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John wiggles in his seat, watching the door of his room for any sign of an orderly coming to tell him his bestest buddy was arriving to have a goof and a gaff. They wouldn’t say it like that, of course, because they have no sense of whimsy. The point is, Bruce promised he would show up today and bring along a meal that The Alfred made specifically for John. At least that’s what Bruce said, John figures Bruce just asked the old man to make him an extra dinner. Definitely no mentions of his insane friend in the loony bin, who he was still visiting despite his many crimes, some against people he cared about. John laughs at that thought. Bruce was a weird guy.
Speak of the devil, the orderly finally arrives and announces Bruce’s arrival. John jumps from his cot and runs to the opened slat. He crouches down and greets Bruce with his biggest smile, the expression an impulse when seeing the guy. Bruce waves awkwardly at him like he always does when he first shows up. John chuckles at how the stiff movement and unsure set to Bruce’s shoulders don’t suit him at all. Ha. Suit. John really misses Batman when he thinks about it too much.
The orderly opens the door after a nod from Bruce, stepping back from the door like John was going to bite him. Jokes on him, that just made John actually want to bite him. He doesn’t, but he does make a quick movement towards them, which they flinch at. John smiles sharply at the reaction and a biting laugh jumps out of his mouth alongside it. He backs away slowly and winks before turning on a dime to face his beloved Bruce.
“Heya, Brucie.” John greets, feeling his smile become softer as he takes him in. The man was wearing something a bit fancier than he usually would. He’s got his shiny, spit-polished, shoes on, paired with his regular white button up. The most interesting part was the dark blue suit jacket and the matching pants. John forgets himself for a second, raking his eyes over Bruce and his ensemble with hungry eyes. Bruce eventually clears his throat and walks ahead of John, heading to the cafeteria area. Or what passed as one. John follows quickly.
“Like what you see?” Bruce must be trying to murder John cold with that kind of line, and out of nowhere no less. John feels an involuntary giggle bubble up his throat. He’d be blushing if was capable of that.
“Trying to impress me, Bruce?” John is escorted into the cafeteria by Bruce, who the orderly just left him with. They weren’t very good at their jobs around here. “I love this blue on you, but I gotta say,” John leans into Bruce’s space, whispering into his ear, “black is your color, Bats.” He lets out a bark of a laugh when he sees Bruce shiver from his breath on the fancy man’s neck. Bruce’s carved up ear flushes along with his cheeks. Adorable.
“I might be trying to impress you, yeah.” Bruce admits, rubbing his neck as he sits at their usual table. John greets Sane Louis and Zsasz with a wave and bow respectively, who both nod to him before continuing their surprisingly calm card game. He pivots back to his and Bruce’s table and settles himself in front of the other man, who smiles almost as widely as John.
“Sooo,” John speaks up after a beat of Bruce just staring and smiling at him. “I heard from a little birdie that Alfred made me a special lunch.” Bruce nods at that. “Made with love.” John chuckles at the ridiculousness of that idea.
“I mean, I’d say it was.” Bruce replies, taking John aback. “Considering I made it.” He’s even more taken aback now. Bruce Wayne, head of Wayne Enterprises, famous billionaire playboy, made him lunch? It’s enough to make a guy suspicious. Figuratively speaking. John would have been suspicious himself if he hadn’t been meeting and chatting with Bruce for almost a year now. The man clearly likes him more than he cares about his reputation, which took some time for John to try and understand. He still hasn’t gotten it to fully make sense, even after putting himself in Bruce’s mind, like he likes to do. He was a mystery in that way. So maybe John is a little suspicious of the intentions still.
“Wow, Brucie.” John swoons exaggeratedly, putting his hands to his heart. “You really know how to butter a guy up.”
“I’m not trying to butter you up, John.”
“This isn’t because you have something you want me to do?” Bruce laughs gently. Always so oddly gentle with John.
“No, I just thought we could eat together.” Bruce pulls out two styrofoam containers and pushes one to John while keeping one to himself. “I made your favorite,” at John’s playful grin, Bruce adds, “or what you told me was your favorite.” John nods before slowly pulling open the container. Which contained food he definitely recognized. The kind that Bruce absolutely did not cook. John laughs as he looks up at Bruce from the container filled with his favorite Chinese food. The kind he’d always get when he lived with the Pact. John would melt then and there at the gesture if he could.
“So, I might not have made that.” John laughs at the obvious statement. Bruce gives him a chuckle in return. “In my defense, that was your favorite as far as I knew.” He shrugs with a grin. “I just didn’t want to risk not making it how you like it.” Bruce pulls a set of chopsticks from his pocket and hands them to John.
“Well, you got it right on the bullseye, buddy!” John chirps happily as he unwraps the cutlery. “Don’t be so humble, Bruce. I bet you could whip up an alright chow mein.” John smiles as he sets the chopsticks on the correct fingers, clicking them together.
“Only alright, huh?”
“Well, yeah,” John slurps a noddle up, clicking his chopsticks when he’s done, “you’re a billionaire with no culinary skills, so alright is the best you get.” He chuckles, scooping up more noodles with his chopsticks.
