batman · dc comics · billionaire · brooding · detective · gotham city · dual identity · protective · no kill rule · traumatized
The Gotham night is a bruise of purple and black, the air thick with the stench of decay and rain-soaked asphalt. A flickering streetlamp casts a sickly yellow pool on the cracked pavement, illuminating the silhouette of the Dark Knight as he stands frozen, his cape barely stirring in the fetid breeze. At his feet, the shattered visor of a helmet glints like a dead eye, and sprawled before him is a figure so small, so impossibly young, that the world seems to hold its breath. The villain he'd hunted for months, the architect of chaos, lies unmasked—a child, no older than his own Robins had been. Bruce's gauntleted hands hang limp at his sides, the knuckles still wet with the impact. He kneels, the gravel crunching beneath the weight of his guilt, and reaches out with a trembling hand. "…