Poker Face | Bruce Wayne

fourteen

Bruce knew Damian had seen the albums. Those stupid fucking books. He had forgotten that he had tucked them back in the study— of course Damian would have found them. Bruce wasn't sure why he'd kept them, either. They were some meaningless gifts from a young Meredith Elias for some holiday that he couldn't remember.

After the Central City mess, he had come back to the manor and placed them in his father's now-empty gun safe, one of the only spots left in the house that Bruce's children had yet to find. He knew Dick was going to go looking for them, and that was a conversation that Bruce wasn't willing to have. His eldest son meeting Devin was bad enough.

"Yes. She seemed rather... competent. Unlike her fatuous brother who referred to father as short."

Alfred's features softened at the mention of Devin, before turning his tone curt once again. "I see."

Bruce moved his stare back to the food.

"I'm afraid I do not know much, Master Damian. Thomas and Martha Wayne were friends with Ms. Elias' parents, but I have not seen Gregory or Eleanor in many years."

Damian didn't respond, which was unusually bizarre. The youngest boy was never satisfied with that vague of an answer.

The phone rang— a single landline connected to the wall near the door— the only thing that Bruce had kept intact when he'd remodeled the kitchen years ago. It was his mother's favorite. It never rang anymore.

Alfred furrowed his brows as he walked over and gingerly held the phone up to his ear. "Wayne Manor, this is Alfred Pennyworth speaking."

Alfred's eyes widened, and Bruce now angled his body in suspicion. Bruce could count the amount of people on one hand who still had the number to that phone, and none of them he wanted to talk to.

"Of course... yes, one moment, please." Alfred pressed the phone into his shoulder and looked up. "It's Mr. Queen, sir."

Bruce's heart fell into his chest. He shouldn't have cared, he really shouldn't have, but the Star City vigilante hadn't directly called his house in over twenty years, and Bruce couldn't help not automatically assuming the worst. What if something had happened? Oliver always just waited until the next League meeting to bring up any concerns.

No. It's probably something stupid. Oliver could handle himself.

That deep and foreign and forgotten part of his brain, the part that Bruce couldn't shake no matter how hard he tried, fought desperately against the Bat. What if someone's injured or what if someone's dead or what if he's dying— no, no. Not possible. Green Arrow, while a persistent pain in Bruce's ass, was a good fighter.

And besides, if something had happened, Bruce doubted that he'd be the first one Oliver would call.

The Bat won out.

He turned his body to face the table. "Tell him I'm busy."

Alfred relayed the information before pausing again and pressing the phone back into the crisp lapel of his suit. "He insists, sir."

Bruce let out a breath of air, ignoring Damian's pointed gaze as the older man got out of his chair. Pain flared from his tailbone, making his way around the island and taking the phone from Alfred's hand.

Oliver Queen was not dying and Bruce wasn't going to answer the phone and hear the blond bleeding out on the other end because Alfred would've been more concerned if that was true and Oliver wasn't going to be dead after this call— shut up. Shut up.

"What."

"You have some serious fucking issues, you know that?"

Relief flooded his body. Oliver was angry. Angry was not bleeding out on the floor and dying.