dropped out of school. Nearly seven years later, Bruce realizes that he may have been the one in the wrong.

The door to his office creaks open, and there is only one person at the company who regularly enters without knocking. Bruce wiggles the mouse beside him to wake up his computer screen, in case the lack of light reflecting off his reading glasses is visible from across the room, just before Tim pokes his head around the corner.

"So, I was thinking," he says, making Bruce's heart thud nervously for one brief moment, "Some new blood in the tech department would be good for us. We could use the extra help over the summer."

Bruce hides his relief well, busying himself by sliding the glasses off of his nose. "We are always hiring."

"Yeah, I know, but," Tim pauses, "I kind of wanted to expand our filters to include a younger application pool."

The bundle of nerves is back, an unwelcome visitor that curls a home into his stomach lining.

"No," Bruce replies, shortly.

His son's head thumps against the wall, fingers gripping the door frame.

"Why not?" Tim whines, suddenly sounding years younger, tugging on Bruce's cape, and asking not to be benched from patrol after staying up all night to solve old case files.

Bruce fixes him with a hard stare. "You know why."

Tim huffs, disappointed, though he had already expected the answer, and disappears out of view.

He loves each and every one of his abnormally genius children, but Wayne Industries is thriving, Batman is busy, and Bruce does not have a shred of time left over to manage another.

LINEBREAK

Bruce doesn't technically need to have an office at the Wayne Enterprises building. He hasn't been the CEO of the company for a few years, and Lucius is doing a good enough job that Bruce shouldn't have to oversee his daily processes. He's still the majority shareholder, and therefore the owner, which comes with its own varied set of responsibilities, but nothing that should require him to permanently occupy a too-many-square-foot space on the second to highest floor.