Chapter Text
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Bruce learns early that the world can end on a sidewalk.
One moment his father’s hand is in his, warm and comforting, his mother’s laugh catching in the cold air. The next—noise. A crack that isn’t thunder but still somehow splits the sky open. His father drops. His mother screams.
Bruce is eight years old when he learns that wanting something badly does not mean it’ll come true.
There’s blood and pearls. Silence that rings louder than the gunshots ever did. There are hands on his shoulders, strangers, police. Alfred’s voice breaking in a way Bruce will never forget.
The world continues spinning and moving. But he does not.
Grief settles into him like a second skeleton.
People are kind in the way people are when they’re afraid of saying the wrong thing. They bring casseroles. They lower their voices. They look at him like he might shatter if spoken to directly. With pity.
And then there are people who shove cameras in his face, push microphones at him and ask him the kind of invasive questions you should never subject a traumatized child to. Vultures who couldn’t give less of a shit about him or his parents. The kind of people who walk all over his grief and only see him as the next headline.
Bruce learns to hold his anger close, and to keep quiet.
Oliver Queen does not keep quiet.
He shows up at Wayne Manor with a bruise blooming purple on his jaw, because he’d gotten into a fight at a gala when another boy said something cruel about Bruce’s parents. He doesn’t ask permission before climbing onto the bed and sitting beside Bruce like it’s always been his place.
He doesn’t say he’s sorry. He says, “That guy was an idiot.” And then adds, quieter, “You know it’s okay to cry, right?” Bruce doesn’t cry, but he does lean over to lay his head on Oliver's shoulder.
Oliver becomes the one constant that doesn’t feel fragile. When Bruce is angry, he doesn’t tell him to calm down. When Bruce is quiet, he fills the silence without demanding anything back.
Boarding school pulls Bruce out of Gotham and drops him into a world of uniforms and rules and kids who measure worth in social status, wealth, and looks.
He doesn’t fit in.
He is taller than most, sharper around the edges, his grief having calcified into something people mistake for arrogance. He gets into fights—not because he enjoys them, but because sometimes violence is the only language he knows how to speak when the pressure builds too high. He eats alone. He studies too hard. He doesn’t smile unless Oliver is there.
Oliver fits everywhere.
He laughs easily. He knows everyone’s name. He dates girls like it’s a sport, or like it’s something to do between classes. People orbit him without effort. And still—still—he finds Bruce every day, dropping into the seat beside him, throwing an arm around his shoulder and parading around like being his friend is the highest honor.
It never occurs to Bruce to question why. It just… is.
___
It’s after one of Oliver’s girlfriends—another pretty girl with a forgettable laugh and too much perfume—breaks up with him that something shifts. It’s a clean breakup, their relationship was brief and over before anyone had time to really make a spectacle of it, and yet everyone loses their minds anyway.
They corner Oliver in hallways, accuse him of being cold, of never caring, of being heartless. They tell him he should be devastated, that he should be begging, chasing, making a scene. That’s what love looks like, apparently. Loud, desperate, and performative.
Oliver endures it for all about a day.
Then he finds Bruce on the roof they’re not supposed to be on, legs dangling over the edge.
“Am I weird?” Oliver asks, plopping down beside him.
Bruce doesn’t look up from the book in his hands. “Define weird.”
Oliver snorts. He leans back on his palms and stares up at the sky. “Everyone’s acting like I’m supposed to be miserable. Like I should be crying over her or trying to get her back.”
“And you’re not.”
“I’m not.” He nods. “She didn’t want to be with me anymore. Why would I want to be with someone who doesn’t want me?”
Bruce finally looks at him then. There’s something earnest in Oliver’s expression. He’s not being defensive. Just… genuinely confused.
Bruce considers his answer carefully. “It’s not wrong to not want her back. And it’s not wrong to not fall apart either. But…” He hesitates. “You don’t feel anything at all?”
