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The Iceberg Lounge was bustling, like any Saturday night. Oswald parted the crowds without needing to try. Despite all the years behind him, he still got a faint thrill at the power that came with this being his place, where everyone knew what he could do.
Music and bodies and, most of all, scents filled the club. There were a few different areas, sectioned off in different ways, and this main one was always the one to be loud and trashy in. The rich and sociable loved to pretend to be dirty and messy, when all that was really messy about them was their lack of humanity.
Not that he was one to talk.
Oswald paused against the bar, sipping his second whiskey and scanning the crowd for a specific figure. Last time he'd seen Bruce Wayne, he'd been up on a pool table, whirling some girl around. It was one of the greatest joys in his life to mock the Bat for his behavior as the playboy philanthropist. Most of the time, it rolled off, but it was damn funny anyway.
Wherever he was now, Bruce was uncharacteristically conspicuous. Most of the time - in fact, almost all of it - he was an attention whore, always at the center of things. The fact that he wasn't definitely meant something. Hopefully it wasn't something that would end up leading to Oswald's arrest.
On that note, Oswald let his mild paranoia take hold. He finished off his drink and started to head toward his back office, just to be certain. He got about halfway there before finding the man he was looking for in a quieter hallway.
There was a girl on him, unsurprisingly, her mouth on his neck and her hands under his shirt. Generally, Oswald would have taken that as a cue to spin around and go have a drink or two to get it off his mind. But Bruce was about four shades too pale, and his hands were white knuckled on the wall behind him instead of around the woman. He looked about two minutes from passing out.
Oswald found a scowl spreading over his face. He stepped in and wedged his cane between the two, shoving the girl back.
She yelped slightly. For a moment, it looked like she was going to make an angry protest, and then she realized who he was.
“Go paw at someone else,” he said bluntly. He watched as she scampered away, shaking his head slightly, then turned his attention back to Bruce.
He was still pasty, blinking slowly down at him. “...hi,” he managed, sounding like his tongue may be conspiring against him.
“What are you on?”
Another slow blink. “Hi, Osz… Ozzie. Does anyone call you that?” He asked, stumbling forward slightly.
He scowled a little more as he caught him, grip tight around an unnecessarily muscular forearm. “Not unless they have a death wish,” he said, adjusting his cane as he leaned on it more heavily to accommodate Bruce’s not insignificant weight.
“Oh. Huh.”
“Right, huh. Seriously, did you take something, or did someone give you something?”
“I… grabbed a girl’s drink. Someone put… somethin’ in it.”
“You couldn’t have just told her?” He said with a sigh, trying to keep Bruce as fully upright as he could.
“...dunno why,” he admitted, pausing significantly before adding, “I drank it.”
He rolled his eyes. “I can tell.”
He began to gently pull the other man along, against his better judgement. Sure, he didn’t like the guy, but it would be shit news for people to find out that the city’s favorite pretty boy had gotten roofied at his club. He’d just get him somewhere quiet to wait it out.
Since he’d already been on the way there, he opted to take him back into his office. Bruce kept talking, while simultaneously not saying anything at all, and kept leaning on him in a way that made his bad hip ache. Oswald was certain he’d been drugged against his will, because there was no way that he’d go this far just to play dumb.
Oswald hauled him onto the couch in his office with a growl. “Sit. If you throw up on my couch, you’re replacing it,” he said, watching the man move as if his limbs were on puppet strings.
“Yess…ssir,” he slurred, nodding. He paused and grimaced, the sensation apparently unpleasant in his condition.
He shook his head slightly and went for the miniature fridge in the back of the room, digging through various sodas and mixers until he found a water bottle. “You know, I bet Robin would disapprove of ya being like this,” he pointed out dryly.
“Robin…? Oh, yeah. My Robin,” he slurred. “Robins. More than one. I like them.”
“Good to hear it. They like you?” He sat down next to him on the couch, putting his cane aside by the side table. He offered up the water, and Wayne took it without actually seeming to realize what had been put in his hands.
“Uhhh. S… sometimes. Usually. Sometimes they get mad at me, and sometimes I get mad at them. We get mad.”
“Really. Guy who dresses up in a bat costume and beats people up in the middle of the night has issues with anger. Shocking.”
Bruce paused for a moment to contemplate that. “It is?”
Oswald snorted. “No. Give me that.” He scooted a bit closer and took the water back out of his hands, opening it up while Bruce watched far more intently than it warranted.
“Water. Here.” He put the bottle back into his grip, pulling his fingers into place around it. The man’s hands were cool, but Oswald had expected that. Even through the gloves, one could usually tell that Bruce ran cold enough to remain chilly after a serious physical fight.
“Oh. Thank you.”
Oswald nodded slightly, sitting back comfortably. It was quiet for a while as Bruce sipped at the water. It brought a little color back to his face, and sitting seemed to be helping as well. Even if he didn’t like the guy, Oswald had to admit that it was reassuring to see him not looking like he was on the edge of unconsciousness.
As Bruce continued nursing the drink, he slowly slumped over. All of a sudden, despite the nearly ten inches he had on him, he was on Oswald’s shoulder.
“What the hell are you doing?” He asked, scowling down at him as his hair brushed his cheek.
“Dunno,” he said, eyes half lidded.
Part of Oswald really wanted to shove him off and leave him on the floor. The other part, the one that was, unfortunately, deeply touch starved, wanted him and his oddly comfortable weight a little closer. Damn him.
“Fine,” he muttered, more to himself than to Bruce. “You are such a problem.”
