Bruce Wayne X Y/n - Blog Posts

Fleeting Moments ✢ Bruce Wayne

Synopsis: Y/N and Bruce Wayne share quiet moments of love amidst the chaos of Gotham. In rare stolen hours between nightfall and dawn, she clings to the man behind the mask, not aware of the double life he leads. She watches as bruises form across his skin and holds him through his restless nights, grateful that, for once, he is by her side. Bruce Wayne x Reader, female pronouns. This piece is not plot-specific, so any iteration of Bruce will work. Though, I wrote it with Christian Bale in mind.

Warnings: A sprinkle of angst. Masterlist

Disclaimer: This is essentially a prequel to another Bruce Wayne one-shot I wrote (here is the link if you're interested), though you by no means have to read it; this works as a stand-alone, too. However, the other one-shot goes into detail on how their relationship progressed from here. Words: 1,726k

Rain pattered softly against the glass, a rhythmic rap that filled the quiet, ornate expanse of Wayne Manor. It was late, too late for her to be awake, but Bruce lay beside her, his breath steady and deep, his warm frame pressed snug against her side. Y/N could not sleep, her mind restless despite the calming comfort of his presence, a presence that so often eluded her. Absently, her fingers traced the ridges of his knuckles, ghosting over the faint scars that marred his otherwise perfect skin.

She wondered, as she always did, where they had come from. He never spoke of them. Never told her of the fights, the injuries, the pain that lingered and simmered beneath the surface of his carefully constructed mask. He was Bruce Wayne, the prince of Gotham, a man of charm and effortless grace. But in the silence of the night when, in his solitude, this façade was brought down, Bruce was something else entirely. Something weary, something worn.

He stirred slightly under her touch, his fingers twitching before they caught hers, enclosing them within his grasp. A small, lazy smile flickered across his lips as he blinked away his stupor.

‘You're awake,’ he murmured, voice thick with lassitude.

Y/N hummed in response, shifting closer, her head nestling against his shoulder. 

‘Couldn't sleep.’

He exhaled slowly, his free hand coming up to stroke along the curve of her spine, soothing and unhurried. 

‘Bad dreams?’ She shook her head against him.

‘No dreams at all,’ she admitted, her voice barely above a whisper. ‘Just thoughts.’

Bruce did not push her to divulge in what kind. He never did. He knew her well enough to understand that sometimes, silence was safer, preferred. 

Instead, he pressed a kiss to her temple, lingering there for a moment before pulling her impossibly closer. ‘Get some rest. I'm right here.’

But that was the problem he was blind to; he was here. She could not convince her mind to rest when there was the impending, almost certain possibility that he would leave again, that a time was coming when he would not be around; when he would not be anywhere.

But for now, he was right; he was here. He was with her when this night was still, when the city outside could wait. But Y/N knew, deep down, that the nights like these were borrowed moments, fleeting and precious. They existed in the spaces between his concealed duty and sacrifice, in the hours when he let himself be nothing more than a man who loved her.

She did not ask him to stay awake with her. She did not ask him about the bruises forming on his frame. She simply closed her eyes and let the sound of his heartbeat lull her back to sleep.

Morning came with a soft glow of dawn seeping through the sheer curtains; it cast a golden hue over their space and a warm, rouge gleam through her closed eyelids. Bruce was already awake, as he often was, standing by the window with a cup of coffee in hand. He was bare from the waist up, the morning light tracing the contours of his back and highlighting the scars that stood scattered across his physique.

Y/N opened her eyes and watched him for a moment, drinking in the quiet beauty before her. Though, eventually, she was compelled to speak. 

‘What catches your eye?’ Y/N got up from their bed and moved to stand behind him. She looked past him to the sprawling murk of the Gotham City skyline, the view that held his gaze. She draped her arms around his waist and rested her chin upon his shoulder.

His head tilted ever so slightly in responce, until his cheek made light contact with her forehead. She could feel the smile that played at the corners of his lips. ‘This city… It never sleeps.’

‘Neither do you,’ she murmured sardonically, shifting so her face nuzzled into the base of his throat. 

‘You should, Bruce. You need to.’ He felt her words hum against his skin.

He said nothing, taking another slow sip of his coffee. He yearned to explain, to tell her why he was always unaccounted for, he felt the words swell at the edge of his tongue; he swallowed them back, and they burned in their descent. Y/N sighed, she sensed his hesitation, his unwillingness to speak, to disclose his worries. She gently pushed away and returned to the bed to sit amongst the ruffled sheets. 

