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He recruits him first.
Approaching with trepidation, and a sense of anticipation that feels out of place in this forsaken corner of the world where the winds are harsh, the tides are worse, and the people cannot be bribed into giving up a saviour. He is used to money paving the path he needs to take, and when that doesn’t work, intimidation has done the job just fine in its place.
There is a bad seed to it all, but he isn’t so rotten as to spoil the rest of the barrel.
He doesn’t want to call it hope because hope goes by a very different name not of this earth. For a man who has lived in Gotham all his life (for a man who has every opportunity to leave but decided to stay instead), hope has no place here when he travels halfway across the world for a man who can talk to fish for a superpower.
Bruce Wayne is looking for a man named Arthur Curry and he is not about to go home empty handed. When the man bodily slams him up against the wall, forcibly knocks the air out of his lungs, Bruce calls it a chink in the armour.
"It doesn't have to be me."
Bruce looks at him, and thinks of plenty of worse answers to give to that. He settles on one that probably won't end with him walking away from this with fractured ribs.
"It does if you are the only one of your kind."
He can probably even call it optimism if he is being generous here.
The man that shows up the day after the King tide washes over has an unfamiliar face, and for a small village like this one, where everyone knows too much about everyone else, that is enough of a warning all together.
Bruce Wayne presses all the right buttons and says all the wrong things, Arthur sees red before he is throwing him up against the wall, fingers digging into the layers and hoisting the man high enough to look him in the eyes. Here, he thinks, is a man looking to pick a fight he is in no way prepared for.
Arthur also thinks he might be out of his mind when he goes lax in his grip.
"Arthur Curry, you are not what I expect."
He is calm and collected and Arthur has no intention of letting this go on.
"Good, because you are looking for the wrong man."
When he drops him down, Bruce lands with a groan and Arthur finds that he can't quite unhear that sound. He goes as far as to let the man talk the entire way to the edge of the water even if he doesn't let him get the last word.
He is still out of his depths this far from Gotham but it is not a fair fight if he is not trying to instigate one to start. Bruce Wayne might lose him in the rough waters off of the coast of this Icelandic village but Arthur doesn't lose sight of what is important.
If Diana asks, and she will, he thinks he can resort to admitting to the truth once in a while.
(That he probably shouldn't be the one of the two of them to be doing the recruiting because a billionaire really doesn't strike quite the empathetic tone Diana wants them to be going for when he can barely get convincing across, let alone inviting.)
They are beneath the Gotham Harbour when he finally steps in.
Batman doesn't know what he is expecting but this is more in line with what he imagined than that first impression. After all, for the lack of a better word, the man's entrance this time definitely makes a splash.
"He showed up when we needed him." Diana tells Bruce, looking to the man from Atlantis prodding at something he probably shouldn't be touching across the Batcave. "You must have done something right."
Bruce feels like she is implying several things at once with just that. "Must've been my charming personality."
She glances at him like he is being difficult and answers in that tone of voice that he is learning to be a promise of her not just getting the last laugh but every laugh prior to. Diana Prince does not involve herself in battles she cannot win.
"Oh, I'm sure that is why he is here."
She is smiling, he is not. The sarcasm drips thick like honey from her voice.
While Steppenwolf convinces them that this league of theirs has the potential to do the kind of good that can save the world, Pozharnov reminds them of the life after a crisis, and how life goes on.
"The strong man is the strongest when alone." He quotes him quoting Friedrich Schiller except word for word this time instead of his half-hearted toss back when he is already waist deep into the water. "Schiller was wrong."
Arthur looks at him, laughter in the way the corners of his eyes crinkle. "So what I said didn't go entirely over your head, bat?"
"Bruce," he corrects, given he is out of his Batsuit and they have sent an ancient entity back to where he came from barely forty-eight hours ago. "Friedrich Schiller is still wrong."
"You're a grown man dressed like a bat, I'm going to call you what I want."
Bruce doesn't dignify that with a response. His mouth flattens into a thin line because here is that anticipation once more, except it is dread too. Bruce Wayne might have it all but he still feels like a greedy little boy.
He already has him on his side. He doesn't get to have him by his side too.
Aquaman doesn't stay. Batman doesn't ask him to. Come King tide, he can still be found in the small little desolate Icelandic village and come mission or crisis, he will show up where he is needed with the league.
