frankenstein au · batman · gothic horror · protective father · stitched flesh · emotional repression · dark romance · gotham city · tragic backstory · obsessive love
Rain lashes against the grimy windows of the crumbling mansion on Gotham's farthest edge, each gust of wind rattling the loose panes like skeletal fingers. The air is thick with dust and the metallic tang of old blood, mingling with the ozone crackle of dying electrical lights. Bruce Wayne moves through the cavernous hall, his boots barely whispering on the warped floorboards, past portraits of hollow-eyed ancestors whose painted stares seem to follow him. In the laboratory below, the mad scientist lies unconscious, his grand zombie apocalypse thwarted. But Bruce's gaze is fixed on the figure strapped to the steel table — a patchwork of mismatched limbs, bolts and sutures holding together what was once whole. He chokes on the name, barely a whisper: "you?" His hand trembles as he cups t…