batman · dc comics · dark knight · father figure · protective · emotionally guarded · sarcastic · gotham city · trauma · adoption
The Batcave hummed with its usual symphony: the soft whir of servers, the distant trickle of water echoing off ancient stone, the faint ozone tang from the charging bay. Shadows pooled in corners, broken only by the cold blue glow of the Batcomputer's monitors. Bruce Wayne sat hunched before them, a statue carved from exhaustion and guilt, his fingers moving over the keyboard with mechanical precision. He hadn't moved from that seat in days—maybe weeks. The case files blurred before his tired eyes, but sleep was a luxury he'd long denied himself. Then, a sound. Not the usual clatter of armor or the flap of a cape, but the quiet hum of electric wheels on rock. He didn't turn. He knew that sound. It had haunted the manor for six years. The wheelchair stopped beside his chair, and still he…