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Bruce doesn't know when it started. He can trace his control issues back to his first lucid night after the day his life fell apart, but the food thing? It happened so gradually he can barely build a timeline.
He vaguely recalls learning about calories in his health class. An assignment to calculate how much they burn in a day. A journal to track their meals for a week. But that was just another assignment of many where he watched the deadline go by without lifting a finger.
He does remember the first time he connected the calories listed on nutrition labels to his daily expenditure. Moreso, he remembers feeling the click in his head at keeping the numbers even. Calories in, calories out.
Balanced.
Controlled.
That click set off an avalanche in Bruce's mind. Long after the journal entries were due, Bruce started shadowing Alfred in the kitchen. At first, he was content with eye-balling the mass of food and estimating its calories. In, out.
Then he watched Alfred fry something for the first time. Nausea rolled in his gut with each glug of the oil cruet. It felt like it was in the air, a greasy feeling in his mouth and the smell of olive oil in his nose. It stuck to him even as he sat down to eat. He almost couldn't do it, almost couldn't put the forkful of greasy chicken in his mouth. And when he did manage, the feeling sat so heavy and awful in his gut he threw it up.
As Alfred held his hair back, Bruce made him promise to stick to baked goods from then on. And a scale, he demanded. Alfred could write up the recipe and Bruce would make his changes. Less oil here, removing sugar or flour there, anything to keep the calories in control. In, out.
Even as he trusted Alfred to obediently follow Bruce's changes, he still monitored the kitchen, learning to accurately guess the weight of each ingredient by sight alone and counting the calories in his head. It became something of a comfort, the ability to remember and recalculate what he'd eaten that day in numbers. A scale in his head, perfectly balanced. In, out.
Bruce was only more grateful for this ability when he left to train. He put his life and wellbeing in the hands of his masters, but this was a steady comfort. He'd long since calculated the equation for a person's daily caloric needs based on muscle mass, height, weight, and activity level. He didn't need constant access to a scale; as diligent as he was with calorie counting, he could track his weight fluctuations on his own. Every time he did step on a scale, he was accurate down to the gram.
When he came back as Batman, he wrote up a new cookbook for Alfred, jotting down recipes from both his childhood and his travels. Breakfast had to be exactly xxx calories, so he typed up a dozen meals with that requirement. Lunch and dinner were similarly planned out. He optimized for macro and micronutrients; his body needed more of everything to maintain peak physical performance. Down to the micrograms of vitamin B9, Bruce had it all laid out in one spreadsheet. In, out.
He was in control, He would debut as Batman soon, and he was still in control.
The first time Dick sat down at the dining table with him, yawning his sleep away, Bruce realized he absolutely could not pass this on. He was there to make sure Dick ended up better than Bruce had been after his own orphanage. Even as Dick became Robin to his Batman, Bruce refused to introduce him to that paranoia. It wasn't hard to hide from him, anyways, until the first time Dick begged him to try Batburger.
Once again, the thought of greasy, fried meat, of dense carbs, of sugary sauces left Bruce queasy. There were too many uncontrollable factors; it was difficult to measure the grease or fat content in food prepared away from your eyes. But, Dick was so excited. He wanted, so badly, to experience this with.
Could he purge it out, after? No, there were still calories digested in his saliva and stomach acid that he couldn't account for. And he certainly couldn't say no to Dick, that was more impossible. He would just have to tough it out. It was for Dick, he reminded himself.
Walking off a plank must have been easier than steps to the counter of Batburger. But when the meal arrived, complete with Jokerized fries and a Rockin' Robin milkshake for Dick, Bruce could only think of the wide smile Dick wore, missing a few teeth and a dimple peeking out. They clinked their burgers together and took a bite in unison and--
And it was actually... pretty decent. Bruce didn't think he could stomach this without his son's chatter distracting him, but he felt... okay.
Bruce didn't let his mind linger on it too much until the next morning, as he stood on the scale for his daily weigh-in. For the last six years, his weight hadn't moved one gram from xxkg. Bruce stared at the scale, weighing him at .4 kilograms heavier than he had been just the previous morning. Hi mind felt jagged, like the sharp focus of it splintered as his heartbeat quickened. The scales were uneven. He was uneven, tipped off balance and quickly spiraling. A plan, he thought numbly. He needed a plan. He could fix this, he could.
.4kg fat. That was xx calories. Cardio, Bruce just needed xx minutes of cardio and he'd be back on balance. Just a bit more out today, and the scales would balance.
They didn't. The next morning and he was still unbalanced. By .2kg, but even that sent him teetering to the edge. A bit more, he thought numbly. Just a bit more out today, and it would be even.
The next stay, Bruce almost fell to his knees in relief. He fixed it. He was off-balance for a bit but he fixed it. He could always fix it, if he could fix this much. But he couldn't go through this downward spiral each time he took Dick out for a treat, nor could he bear to deny the boy such a simple desire.
He just needed-
-A bit more out. Bruce would just exercise a bit more, eat a bit less, and then he could afford the occasional night out. In, out. He was still in control. As long as he compensated, as long as he prepared, he would still be in control.