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The gala had been tedious.
Bruce Wayne, champagne flute dangling from his fingers, had endured the usual parade of social climbers, philanthropists, and bored heiresses before cornering himself near the raw bar. Selina had ended things three days ago—amicably, quietly, the way two people who’d once fought over a rooftop diamond heist could manage. The public didn’t know yet. The tabloids would have a field day eventually, but for now, Bruce was simply enjoying the strange, hollow peace of being momentarily single.
Then he walked over.
Marcus Thorne. Junior vice president of something meaningless at a subsidiary of a subsidiary. Bruce had met him once, forgotten him twice. The man was grinning like he’d won a lottery.
“Hey, Wayne,” Marcus said, too loud, too close. “Tough week, huh?”
Bruce raised an eyebrow. “Is it?”
“The breakup.” Marcus swirled his whiskey like he was delivering a eulogy. “Selina Kyle. Saw she moved out of the penthouse. Don’t worry, boss—these things happen.”
Boss. Bruce almost corrected him. Marcus didn’t work for him. He worked for a company that once supplied napkins to a hotel Bruce’s grandfather had visited.
But Bruce was tired. And curious. So he just said, “It was mutual.”
Marcus laughed. Not a friendly laugh. The kind of laugh that slithers.
“Right, right. Mutual.” He leaned in, whiskey breath warm and awful. “Is this why you broke up with your girlfriend? Did she figure it out you sucked for more attention, boss?”
The room didn’t go silent, but Bruce heard the words land. A few nearby guests froze. A waiter missed a glass.
Bruce’s expression didn’t change. That was the trick—decades of Batman meant his face could become marble. Inside, something cold and amused coiled. Oh, you poor bastard.
“I’m sorry,” Bruce said pleasantly. “I don’t think I caught that.”
Marcus, either brave or stupid or both, repeated it. Louder. “Come on, Bruce. The magazines say you go through women like cufflinks. Gotta wonder if the common denominator is, you know—” He waggled his eyebrows. “Performance issues. Or maybe just desperation. Slutty desperation.”
Someone gasped.
Bruce set down his champagne flute very carefully. He smiled. It did not reach his eyes. “Thank you for your feedback, Marcus. I’ll take it under advisement.”
Then he walked away.
Not because he was scared. Because he’d seen the glint of a camera phone two tables over—and more importantly, because he’d seen the dark corner where Dick Grayson had been pretending to flirt with a debutante while actively recording the entire exchange.
By the time Bruce reached the coat check, his phone buzzed.
Dick: We’re handling it.
Jason: He just called you a slut. To your face. I’m actually impressed by his death wish.
Tim: Background check complete. He has a collection of vintage lawn gnomes and a secret Yelp account where he reviews gas stations. We have options.
Damian: Father, say the word and I will release the bats into his ventilation system.
Cass: :)
Duke: I can’t believe you didn’t punch him. I’m so proud and also so angry.
Selina (unknown number, because she always changed it): Heard someone was mean to my ex. Should I be offended or flattered? Also, tell the kids I want in.
Bruce typed back: No permanent damage.
No one replied. That was how he knew they’d already started.
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The next morning…
At the Wayne Enterprises, specifically at the “Main lobby”, Lucius Fox stepped off the elevator with a latte in one hand and a tablet in the other. It was 8:47 AM. A perfectly normal Tuesday.
Except for the man dangling from the chandelier.
Marcus Thorne hung upside down, suspended by what appeared to be his own thousand-dollar tie and a truly bewildering arrangement of climbing rope. His mouth was gagged with a silk handkerchief—monogrammed, Lucius noticed distantly, with the initials M.T.—and his pants were nowhere to be seen. They had been wrapped around his torso instead, cinched like a straitjacket, leaving him in boxer shorts patterned with tiny cartoon cats wearing crowns.
On his forehead, written in what looked disturbingly like professional-grade waterproof eyeliner: “ASK ME ABOUT MY OPINIONS ON BRUCE WAYNE.”
A crowd of employees had gathered. Some were filming. Most were trying very hard not to make eye contact with one another.
And in the middle of it all stood Bruce Wayne, one hand clamped firmly over his mouth.
His shoulders were shaking.
Lucius walked over slowly, the way one approaches a live wire. “Boss,” he said carefully. “Should we… call security? The police? An exorcist?”
Bruce’s eyes were watering. His entire face had gone the color of a tomato fighting for its life. He made a sound like a teakettle losing a fight with a lawnmower.
“Mr. Wayne,” Lucius tried again. “That man is missing his trousers.”
Bruce nodded, jerky, frantic.
“And gagged.”
Another nod.
“And hanging from a fixture installed during the McKinley administration.”
Bruce took his hand away for exactly half a second. The laugh that escaped was not a laugh. It was a wheeze, a honk, a noise that belonged in a barnyard or a cartoon. He slapped his palm back down.
Behind him, Lucius noticed, several of Bruce’s female assistants had gathered. They were not helping. One had her face buried in a potted fern. Another was pretending to take a very important phone call while making eye contact with Lucius and mouthing “I can’t breathe.”
A third, Ms. Chen from accounting, had her phone out and was live-tweeting with the clinical detachment of a nature documentarian: “Executive-level karma. More at 11.”
From above, Marcus Thorne let out a muffled, indignant mmph.
Bruce finally lost the battle. He doubled over, one hand braced on Lucius’s shoulder, and laughed—a real, genuine, undone laugh that echoed off the marble floors. It was the laugh of a man who had spent decades being feared and reverent and stoic, and had just been handed the universe’s most elaborate “I told you so.”
“Lucius,” Bruce gasped, tears streaming. “Lucius, I have no idea who did this.”
Lucius looked at him. Then at the rope work (clearly Nightwing—the flourishes gave it away). Then at the cat-themed underwear (Selina’s calling card). Then at the handwriting on Marcus’s forehead (Cassandra’s, because only she could make eyeliner that precise under duress).
“Of course not, sir,” Lucius said smoothly. “Should I also pretend not to notice the Bat-Signal-shaped burn mark on his tie?”
Bruce wheezed harder.
Somewhere in the rafters—high, high above the crystal chandelier, a faint, smug whisper echoed down.
“Slutty desperation, my ass.”
Another voice, younger: “Jay, the gag is still in, he can’t hear you.”
“It’s the principle, Tim.”
Bruce wiped his eyes, straightened his suit jacket, and turned to the assembled employees with the most sincere, innocent expression he’d ever worn in his life.
“Well,” he said. “That’s Gotham for you.”
Ms. Chen’s phone pinged. Her tweet already had forty thousand likes.
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