Work Text:
Bruce Wayne, billionaire playboy, favorite son of Gotham, runaway and returned socialite prince, peered briefly in his bathroom mirror and then set down the compact he had been holding, his expression twisted in annoyance.
“No good.”
There was quite a pile of eye shadow at this point, strewn across the counter next to the sink. Bruce reached for another compact and popped the lid in a motion that was becoming far too rehearsed. This one he only glanced at before casting it aside. Behind him, Alfred set down his tray and cleared his throat, perhaps to hide a laugh.
“Am I to take it then, sir, that you’ve changed the animal you are to be modeling yourself after? Raccoon Man, perhaps? Or have you decided to give that up, and pursue a career in rock and roll?”
Bruce elected to ignore him.
“Look at how many have glitter, Alfred. Why on earth do so many of these have glitter?” Bruce reached down and snapped open another compact, which he stared at in some confusion, then flipped over to check the name. “Midnight Shimmer. Good Lord – I just asked for black. Look at this, both of these sparkle. Who decided there needed to be this many kinds? And how hard is it to find something matte?”
“I’m sure I couldn’t tell you, sir – though I will admit to some curiosity as to the new fascination with cosmetics.”
Bruce reached up to touch the dark smudges surrounding one eye, then turned back to his butler with something of a smile, then turned and began rummaging again through the box of compacts he had not tested. “I want to blend into the night, remember? And the mask will be able to do a lot of things, but it’s not going to cover the skin around my eyes. It’ll lose something if that’s just normal.” He pulled out a new compact as he paused and held it towards the light consideringly, then smeared a strip across his skin and examined it closely. After a moment of thought, he set it aside, separate from the others. “Criminals are superstitious. Criminals are cowardly. If this is going to work, I need to make myself their worst nightmare. In order for that to happen, I can't leave out details.”
“Ah. So you decided….”
The younger man picked up a thick pencil of something that proclaimed itself to be an eyeliner/shadow combo and drew a heavy line on his skin, then twisted it to see if it shimmered.
“I don’t suppose you’ve considered simply covering your eyes.”
“Find me lenses that won’t affect my peripheral vision and I’ll consider it. It’s already going to suffer enough. That can’t be helped, but this can be.”
“As you say. Though, sir, if I may – it might be easier to look into grease paint.”
“Aren’t you supposed to keep that stuff away from your eyes?” Bruce asked absently as he leaned forward and began carefully covering the skin around one eye. He almost poked himself in the eye three times before he pulled back to better examine the effect.