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Age sixteen was a tumultuous time period for Bruce Wayne. He’d tested out of all his highschool classes by then, and had taken on the hobby of rejecting colleges in favor of sitting in on their lectures and pestering any and all international students willing to converse with him.
Alfred could recognize that distracted energy behind Bruce’s eyes. Like he was never quite on the same page as who he was speaking to, no matter how closely they held his attention. His mind was always elsewhere, always somewhere greater, and Alfred knew exactly where.
The current outlet seemed to be foreign language, and forensics, and something about that felt like a bad sign. Alfred didn’t know what, couldn’t tell, but he knew that the fervor with which Bruce was approaching the subject meant something.
The last time he’d put so much energy into something had been with acting. Alfred was the one to suggest it, to find him some kind of fulfilling hobby. He still wrestles with himself sometimes on if it had been a good idea at all. Yes, perhaps it had taken him from an angry and morose twelve year old boy to a focused and extroverted teenager, but that was only because Bruce had learned how to present the image of one.
He was focused, that was for sure, he had taken to acting like a man on a mission. Extroverted though? That’s not something Alfred is sure Bruce had ever been. Even before… even before.
Bruce had crafted a strange and alien young man out of himself. A persona he wore like a fine coat anywhere he went, couldn’t leave the house without. Alfred was privileged to view Bruce in his natural state. He had the mixed privilege, too, of watching Bruce put this other face on in the presence of others. It was knowing he could do it, knowing that he sold it so well, that made Alfred worry at times. Bruce had a talent for acting. That much was clear. A gift, even. And Alfred likes to believe he knows his boy better than anything. He always recognizes the little ways in which Bruce is acting with others. The silliest, subtlest things, down to the way he shuffles his feet. Some purposeful simulation of his own nervousness. But it all leads Alfred to wonder, at times, if Bruce could be so good that Alfred might not notice. Actors are professional liars really, and in essence, Bruce is only getting better at lying. He might just be playing a more truthful version of himself to Alfred.
In any case, the career was a good distraction. While it had some unsettling consequences in its own way, at times, it had proved to Alfred to be the least destructive creative force Bruce could throw himself into. He wanted to encourage it. It was also something he was able to relate to, after all. He had his own background in theater for a time, and the interest Bruce had expressed in hearing about those times had seemed very genuine. The theater had become something they could bond over. Bruce didn’t care much for ever entering a movie theater again, but he was completely captivating as the one being filmed.
There had been minor productions throughout the years. For all his talent, Bruce wasn’t always interested in actually participating in a lot of projects. He made a good guest star. He was just a little too overtly anti-social for a lot of directors to stand working with. Frequently hard to find and sometimes harder to get along with after the cameras were done rolling. He was called a promising child actor for a long time.
He was getting old enough to be offered more interesting roles though, and however fake the character he was playing in his day-to-day life was, it was still proving extremely effective at charming people.
Alfred had some hope that, maybe, if he could push Bruce in the direction of acting again in earnest that it might be a healthy outlet for whatever was storming inside of his mind.
Which is why, when Alfred got a call from Bruce’s agent saying that a casting director was asking about him for a role in a teenage romance, Alfred figured it could be something lighthearted and fun for him. Just something to flex his creative muscles in, in a setting that actually called for it.
He slipped the screen testing date into Bruce’s schedule.
He takes the surprise well enough, at least. Alfred can’t entirely tell if it’s just an effort to please him- if Bruce even cares enough about the film itself to try very hard impressing anyone working on it.
Alfred reads a bit of the screenplay on the flight to meet with the directors and can’t help but laugh a little. It’s certainly interesting.
Bruce shows up looking pale and a little sleepless, and apparently that’s exactly what they want. They have him run a short scene on a bed with the leading actress, someone his age they’ve already chosen. To Alfred, it looks like Bruce is willing to fall asleep right there if they left him alone long enough, but everyone else in the room seems to be in approval of his performance. The girl is blushing too, even if that might be her job at the moment.
The evening is fairly uneventful, and they fly back to Gotham as soon as they’ve finished.
A few weeks later, Bruce’s agent informs them he has the part. They loved him, and his face is allegedly perfect.
They begin filming just a month after his seventeenth birthday.
When “Twilight,” starring Bruce Wayne as the vampire heartthrob Edward Cullen releases that year, it becomes a national sensation seemingly overnight.
Bruce has a short few months before his eighteenth birthday to experience being an even bigger superstar than he had been before. Everyone in Gotham knew who he was, sure, and it was usually fairly likely that people around the rest of New Jersey did too, but now? It felt like the whole world recognized his face. He worries it’s going to complicate things.
They reach out to him about a second movie, they want to start right away. There’s a lot of plans for this series, apparently.
It doesn’t matter. He disappears from the face of the earth before they even begin filming. He leaves a note behind for Alfred, because he owes him that much, but nobody else will hear a word from Bruce Wayne for roughly the next eight years.
It’s a greater tragedy for teenage girls around the globe than nine-eleven.
