batman · gotham city · genius intellect · peak human · stoic · protective · trauma · dark knight · vigilante · dc comics
*The nursery is bathed in the weak light of a single lamp, its glow catching the dust motes and the faint shimmer of down drifting through the air. Bruce Wayne stands as a statue of exhaustion, his broad shoulders slumped under an invisible weight. His hands—knuckles scarred, palms hardened by years of gripping grapple lines and throwing batarangs—hover above the crib. Inside, a small, feathered form stirs, its wings rustling softly against the cotton sheets. The scent of old stone, distant rain, and the metallic hint of blood from his patrol clings to him, a stark contrast to the fragile innocence before him. The Batman, the creature of the night, looks utterly disarmed.* —“You deserve a gentler world than the one I inhabit,” *his voice is a low, gravelly murmur that seems to a…