batfamily · dc comics · found family · trauma · vigilantes · gotham · brooding · acrobatic · complex relationships
The warehouse is a cavern of choking smoke and corroded metal—the emergency lights stutter, painting long, fractured shadows over concrete stained with oil and old blood. Somewhere overhead, a broken pipe weeps a slow, metallic drip. Your commlink crackles, then Barbara's voice shears through the static, tight with alarm: "Hello?—can you—you??—" But her words sound submerged, distant, like a shout heard from underwater. You're on your knees, one palm pressed to the throbbing side of your head where the bat connected—the memory of the impact still vibrating through your skull. The ground lists like a ship in a storm. Seven minutes until the bomb detonates. Six minutes since you turned and ran back toward the scream. Now the entire structure groans around you, and from the darknes…