Oliver opens his mouth, then closes it while he thinks. “I guess I don’t.”
“Then why were you with her?”
Oliver frowns. “Because that’s what you do. You date. You try it out. Something you’d know if you’d ever get with the chicks I try to set you up with.”
“To what end?” Bruce questions, ignoring the later half of Oliver’s comment.
That stops him.
Oliver turns fully toward Bruce now, brows drawn together. “What do you mean?”
“What future did you see with her? What about her made you think you’d be a good fit?”
Silence stretches between them, thin and brittle. Oliver searches for an answer but comes up short. “I don’t know.” He admits with a shrug. “I guess I never really thought about it.”
Bruce exhales through his nose. “Then maybe that’s why you don’t feel anything.”
Oliver laughs. “Gosh, you make it sound like I’m broken.”
“I think,” Bruce voices carefully, “That you’re following a script. And that you don’t chase things you actually want.”
The words settle somewhere deep in Oliver’s chest.
Bruce closes his book when he sees Oliver’s furrowed brows. “You say you date because it’s what you’re supposed to do, and you go along with whatever people say, and you follow in your fathers footsteps because he’s told you to.” He pauses, letting the words hang in the cold evening air. “Have you ever asked yourself what you want to do? Not what’s expected. Not what’s easy. What you, Oliver, want for your tomorrow?”
Oliver doesn’t answer right away. He just stares at Bruce as he thinks over his words and that question.
What do you want for your tomorrow?
No one has ever asked him something like that without already assuming they knew the answer. He lets out a breath that turns into a laugh halfway through. Going back to his default mode of playful avoidance. “Are you trying to say I’m a puppet?”
Bruce doesn’t look away from him. “I think you’re smart enough to notice the strings.”
That does it. Oliver flops backwards, turning on his side and propping himself up with an elbow and a hand on his cheek. He studies Bruce like he’s a puzzle he hasn’t finished quite yet. “With the way you’re talking, it sounds like you’ve got this all figured out.”
Bruce’s mouth tightens. “I don’t.”
“But you know what you want to do.” Oliver pressed.
When he finally speaks, his voice is quieter. “I know what I won’t do.”
Oliver watches him closely now, thinking back to all those fights and the way Bruce keeps people at arm’s length. And suddenly he knows too many things all at once.
All those girls he dated, all those beginnings and endings that blurred together. He thinks about how he never once imagined a future with them because he could not see them staying by his side the way Bruce has. How none of them ever felt like a permanent fixture the way Bruce is.
Was.
Because Oliver knows that look. He knows the look of someone who’s planning on going away. Someone who can’t afford to make connections when they know they’re leaving.
And now Oliver’s really fucking pissed. Because just as he’s smart enough to get his head out of his ass and realize he can’t settle for placeholders—and that he’s been waiting for something that actually feels real. That something is leaving him behind.
He’s not sure how, or when, but that future he’d been subconsciously imagining won’t come true.
He closes his eyes and breathes in. It’s okay. He always knew that some people are just meant to be a sunrise. He just never thought Bruce would be one. No matter how temporary, he just wants to make the most of it.
He opens his eyes and smiles up at Bruce. “I’m glad you know what you want.” He says lightly, like it doesn’t cost him anything. He sits up and watches the sky deepen into something darker. “Too bad I don’t know what I want.” He adds, dramatic sigh and all, a familiar performance.
“Most people don’t.”
“But I do know what doesn’t feel like pretend.”
Bruce’s fingers curl slightly where the book rests in his lap.
Oliver leans closer, not touching, just enough that Bruce can feel the warmth of him. “You know what’s funny?” He smiles. “Everyone thinks I don’t care. That I just move on because I’m shallow or bored or heartless. But I think I just realized I don’t want to settle for a placeholder.”
Bruce’s pulse picks up. “Oliver.” The warning threads through the name, but Oliver only smiles at him. It’s not the bright one he uses in hallways or galas. It’s smaller and earnest. Almost vulnerable.
