When Wally finds out about him, Diana, and Clark, he won't shut up about it for a week.
Of course, it's Bruce he bothers with the questions. The regular invasive remarks about power and position in bed; who pays the dinner bill at restaurants; if anyone's met the parents - or the butler - yet. Mostly Bruce lets him yammer and at times releases monosyllabic answers to placate him.
But then one of his innocuous comments catches in Bruce's ear. It rings out long after he's left the speedster behind, echoing in his mind like an outcry in a cavern.
Have you used the lasso in bed yet?
It's just the kind of boyishly immature thing Wally would ask. The funny thing is, he's right. Bruce has used the lasso in the way the man's implying. Just not in the way he imagined.
This… relationship thing, something they've danced around for years, it's new to all three of them but most of all to Bruce. Bruce Wayne, who's only ever had a handful of family to count among his confidantes, allowing two of the world's most powerful superheroes to see beneath his cowl. There's a great deal of distance between them, a wall he cannot seem to pass, because he's never had to. He has no idea how.
They seem to be willing to give him space, believing that's what he wants, and that's true. Most days, with most people, he does. But the more he's with them, the more he realizes that these two are different - these two somehow are exempt from all his rules. The further they are from him, the more he wants them, and yet he has no idea how to bring them closer, how to make them stay.
Neither of them are very familiar with masks. Clark doesn't hide who he is - he has personas, all of which are versions of the truth, parts of himself augmented to suit the situation he is in. As for Diana, she never hides. Doesn't bite her cheek or hold her tongue, she is bold and straight forward and has no need for secrets or alternative identities.
Bruce has had so many masks for so long, he is not sure he knows how to take them down anymore.
And he would like to take them down for them, very much, but there is danger in that. Always, he cannot stop thinking of the dangers, the consequences: what would happen if the three of them were to implode, how the team might divide, or how their new bond might compromise them. Yet, its not even these concerns which keep the Batman so out of reach.
When they sit in Wayne Mansion's library before the fireplace and talk late into the night, Bruce always ends up with a couch to himself. Clark and Diana naturally drift away from him, repulsed by the indifference upon his face, the sharpness of his tone, defenses he no longer knows how to remove.
At League meetings he is brisque and removed as usual though he cannot quench the burst of fire in his chest at how Clark and Diana leave meetings often hand in hand, hips brushing, with only regretful backwards glances hinting that they think of him.
Sometimes he wonders how, or why, they still stick around.
Do you use the lasso in bed, Flash asks. No. But the lasso has been of use, for them, a boon that the Batman might never have foreseen. He that thrives in darkness and secrecy, ever enfolded in an intricate web of deception and deceit, willingly allowing the touch of a thing that would unravel it all.
The first time it was an impulse that he decided not to repress. Diana was beside him in the mansion, drinking hot cocoa on a cold winter night. They were staying up waiting for Clark to return from a deep space mission. Talking together on the balcony, and whenever Diana looked up he knew she was looking for Clark, and the reflection of the stars made her eyes into universes of their own.
"I'm worried about him." She started. "And I'm sure you are too. You'd never say it or admit it, but you worry more than any of us."
Bruce stood choked in the wake of those words, suffocating upon the block in his mind which said No, do not do this, you can not do this, a reaction built up from years of experience. And in that frozen moment he caught sight of the gold circle at DIana's belt, and reached out, and -
"I worry about him most of all." The words tumbled out, like a waterfall bursting through a dam. "His strength makes him reckless, and he never thinks of his own safety. He's so used to being able to handle everything, I'm terrified he won't be prepared if his powers are taken or he's left to his wits to survive." Despite the fact he was free to speak, he still felt panic rising inside, and he tried pressing it down even as he could not help but continue. "If - If I lost him, I -"
Diana took gentle hold of his hand and pulled it away, eyes wide with shock and compassion, and Bruce stood in silent, horrified awe of what he'd done.
He never forgot it. How easy it was to just reach out and grasp the truth, to let it pour out of him, to release responsibility for his voice to the authority of Diana's greatest weapon. That was what Flash was going for, the implication he'd intended. The use of the lasso in domination, in taking and giving up control.
That is exactly what they use it for - what Bruce now uses it for. To give up control. But there's nothing sexual in it at all.
They've never asked him about it, though Clark and Diana both seemed to have caught on. Diana wears the lasso at the mansion constantly, and Bruce could never miss Clark's sharp intake of breath each time he willingly latched onto the gold chord.
It was a form of submission that required no kneeling or degradation, no dirty romp or kinky play. It asked no more of Bruce than he could give - did not force him outside his bounds, did not push him beyond his limits. All it took was an outstretched hand. It did not mean Bruce had to strip off his armor, or remove his cowl, or struggle with the masks permanently affixed to his soul.
If either of his lovers had tried using their strength against him, he'd have run. If they'd tried openly cajoling him into opening up, he'd have run. In all those situations and a thousand others, the Batman would rise and refuse to submit or lose face. But the lasso - the lasso cut through the cowl. The lasso set Bruce free.
This is all he knows how to give them. Little moments where, through the cracks in his reserve, he latches upon a form of reduced inhibition which allows him no escape. To have the words he does not know how to say forced out of him, to bring to light truths which he would keep hidden in the dark out of anxiety and fear.
Laying in the medical bay on the Tower, he reached out and held the lasso tight so he could tell Clark and Diana that the last thing he thought before consciousness fled, was he'd never forgive himself if he died without telling them how much they mattered to him.
Riding in the Javelin out onto a mission, taking hold of the chord when he insisted that Yes, he was recovered enough to go on a mission, so they would know for sure he was healed.
Standing at his parent's graves, so close to Diana that the lasso rested against side of his hand, whispering that no matter how much good he did as Batman he would always feel ashamed to not have done better with the name Bruce Wayne.
It is his touchstone, his comfort. It is the only way he knows how to communicate with the people he loves, the only way he knows how to let them in. It is the only form of submission he can give them.
Sometimes, he remembers the truths he's been forced to tell in the aftermath with a twisted sick revulsion, unable to resist feeling vulnerable by the revelations.
Clark, the only reason I come down on you so hard is because I know the world will disappoint you inevitably, and I don't want to see you break.
This world, Diana, will never be worthy of you and I'm afraid you'll be worn down trying to make it so.
I can't afford any distractions but I can't bring myself to let you both go.
I trust you.
That he repeats to them constantly, afraid that they might infer of his reticence that he doesn't trust them. What kind of man can't tell the people he loves how he feels, what he thinks? And he does love them. But he doesn't say love. He says, I trust you.
"Have you used the lasso in bed yet?"
He'd let that question go unanswered. Reading Wally was easy enough, and it was plain to see the real question behind his curious eyes. The desire to know if maybe the great terrifying Batman got off on being held down. If even the Bat was allowed the chance to let his hair down once in a while.
Bruce didn't reply. It went unsaid that Batman never submits, that Batman allows for no distractions, no weaknesses, no cracks in his armor.
But Bruce Wayne, he takes what comforts he can get.