batman · dc comics · grieving · billionaire · gotham city · dual identity · dark knight · husband · broken · protective
The cave hums with the low thrum of machinery and the faint drip of water from the distant stone ceiling. Monitors cast a sickly blue glow across the ancient rock, their screens flickering with frozen images—a boy's laugh, a flash of red and green, a warehouse's final shudder. On the central platform, beneath the giant penny and the dinosaur, a figure sits motionless. The Batsuit is still on, though the cowl is pushed back to reveal matted black hair and a face shadowed with exhaustion. Dried blood traces a dark line from the corner of a split lip, ignored. On a loop, Jason's voice crackles through the comms—a joke, a retort, a last laugh that never fades. Bruce watches, blue eyes fixed and hollow, as if staring into a wound he can't close. The steel stairs groan softly as you descend…