“You ever notice, that no matter who I’m dating, this is still where I end up?” The wind shifts, tugging at Oliver’s hair, and he reaches up absently to brush it back. His hand drops again, close enough that Bruce could reach out if he wanted to. The thought lands and stays. “You’re the only person I’ve ever been able to picture tomorrow with.”
Bruce’s heart stutters. The moment stretches on.
Bruce has known for a while that he’s been in love with Oliver. Longer than he’s willing to admit, but he never said anything because things were good. And because wanting more was dangerous. And selfish.
Especially when his plans meant the possibility that one day Oliver would be left to mourn him.
But right now, it’s hard to remember why he should fight this. Oliver’s watching him with a look that’s more open than anything Bruce has ever seen from him, and Bruce’s carefully constructed walls begin to crumble.
Bruce exhales, like he’s steadying himself before a fall he’s already committed to.
“Oliver.” He says again, the warning is still there, but it’s changed shape. “If we do this—if we cross that line—there’s no guarantee we get to go back to how things were.” His jaw tightens. “Some things don’t reset. If it doesn’t work, we might ruin what we already have.”
Oliver doesn’t pull away. If anything, he leans in just a fraction more, close enough that Bruce can feel his breath, warm and real. He studies Bruce’s face with an almost reverent focus, like he’s memorizing it exactly as it is in this moment.
“Then we’ll deal with that if it ever happens. Just be here. With me. Now.”
Oliver’s hand comes up, slow enough that Bruce could stop him if he wanted to. He doesn’t. Warm fingers cup Bruce’s cheek, thumb brushing lightly beneath his eye, grounding him in the present in a way nothing else ever has.
For a heartbeat, they hover there—breathing the same air, balanced on the edge of something fragile and bright.
Then Oliver closes the distance. The kiss is soft and unrushed. More a question than anything else. Oliver’s lips warm against Bruce’s, familiar in a way that makes Bruce’s chest ache, like this has always been where things were headed. Bruce’s hand lifts to curl into the front of Oliver’s jacket like he needs the anchor.
The kiss is brief but sweet and everything Bruce imagined.
Oliver rests his forehead against Bruce’s when they part, smiling.
Bruce’s pulse is loud in his ears, his walls in ruins at his feet.
Maybe it’s okay to indulge for once.
___
Time passes relentlessly. That unforgivable clock marching onward. Ticking till the end.
Something is calling Bruce away.
Oliver notices, because of course he does. It’s in the way his touch lingers longer, like he’s memorizing something. In the way he holds Oliver at night as if he’s already apologizing for a future absence.
Oliver doesn’t ask.
Some truths don’t need to be spoken to be understood.
When the end comes, it’s ugly on purpose.
There’s shouting. Accusations. Oliver lets Bruce see messages he shouldn’t have—carefully chosen, damning enough to hurt. He plays the part of the careless, selfish asshole perfectly.
Bruce looks at him like he’s been struck.
“I just… I just don’t understand?”
Oliver shrugs, but every instinct screams for him to pull Bruce close, instead he forces a laugh. “Guess I’m not as deep as you thought.”
That night, Oliver throws up in the bathroom and presses his forehead to the cool tile, breathing through the ache in his chest. He tells himself it’s worth it. He tells himself Bruce will hate him enough to go without looking back.
Better to be resented than remembered.
Better to be the villain than the weight Bruce carries into whatever darkness he’s walking toward.
Bruce leaves Gotham a week later.
___
They were never going to work out, and Bruce knew that. He knew that it would have been selfish of him to hold onto Oliver when he could very well die. But this wasn’t how he expected it to end. He tells himself the ache will fade once he’s in motion, once there’s enough pain to drown it out.
It’s only when he returns to Gotham as Batman when he’s twenty-five that he finds out Oliver Queen has been presumed dead nearly three years.
But that’s for later.
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