‘Do you ever wonder what it would be like if we left? If we went somewhere far away, at least for a little while?’ Y/N did not know everything, but she knew this: it was Gotham that kept him tethered here. 

She did not know why that was; she could not understand it. Was he clinging to the memory of his parents taken too soon? She stared begrudgingly at the Metropolitan cesspool before her and concluded that must be the case; she could not see why else he would want to stay. There was beauty here; Y/N was not blind to it, she saw the Gothic architecture, the intricate ironwork and the towering cathedrals. There was beauty in its darkness, haunted yet elegant. 

But Gotham’s old-world charm stood in vast juxtaposition to its modern decay; the underbelly was a twisted mirage of its grandeur. Every crevice held murmurs of brutality and corruption, from alleyways to corporations. In Gotham, shadows were not merely cast by the towering buildings but by the weight of its crime, greed, and betrayal. Murk clung to its surfaces like a second skin, and the light, if it ever shone through, felt fleeting.

Bruce turned to face her fully, leaning against the windowsill; his face contorted, if she did not know him better, she would have thought he was in pain. 

‘I can’t.’

‘I know,’ she whispered, nodding slightly. ‘But I wish you could.’

He strode over, set his coffee down on the bedside table and sunk into the mattress beside her. His hands found her face, thumbs grazing her cheekbones as he studied her, his eyes unreadable. 

‘Would you? Leave Gotham? Leave all this?’

She swallowed. ‘I would be leaving something behind, something I couldn’t live without.’

Bruce knew she spoke of him; he considered this fact, felt the way it twisted his stomach and burnt like acid in his throat. She would be better off without him, safer. Maybe he should send her away; she should live in sunlight, not his shadow. Instead, he pulled her to him, his lips capturing hers in a kiss that spoke of everything he left unsaid, everything he kept shrouded behind his distasteful second life. Y/N melted into it, her fingers threading through his hair, anchoring herself to this sporadic moment.

Then he pulled away, his forehead resting against hers. ‘I can’t leave. Just know that I love you. That, I’m sure of.’

And for now, it was enough.

There were nights when the world felt too heavy, when the weight of his self-inflicted responsibility bore down upon him until he was engulfed by it, until it pulled him under. These were the times when he came to her in the dead of night, his body weary, his hands unsteady as they reached for her, craving her embrace.

She never asked where he had been. She never asked why his knuckles were raw. She never asked why an affliction lingered behind his gaze, a torment that refused to leave. Instead, she took him in, let him press his forehead against her shoulder, let him expel his unspoken burdens into the quiet space between them.

‘I hate this city,’ he once confessed, voice muffled against her skin. ‘I hate what it does to people. What it does to me.’

She carded her fingers through his dark hair, a soothing motion meant to ease the tension in his shoulders. His declaration had stunned her, he never spoke of these worries, never gave too much away.

‘Then leave.’ She tried to keep her tone light, unburdened. 

He let out a hollow laugh. ‘You know I can’t.'

‘I know,’ she whispered. But the truth was, she did not know; she did not understand.

Bruce lifted his head and searched her face as if trying to memorise it, commit it to his memory. 

‘I don't want to lose you.’

‘Then don’t,’ she whispered, a smile turning her lips as her fingers continued to pass through his hair. ‘Stay. At least for tonight. Stay for me; I’m not going anywhere, you know?’

They perpetually followed the same cycle: love, longing, and the insatiable pull of his unwavering, cumbersome duty. The few, yet treasured, nights they spent wrapped in each other’s arms, the stolen kisses in the dimly lit atrium of Wayne Manor, the whispered exchanges in the wake of the morning.

And then there were the other nights, the dreaded junctures. The ones where she woke to find the space beside her cold, sheets untouched. The vestige of his presence an aching reminder of the life he led, the life she was not acquainted with.

She told herself she could live with it. That as long as he came back to her, she could endure the waiting, the worrying, the never-ceasing fear that one day, he would not return at all, that he would be reduced to a memory, a phantasm of her past.

Though deep within her, Y/N knew. She knew that love and hope alone could not fix the fractures and fissures forming between them. That try as she might, one day, the burden of it all would become too much, and it would crumble under the pressure.

However, in the fleeting moments of his caress, she could not allow herself to fret this fact. She pressed herself even closer, savouring the way his arm tightened around her waist in his sleep, how his breath fanned, warm against her neck.

For now, she would seize these tranquil moments. The transient seconds in which the world outside ceased to exist, where Bruce was merely Bruce, and she was simply the woman he loved.

Because Y/N knew that, when all was said and done, the night would beckon him once more and draw him from her grasp.

Every comment and piece of advice is welcomed and appreciated <3