He brought a hand up, around the other man’s front, keeping Bruce’s head from slipping off. Bruce, completely unbothered, kept at his occasional sips of water.
“You smell nice. Not like fish.”
“...why, logically, would I smell like fish?” Oswald asked dryly.
“Penguin?”
He sighed. “Right. But, actually, logically. When would I be about fish enough to smell like them?”
“...huh. Never thought of it,” he mumbled into his jacket, turning his head slightly to take another sniff. “Smells like… dunno.”
“Frankincense, anise… it’s Royal Tobacco.”
“Mm. Expensive?”
“Yes. I splurge.”
Bruce laughed softly, smiling into his shoulder. “Wow,” he mumbled, as if he wasn’t worth hordes more than Oswald was.
Oswald shook his head, the disapproval of the movement at odds with the smile creeping over his face.
After finishing about half the bottle, Bruce went to put the bottle down on the side table by the couch. Which happened to be on the other side of Oswald. He gave a slightly bewildered noise as he suddenly found the playboy half laying on his lap.
“What the hell are you doing?” He asked a second time, now more exasperated than irritated.
“...putting the water up,” he mumbled, looking back up at him with those damn pretty blue eyes. The press seemed to have a different way of describing them every single day, and Oswald suddenly had the unfortunate experience of recalling all of them.
“Get off me.”
Bruce pouted up at him. Fucking pouted. Like a child. Even worse? It fucking worked. Oswald just couldn’t go full asshole on a guy who was clearly out of it as all hell.
He sighed deeply and laid his head back while Bruce settled in, head resting on his thigh.
“S’comfy,” he mumbled, and Oswald scoffed.
“I’m sure. That’s something they’re always pulling about fat people, ain’t it? ‘You’d be such a great cuddler’.”
“Dunno.”
“Yeah, yeah. What do you know right now?”
“You’re warm. S’nice.”
“Whatever.”
Oswald was less happy with the silence this time. It made it far too difficult to avoid thinking about the fact that the most famously gorgeous man in Gotham (and the most annoying vigilante) was lounging in his lap. That wasn’t aided by the fact that this position really left him without anywhere to put his hands.
Eventually, one ended up on Bruce’s back, the other in his hair. Purely out of convenience’s sake, of course. He didn’t even like the guy.
Bruce’s hair was soft, even though one would probably expect it to be stiff with some sort of product. Apparently, it just settled nicely on its own. Oswald found himself mindlessly running the strands through his fingers, scratching his nails over his scalp.
By now, Bruce’s eyes were closed, breathing even. It was oddly peaceful, for two enemies in an office that probably contained a good amount of unlawful evidence. Oswald actually felt like he might be relaxing a bit, the ache in his hip the only thing keeping him from falling asleep as well.
At least, he’d certainly thought Bruce was asleep. His voice, breaking the silence, disproved that, and also startled Oswald more than he’d care to admit.
“Penguins… aren’t even ugly birds,” he mumbled.
Oswald didn’t even try to stop the sudden squawk of laughter that the unprompted comment drew from him. “I- really? You think?” He asked, smiling down at him and feeling an absolute fool.
“Yeah… I think. People think they’re cute. Why are you a penguin?”
“Why are you a bat?”
There was a pause. “Oh. It was because I… was scared of them,” he said after, as if he’d had to really think to recall it.
Oswald let that hang for a moment, hoping he would elaborate because… what?
When a few solid seconds had passed without anything, he tugged his hair slightly. “What? I don’t get it.”
“I was scared of bats. When I was little.”
“Okay? And?”
“So… I got not scared. By being a bat,” he slurred. “And making other people scared of a bat.”
All Oswald could do was laugh again. The whole situation was so absurd that he even forgot to be self-conscious about his raucous squawking. Eventually, Bruce joined in with deeper, far more pleasant chuckles.
“You know, if you weren’t so damn capable of being Batman, you’d be utterly ridiculous,” Oswald said when he’d finally calmed down. “I can kind of understand how your little birds can bear to be around you if this is what you can be like in the down time.”
“Hm.”
“‘Hm’? What?”
“Dunno.”
Oswald almost started laughing again. This was just ridiculous. This situation, the way it had him feeling, all of it. And he didn’t even like the guy.
“So… why are you a penguin?”
He sighed. Honestly, part of him was surprised that Bruce didn’t already know. It seemed like it was impossible to keep secrets from the man. But, then again, the earning of his name hadn’t exactly been a grand gesture.
“Because I look like one, you dumbass,” he said, softening the words with his tone and the resuming of his hand in his hair. “All the kids in the schoolyard noticed that. A short, waddling little bird with a big old beak.”
“...they were being mean?” Bruce asked quietly, peering up at him from his lap in a way that seemed all too innocent.
For some reason, that gave him pause. He looked away, nodded, tried to bury down the emotions suddenly stirred up. “Yeah. Everyone was. I mean, it was the 70s. Not a lot of anti-bullying campaigns going on.”
“But I made it my own,” he added, swallowing back the still stinging memories. “Now you’ve got a damn scary penguin that you don’t piss off. That you don’t throw around.”
Bruce nodded slowly against his thigh. “Mhm.”
“You better not remember all this in the morning.”
Bruce gave another little hum. Again, it was quiet. Oswald rubbed his thumb against the nape of his neck in a steady pattern. This time, he was absolutely sure that Bruce had fallen asleep. He let the quiet lay over them until he found himself drifting off too.
Oswald woke up at a quarter to ten. He ached from the uncomfortable position. And he was alone. He couldn’t say he was surprised. They didn’t even like each other.