neellscapsule

[neellscapsule]

the side of everything

summary | you are on the side of the road. you are on your own side. it's a pity you feel half empty without your husband. it's a marvellous thing that your children make you complete.

pairing | bruce wayne x kent!reader. platonic batboys & cass x kent!reader

warnings / tags | this has so much angst it's crazy. dick being the best son ever but taking responsibilities that aren't supposed to be his. mama is suffering. jason is mentioned quite the times here bc everyone misses him. the truth coming to life in the end :D

word count | 6.2k

authors note | hi there!! english is not my first language so there might be some mistakes, or not, it can depend :)

this is part of the kent!batmom!reader series. this can be read as part 16. you'll the other parts on the masterlist.

taglist | @maolen @joonunivrs @c4ssi4-luv @fanfics4ever @inejskywalker @resting-confused-face @fionnalopez @stargirl9911 @idek101-01 @shqyou

@mei-simp @serendippindots @sirlovel @aixaingela @pjmgojo @antixsocialx2 @nisarelle @realiliumfr @gojoswaterbottle @connnn

@jjoppees @yall-imhere @sabrinasoppositee @nekotaetae @wendee-go @idiomaticpunk @fandomlover1235 @nommingonfood @omisotolongo @lortheswiftie

@owihitmyhead @mosseetrees @c4xcocoa @qardasngan @radicalcannoliqueen @jeshomie @cutie232 @ravenqueen27 @thy-crimson-king @thewiselionessss

@fernomenal @chiizuluvr @natalia42069 @invinciblewaffles @changyumi3 @mbioooo0000 @caramelised-onions @nymphzy0 @lilylovelyxo @notahappystan

YOU DON'T EVEN REMEMBER HOW LONG YOU SIT THERE ON THE BEDROOM FLOOR.

Maybe minutes. Maybe hours. The tears come in waves—hot, choking, merciless. By the time you stand again, your throat is raw and your hands are trembling, and the ache in your chest has settled into something sharp, something furious.

When the door creaks open behind you, you don’t need to turn to know it’s him. Bruce has never knocked in this room, not once in all the years you’ve shared it.

You stay facing the dresser, wiping your palms against the jeans you had put on.

“Y/N,” he says, quiet, careful.

Your shoulders stiffen. “Don’t.”

“I didn’t know,” he insists. His voice is rough, almost hoarse, like he’s been rehearsing the words for hours in his throat. “I didn’t know about Damian. I swear it to you.”

You spin then, fast, your eyes still wet and furious. “You expect me to believe that?”

Bruce doesn’t flinch, but his jaw sets tight. “It’s the truth.”

“You didn’t know?” You laugh bitterly, your voice breaking as it climbs. “You didn’t know when he was born? Not even where? You didn’t know that Talia—” You choke on the name, pressing a fist against your mouth before you lower it again. “You want me to believe that you didn’t realize she had your child? That she just… what? Kept him tucked away like a secret until she felt like dropping him into your lap ten years later?”

Bruce’s face stays stone, but you see the strain in his eyes. “That’s exactly what happened.”

“No,” you snap. “No. That’s too easy, Bruce. That’s too convenient. You’ve always known how to track a person, how to dig through shadows, how to pull answers from the dirt. You expect me to believe that Talia Al Ghul had your child and you never once suspected it?”

His fists clench at his sides. His voice is quieter now, almost pleading. “Y/N, I didn’t know.”

Your lips tremble, and your anger boils over. “God, you disgust me right now. You disgust me because I can’t tell if you’re lying to me or if you’re just that careless with the truth. And either way—either way—it means there’s a boy in my living room who’s everything I wanted and couldn’t have. Everything I lost, over and over again, until there was nothing left of me but grief.”

You see the words hit him. You see it in the way his shoulders dip, in the way his mouth twitches with pain he doesn’t voice. But you don’t stop. You can’t.

“You held me while I buried them,” you say, your voice breaking open now. “You told me it didn’t matter, that I was enough, that this family was enough. And now? Now there’s proof you can have what I couldn’t. Proof you didn’t even have to try for. Flesh of your flesh. Blood of your blood. And it’s not mine.”

