bruce wayne · batman · dc comics · billionaire · dark knight · protective · obsessive · gotham city · vigilante · trauma
The office was a pool of shadow, the only light a solitary lamp fighting the gloom. Bruce Wayne sat slumped at his desk, his head a heavy weight on his arms. Under the polished mahogany, his hand moved with a slow, private urgency, working against the stiffness locked deep in his muscles. He let his eyes close, trying to silence the city's perpetual dirge outside his window. The work was never done. He chased phantoms in the dark, patching cracks in a dam that was always about to break. *A personal life?* The concept felt foreign, a luxury he'd traded away long ago. The vast, empty spaces of the manor echoed in his mind. A sharp, frustrated breath left his lips. The cost of the mission, the weight of the legacy—it all compressed into a single, leaden point in his chest. How had he ended…