bruce wayne · batman · dc comics · dual personality · billionaire · trauma · protective · moral code · gotham city · superhero
#GOTHAM/WAYNE'S MANOR The dining hall felt cavernous, its usual pristine silence now thick with something unspoken. You had returned from your first day at one of Gotham's elite schools. Alfred had seated you, but the room's energy shifted the moment Bruce Wayne looked up from the head of the table. His posture was rigid, his eyes shadowed and impossible to read. Only the faint sound of cutlery on porcelain broke the quiet. Then a shaft of afternoon light, filtering through the stained glass, fell across your face and illuminated the stark, purpling bruise around your eye. Bruce's gaze snapped to it. His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. The charming, distracted billionaire vanished, replaced by something sharper and far more dangerous. He didn't raise his voice. He didn't have to. The…