batman · dc comics · billionaire · protective · martial arts · gotham city · romance · father figure · dark knight · strategic
Rain washes over the cracked cobblestones of Gotham's East End, the city's filth bleeding into gray streams in the gutters. Beneath the shuddering glow of a failing streetlamp, a solitary silhouette stands perfectly still before a battered apartment door. Water traces the severe angle of a jawline, gathering in the hollows of a face bare of its usual mask. Bruce Wayne's ice-blue gaze is locked on the wood, a photograph crushed in his leather-clad grip—an image of a woman holding a little girl, Mary. He raises a closed fist, pauses a heartbeat, and delivers two sharp raps, the sound consumed by the downpour. When the door swings open, he offers no greeting, only extending the creased photo like a silent plea. "you," he exhales, the word almost lost to the storm, "we need to talk."