“I can’t really be mad if it’s the truth, can I?” John nods as he loudly slurps his noodles, making Bruce huff a laugh through his nose.
“What are you having, sir?” John asks in a fake British accent, trying to mimic a fancy waiter. Bruce seems to remember in that moment that he has food too and pops his container open.
“Sirloin steak, rare, with a side of asparagus and cauliflower.” Bruce announces, playing along. John smiles wider, which he didn’t think was possible.
“Oh my sir, that will put you back several millions!” John continues the bit, pretending to scribble the information down on a pad of paper, his chopsticks the pen. Bruce’s smile becomes fonder.
“It’s worth it for the best steak this side of the Mississippi.” Bruce puts on his own accent, his a lazy southern drawl. John just claps at the development.
“It’s been a while since I’ve seen the theatre energy come out of you, Bruce.” John giggles, his British accent faltering.
“Well, I was once in my high school theatre class.” Bruce admits, pulling a butter knife and fork from his shirt pocket. He gets in the position to cut his steak. John can’t help but laugh at the image of young Bruce playing an adorable Romeo, or, better yet, Hamlet.
“You just get more and more interesting.” John purrs out, eyebrows bouncing up and down. “Especially with this little date you planned.” John chooses that moment to take a bundle of noodles to his mouth and slurp obnoxiously for several seconds. He winks over at Bruce whose eyes are wide in surprise.
“A date?” Bruce laughs out as if that wasn’t exactly what this is. “You think?” John sucks in the last bit of the noodles and nods.
“It’s what you were planning, playboy.”
“I’m not sure I love that pet name,”
“You’re not very good at hiding it.” John continues on, speaking over Bruce, who lowers his eyebrows in confusion. He looks good when he’s pretending to not know what John’s talking about.
“Not good at hiding what?” John simply laughs, throwing his head with it. “What, John?”
“That you have the hots for me, Wayne.” John explains, wiping tears from laughter that weren’t there from under his eyes. “It’s surprising you’re so bad at keeping that a secret, considering your best kept secret and all.” John chuckles at the implication.
“Really?” Bruce laughs, his cheeks reddening yet again, giving him away. “I have the ‘hots’ for you?”
“Oh yes.” Bruce rolls his eyes and leans back in his seat, fork and knife abandoned beside his steak.
“Was I really that obvious?” John mimics him, crossing his arms.
“Well, let’s see, there was the visiting a madman in the crazy house,”
“I hate it when you call yourself and this place that,”
“And the giving the madman gifts.” He lifts the chopsticks for emphasis. “Also sending love letters to him.”
“I didn’t send love letters,”
“Do I have to read them out to you, Brucie?” John uncrosses his arms and sits up like he’s ready to go to his room to get said letters.
“No.” Bruce says, letting a chuckle loose. “I may have been a little dramatic with those letters.”
“Dramatic is a word for it.” John teases, winking at Bruce again. Bruce just sighs, looking into John’s eyes for the first time in a long time. John almost loses his ability to breath when those steely blue eyes meet his acid colored ones. John always thought acid ate through metal, but based on the eye contact, steel is eating up the acid in this instance. That is to say, Bruce practically devours John with his eyes.
“You caught me.”
“Goodie.” John smirks, a heat growing in his downstairs area the longer Bruce looks at him like that.
“Now eat.” Bruce orders, putting on a Batman tone, which has John obeying. “Good boy.” John almost chokes on the noodles he’s slurping. He swallows them down with a cough.
“I’d say buy me dinner first but, y’know.”
Both Bruce and John chuckle a bit darkly.
John, for his part, did not actually need the dinner to put out but that’s not very classy to admit apparently.
John smiles at Bruce, who’s giving him those damn eyes still. He wraps his lips around his chopsticks, sucking up the flavor and trying to get Bruce going even more.
Bruce just groans and grabs a hold of John’s hand.
“Tease.”
“Gonna do something about it?”
Bruce looks to consider it deeply. But he ends up shaking his head in the negative anyway.
“You still haven’t finished your food.”
“Also you’re a goody-two-shoes who’d never do someone in a loony bin.”
Bruce scoffs and picks his utensils back up, leaning over his steak again.
“You better get out of here soon than.” Bruce’s Batman voice is enough to kick John in gear. Oh, he will.
“Then we’ll enter the bone zone together.” Bruce groans.
“Don’t call it that.”
“Going to the bone zone with my bestest bud.”
“You are insufferable.”
“You love it.”
“God help me, I do.”
They sit and finish their food, trading teasing words and flirty phrases. Mostly on John’s end, as Bruce just growls as his form of flirting. Which absolutely works. When they are finished, Bruce raises to his feet and grabs the empty container from John and stacks it on top of his. He turns to leave then stops.
“Same place next week?” He asks with a joking tone. A tone John loves on him.
“We both know it’ll be more like five days, but yes.” John winks at Bruce, who winks back and gracefully steps out of the enclosed dining room.
John smiles after him and leans back in his chair, hands behind his head and legs crossing on the table in front of him.
Life was good.
Bruce made sure of that.