“Y/N.” His voice cracks for the first time. “He isn’t your replacement. He isn’t proof of anything. He’s a boy who needs us.”

“He’s a boy who needs you,” you spit. “Not me. Never me. Because I’m not his mother. Because he has a mother. I can’t even look at him without remembering every hospital bed, every doctor shaking their head, every time I thought maybe—maybe this time—I’d get to keep a child that was ours. And I didn’t. But she did. She carried him. She gave him to you.”

Your hands are shaking so hard you can barely unzip the overnight bag you’ve grabbed from the closet. You shove clothes into it without care—shirts, jeans, whatever your hands find.

Bruce takes a step closer. “Don’t do this.”

You freeze, shoulders heaving, and then whisper harshly, “What do you expect me to do, Bruce? Sit downstairs and smile at him? Pretend I’m not choking on this?”

His voice softens. “Running won’t fix this.”

“I’m not running,” you hiss, zipping the bag with a violent jerk. “I’m surviving. Because if I stay here tonight, Bruce, if I keep looking at you, at him, at the truth of all of this—I’ll drown. I’ll suffocate. And I can’t.”

You sling the strap over your shoulder. Your movements are stiff, almost mechanical now, the kind of clarity that only comes when grief is so loud that you can’t hear yourself think anymore.

“Y/N, please.”

You glance at him, eyes glassy, lips trembling but resolute. “Don’t follow me. Don’t send anyone after me. You know where I’ll be.”

He doesn’t ask where. He doesn’t need to.

You move past him, your shoulder brushing his chest as you go. The smell of his cologne hits you, that familiar cedar and smoke, and for just one fraction of a second you falter. But then you see Damian again in your mind’s eye—ten years old, sharp and unyielding, Bruce’s jaw, Bruce’s face—and you keep moving.

For a second, you think he might stop you. He’s Batman—he’s Bruce—he doesn’t let things slip away from him. But he doesn’t move. He just stands there, fists clenched, chest rising and falling too quickly, watching you walk out.

Your car door slams too loudly in the driveway. Your hands fumble against the steering wheel as you start the engine, your vision blurred with tears that won’t stop falling no matter how many times you wipe them away.

You drive.

The city blurs by—Gotham’s dark towers and orange streetlamps, the snow crusted on the corners of sidewalks, the distant sound of sirens that never leave this place. You grip the wheel tighter, your knuckles whitening, your lip caught between your teeth so hard that you taste copper.

You try to breathe. You try to stay steady. But the grief keeps rising in your throat like water filling your lungs.

You press your knuckles hard against your mouth, trying to hold the sobs in. You press them so hard it hurts, but it’s not enough.

Halfway across the bridge, you can’t anymore. The weight in your chest is crushing, unbearable. You pull the car to the side of the road, throw it into park, and grip the steering wheel with both hands.

The sob rips out of you before you can stop it.

And then another.

And another.

You can’t think straight, can’t process anything beyond the loop in your head: ten years old. Ten years old. Ten years old.

You drop your forehead against the wheel, your whole body shaking, tears spilling hot and relentless. You cry until your throat is raw, until your chest aches so violently you think it might split open. You cry for the babies you lost, for the betrayal you feel, for the boy who isn’t to blame but who still feels like a dagger in your chest.

You cry for Bruce, too—for the man who held you through every storm, who told you you were enough, who now stands in a house with a son you can’t bear to face.

And you cry like you haven’t cried in years. Loud, broken, desperate. You cry until your throat is raw, until your chest aches, until there’s nothing left but the sound of your own gasping breaths.

You press your fists against your face, your nails biting into your skin, as if pain might hold you together. But it doesn’t. Nothing does.

Because all you can see is him. Damian. His face. His blood. His connection to Bruce that you’ll never have.

And it breaks you all over again.