When word hits the press that Edward Cullen has suddenly gone missing without a trace- and word travels faster than it has a right to- it sets the world on fire all over again. The movie gets an even more insane amount of publicity as a side effect.
There are public shrines erected with candles and flowers to pray for his safe return. Magazines and talk shows and news stations and conspiracy theorists alike can only talk about The Mysterious Disappearance of Bruce Wayne for half the year after the fact. Public outcry is slow to die down.
Interviews with fellow actors who knew him, tearfully recounting what a wonderful young man he was off-set, are replayed everywhere. People suspected, at first, if he’d simply run from the fame and the pressure. The story of his parents murder was dredged up all over again, and he became America’s sweetest damaged boy. People suspected suicide, a total change in identity in hiding, kidnapping, a murder to finish the job started eighteen years ago.
Fangirls and cast and crew alike agreed, there would be no replacing Bruce. He was Edward, and there couldn’t be another. They wouldn’t make a second movie until he was found or returned home. Book sales skyrocketed, any and all merchandise with his face on it skyrocketed.
Things die down eventually, barely, only to come back into focus again briefly after the new year. In February, on Bruce’s first birthday since disappearing, memorials once again spring to life in public train stations and subways. A hundred prayers go out to Bruce’s safety, and there is no family to send regards to. A reprint of the first book comes out, with a foreword about Bruce and what he brought to the character and story of Edward.
A similar thing happens the next year too. There are minor controversies about whether or not the studio and people involved with making the movie are simply using Bruce Wayne’s tragic disappearance as a way to make money. Mostly, there’s a lot of parasocial conspiracy and mourning again. A growing minority of people believe that Bruce is never coming back. That he’s either dead, or simply gone for good, in whatever way that might mean.
A world away, the young Minhkhoa Khan forces Bruce to watch his stupid sparkly vampire movie with him, and laughs at him all night long.
He continues to force Bruce to buy the DVDs in every language they can find it in. And there are apparently a lot. It doesn’t matter that Bruce has nowhere to keep these, and typically nowhere to play them, Khoa just wants to lord the fact that they exist over him at all times. He says a lot of stupid things to rile Bruce up.
“How old are you, really?” Comes up more than it should have any right to.
“I know what you are…” Is probably Khoa’s favorite to throw around. He knows exactly what he’s doing with it.
Bruce thinks he doesn’t take him seriously enough. He hates being some crazy recognizable movie star more than he cares to be embarrassed by whatever the movie was about.
Minhkhoa took Bruce very seriously. In the end, he thought, maybe more seriously than Bruce was capable of taking himself. Of taking his mission. A heart too weak to do what’s necessary. Fit to play a romantic facsimile, an idea of a killer, more than he’s fit to become one when the moment is going to count.
Bruce had never felt the need to be an actor around Khoa. Perhaps neither of them felt the same way about each other.
It’s an unfortunate coincidence that when he rejoins the society of Gotham, New Jersey, that the identity Bruce Wayne chooses to take on is the bat man. The first time he pulls that cowl over his head and readies his soul— he could swear, worlds away, he was being laughed at just then.
Batman knows that when the day eventually comes for him to face Ghostmaker, that he better have a really, really good excuse prepared.
The day that comes first is the one he never would have thought to prepare for, though. Superman. Clark Kent. His coworker. His… friend? Well, Bruce had anticipated his own reluctance to be forthcoming with any personal information. He didn’t plan on trusting the guy. He certainly hadn’t planned on getting attached to him. And yet.
So, there he was, alien eyes on him, expected to reciprocate in this little exchanging of vulnerabilities. Of names and faces kept hidden. And— the thing was… Listen, the thing was, Bruce shocked himself first by wanting to do it. When he looked into the honest, honeyed smile that Kal-El could produce, he found that he did truly want to be part of it. Part of this.. friendship, this allyship, whatever it was. He wanted it.
But.
Bruce hesitated.
Clark could see it, because of course he could, and he tries to assure Batman that he doesn’t need to share if he’s not ready, because of course he would. Bruce thinks he is ready, it’s not what he needs to be told. It’s just. It’s just this;
When Bruce is about to pull the cowl off for that first time, he really really wants to prelude it with a, “before you say anything.” His hesitation is born entirely out of embarrassment. What, does he seriously think Superman is going to ask for his autograph or something? No, that’s ridiculous. But god. The mere idea- the imagery- of Bruce revealing his face and unknowably having Clark’s first reaction be one along the lines of, “wow, I guess Bruce Wayne really is similar to Edward Cullen!” makes Bruce cringe so badly that he rethinks if he’ll ever be able to do this. It’s bad. It’s so bad. He’d have to find a way to invent memory wipes or something. He just cannot entertain the possibility of being compared to the one stupid character he played in one stupid movie a decade ago that just HAD to become a permanent cultural mainstay. He’s never going to escape getting called a vampire, is he? Like, this is really going to be the end for his dignity. His last chance to keep these two worlds separate and maintain his peace. Is he really going to throw that away for Superman? Is anything worth that price?
Evidently, in the end, Clark Kent’s smile was worth more than anything. And oh boy did he let loose the smiles when he put one and two together.