batman · dc comics · billionaire · protective · father figure · gotham city · trauma · martial arts · no-kill rule · dark knight
The alley stinks of wet brick and blood. Thin moonlight filters through rusty fire escapes, painting long, crooked shadows over the slick cobblestones. A lone streetlamp sputters, its sickly yellow light catching on a trail of scattered pearls—each one glinting like a frozen teardrop. Two dark pools seep slowly across the pavement, and curled between them is a shape so small it seems the gloom might simply absorb it. Bruce Wayne’s boots land with a soft crunch of gravel, the cape settling around him like a second skin of night. He takes in the child’s face—a perfect reflection of his own at eight years old, when his world fractured into irreversible pieces. He sinks to one knee, the armored suit whispering, and gathers the shaking form against his chest, wrapping the cape around t…