Your sobbing slows eventually, not because the grief lessens, but because your body is wrung out from it. You’re left with the kind of shaking breaths that scrape your throat raw, the kind of emptiness that feels heavier than the storm that made it. Your forehead is still pressed against the steering wheel, the leather damp with tears, when your phone vibrates against the passenger seat.

The sound startles you—sharp in the stillness—and you drag in a shaky breath before fumbling for it. The screen glows in the dark: Dickie 💝.

Your oldest. Your boy.

For a second, you almost let it ring. You don’t have the voice for this, don’t have the strength to answer. But the thought of him—twenty-two, out there in Blüdhaven, juggling patrols and bills and everything else—and the fact that he’s calling you now, of all times, pushes you past yourself. You swipe the screen with trembling fingers and press the phone to your ear.

“Hey, mom,” Dick’s voice comes through, light, warm, casual in the way it always is when he’s trying to check in without worrying you. But the sound of it breaks something open in you all over again.

You swallow hard. “Hi, sweetheart.”

There’s a pause. Not long. Barely half a second. But you know him. You know the way his instincts work, the way he hears things between your words.

“What’s wrong?” His tone shifts instantly, worry threading through it.

You close your eyes, press the heel of your palm against them. “Nothing—”

“Don’t,” he interrupts softly but firmly. “Don’t tell me nothing. I can hear it. What happened?”

Your throat tightens. You grip the steering wheel again with your free hand, squeezing until your knuckles ache. “I can’t—”

“Mom.” His voice softens again, coaxing now. “Just tell me. Please.”

The silence stretches. You can hear your own breath hitching. And then, finally, the words fall out.

“Bruce has a child.”

On the other end, there’s a beat of silence. You can almost see Dick’s brow furrow, his lips parting in confusion. “What—what do you mean? You—you adopted someone else? Like… another one?” He laughs, but it’s uncertain, forced, like he’s trying to wrap his head around it. “That’s… wow, that’s fast. Who—how old—”

“No.” The word cracks, raw and sharp. You grip the phone tighter, your nails biting into the case. “Not us. Him. He has a son. His son.”

This time the silence is longer. You hear it in the way Dick’s breath catches, the way he doesn’t know what to say for once in his life.

“A son,” he repeats, quieter now.

“He’s ten. Ten years old. Do the math. Ten years ago your father and I were already—” Your voice breaks. “We were already us. I was already his. We were engaged. We were raising you.”

There’s a sharp exhale on the other end. “Jesus.”

Your chest aches. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know anything. He didn’t tell me. He just brought him home. He stood there and all I could see was her. Talia. And Bruce. And what I couldn’t give him. What I never could.”

“Mom,” Dick says quickly, almost cutting you off, his voice urgent. “Stop. Don’t—don’t do that to yourself. Don’t go there.”

“How can I not?” Your voice rises, splintering under the weight of it. “I thought—I thought we were past that. I thought we were steady. And now—” You choke, covering your mouth with your hand, fighting against the sob building in your throat.

“Mom, listen to me,” Dick says, firm again, his tone turning into the one he uses with you when he’s trying to anchor you. “You are my mom. You are Tim’s mom. You are Cass’s mom. You still are Jason’s mom before—before everything. You are our mom. Nothing changes that.”

Tears spill hot down your cheeks again, and you bite your lip hard enough to hurt. “He doesn’t need me, Dickie. He has his own blood. His own son. What am I now? What’s left for me?”

“You’re everything,” he says without hesitation, his voice fierce, certain. “You’re my mom. You’re the woman who sat with me in hospital waiting rooms. You’re the woman who made pancakes at three in the morning when I couldn’t sleep. You’re the reason we exist as a family at all. Don’t you dare think you’re less because some—some assassin lady decided to show up with a kid ten years later. Don’t.”

Your breath shudders. “Dick…”

“I don’t care about blood,” he says fiercely. “I never have. I care about you. And Bruce knows that. He knows what you are to us. He knows what you are to him.”

You press your knuckles against your mouth, trying to keep yourself from unraveling again. “I don’t know if I can forgive him. Not for this.”

