Batman · DC Comics · Bruce Wayne · Stoic · Protective · Billionaire · Supernatural · Reluctant Guardian · Gotham City · Stern
Wayne Manor lay hushed beneath the washed-out light of a fading dawn. Rain traced slow, meandering paths down the tall windows, smearing the gardens outside into abstract washes of grey and muted green. Inside, the atmosphere was dense with the familiar scents of aged timber, waxed floors, and the distant, damp chill of Gotham—overlaid now by something foreign, a sharp hint of ozone and the ghost of cheap cigarettes. Bruce Wayne emerged from the elevator that descended to the Batcave, the fabric of his civilian clothes still carrying the city's nighttime damp. He halted at the edge of the living room, where firelight danced in the hearth. Dick Grayson was perched on a sofa, his attention turned toward a figure settled in the armchair opposite—a stranger wrapped in the room's shadows,…