These things do not change, but the two of them do even if they don't admit to them.
“Let’s have a drink.”
Arthur comes to him.
They are between missions, between crises, and Bruce wishes he can lower his guard down long enough so it isn’t surprise that hits him in the gut when Arthur turns up even if he has no reason to. But Arthur has already let himself inside of Bruce’s house, made his way into his private study with muddy boots and a jacket dripping from the rain outside dumped unceremoniously on a sofa in the corner of the room.
There is no hello or how are you, that isn’t how Arthur Curry makes his way all the way inside his h— Bruce gets up and doesn’t pretend he is going to turn the offer down when there are paperwork strewn across his desk all with the Wayne Enterprise header.
“Just one?”
“One of this, and it is going to be more than enough to put the both of us down.”
Arthur is full of bad ideas, he is also full of shit. Bruce doesn’t know if this is the former or the latter or something else entirely that Arthur has just thrown on the table. The bottle he holds out might be a dare, it also might be an offer under a different name. Bruce doesn’t think he is equipped to be doing any detective work here or now. He thinks he wants it to be more, and that is where he draws the line for himself.
“Well then,” he turns, holds out two glass tumblers and wonders when Arthur has ended up all the way here, “I guess I should thank you for picking out my poison for me.”
Standing next to him, Arthur just gives him a wide grin. “You might not be thanking me in the morning but you’re welcome.”
The whiskey he pours out is amber. The ice clinks against the glass when he takes one from his hands.
“Now, drink up, Wayne.”
Tilting his head back, Bruce obliges.
"—Dedication gets you here."
He is not bitter but at the same time, sentimentality is not a good look on him.
Here is the heir to the throne of Atlantis face to face with the man who owns Wayne Enterprise.
Perhaps, they are not so different after all when he reduces the rightful king to a man who can talk to fish and he makes a dig at the bat at every given opportunity. One drink turns into two turns into an empty bottle sitting between them with Bruce sounding like a broken record. Bruce doesn't have a loose tongue with the alcohol in his system but he finishes the story he barely got to start during their short brisk walk along the Icelandic coast the first time he meets him, where twenty years in Gotham as the Batman amounts to enough blood on his hands to seek atonement of this scale.
He is not a meta-human, and he is not a Demi-God or a Kryptonian. He is the furthest thing from, Bruce Wayne is human and he has every reason not to be here (he also has every reason to be).
Arthur finishes the last of his drink, turns just far enough so he is meeting him gaze to gaze.
"Here doesn't look so bad."
Bruce doesn't flinch, it really is quite the change.
His fingers find fabric but he is reaching pass that for skin, the rough pads of his hands dragging across raised scars and healed bullet wounds. Here is the bait, dropped into the deep end, he takes it, he takes it with both hands. Arthur's hair is damp, Bruce's tongue tastes salt, and when he opens his mouth into the kiss, he finds himself not thinking at all. He still bodily pins him to the wall this time but there is much less talking involved.
He takes off his shirt even if he has no reason to.
It lands, somewhere in their vicinity, followed in succession by Bruce's belt. He has one hand undoing the button then the zipper of Bruce's pants while the other keeps Bruce against the wall. It really is quite an unnecessary display of strength when he is keeping the Batman from moving at all, not that the other has any intention of moving away, not when Arthur is sinking down to his knees like it is his right.
"You didn't really think I came just for drinks, right?"
This might not be a trick question but Arthur has every intention of pushing until he has Bruce reeling him in.
"This could be a pit stop." Bruce supplies, looking down to Arthur who has his mouth curling into a wicked grin as he watches just how Bruce's eyes follow the sprawl of tattoos from his forearms to his shoulders to his chest and throat.
"Your house is not that close to the coast." Arthur tells him, and there is no malice, it is almost like he is trying to say everything except for what he means. The implication is really quite clear though. He makes sure the other man is well aware of just what he has in mind.
"Not bad at all." Arthur muses as he pulls him out, head tilting back to bare his throat to him, more than just a little bit encouraging when Bruce's fingers slide to tangle into his hair, dragging him closer until his breath is hitting the head of his cock. He wets his lips with a slow drag of his tongue, he opens his mouth, he takes him in.
Bruce groans, it is a very different one, but Arthur is not about to forget this one either as he sinks down further.