“You don’t have to forgive him,” Dick says gently, even if it the thought of a separated family kills him and burns his heart. “You don’t have to do anything tonight. Just breathe. Just—just let yourself feel it. You’re allowed to be angry. You’re allowed to be hurt. But don’t let it take away what you are. Don’t let it take away you, Mom.”

The word—the simple, steady word—breaks something open in you again. He’s said it before, of course. A thousand times. But tonight it feels different. Tonight it feels like lifeline.

You whisper it back, your voice trembling. “You really mean that?”

“Of course I do.” His voice is softer now, full of warmth. “I love you. I love you with everything I’ve got. And nothing—nothing—is going to change that.”

Your hand shakes against the steering wheel. “I love you too, sweetheart. More than anything.”

For a long moment, neither of you speaks. The sound of your breathing, ragged but slowing, mixes with the hum of the night outside your car.

Finally, Dick clears his throat. “Where are you?”

“On the side of the road,” you admit quietly. “I—I couldn’t drive anymore. I couldn’t see through the tears.”

“Then stay there for a bit,” he says. “Don’t push yourself. Just… stay. I’ll stay on the line as long as you need.”

You close your eyes, leaning your head back against the seat. “You don’t have to. You’re busy, you’re—”

“I’m your son,” he interrupts gently but firmly. “I’m never too busy for you. Ever.”

And with that, you two stay there for quite the long minutes. 

Staying once again with your parents it's difficult, and it makes your heart ache. 

You love them—you really love them. But you sometimes hate yourself for making them love Bruce as well so much, because you have only spent five days by now and you have lost count of the number of how much times your ma has insisted you should talk to Bruce.

If you talked to your husband, it would be to ask for divorce papers. 

Your ma doesn’t understand that. Neither does your pa, not fully. They see you hurting and assume the wound can be closed by going back, when in truth you feel as if a knife is still lodged in you. 

Bruce’s son was not some distant theoretical. He was real. 

He had a name, a face, a sharp little mouth full of arrogance. Damian. Bruce’s son. And you, with empty arms that had known more loss than you’d ever let your parents bear witness to, you were expected to stand and somehow accept it.

Your ma, bless her, tries to keep her tone soft. But every time she sets a plate in front of you or catches you staring off across the fields, she says things like, “Sweetheart, you need to talk to him. Bruce loves you.” Or, “You’ve been through too much together to let this break you.” 

And each time your throat aches and you can only nod or murmur something half-hearted, because what do you say? That your love isn’t the problem? That it’s the betrayal, the hidden truths, the sheer cruelty of fate putting a child between you and the life you thought you were building?

Clark is worse. Clark doesn’t hide his anger, not for your sake, not for anyone’s. 

He’s tried twice already to storm back to Gotham. He paces, he rants, he mutters things about “going to have a talk” with Bruce, but his voice is dark in a way that means fists would follow words. Each time you’ve stopped him, gripping his arm, shaking your head. 

“He hurt you,” he told you two nights ago, standing in the barn doorway with his silhouette caught against the Kansas sunset. “I can’t just stand by, Y/N. He doesn’t get to—”

You cut him off, voice hoarse. “No. You don’t touch him, Clark. Not a fist, not a finger.”

“He deserves worse than a fist,” Clark muttered, glaring at the hayloft like Bruce himself was standing there. “I could—”

You shook your head, clutching your arms around yourself. “My soul still clings to him,” you whispered. “And I hate myself for it, but it does. Don’t make it harder, Clark. Don’t make me see him bruised and know you did it for me. Please.”

So Clark backed down, though reluctantly. 

Cass was with you now. Came the very same day she found out you had left the manor, almost flying on her own to your side. She didn’t even bother to ask if she could stay—she simply arrived with her bag, sat at your side on the bed, and refused to leave. Wherever you go, she goes. When you sit at the kitchen table, she sits at your feet. When you step onto the porch, she leans against the railing nearby.

You’ve caught her watching you when she thinks you’re distracted, those dark eyes burning with a fierce protectiveness, and sometimes it breaks you even more, because she shouldn’t have to protect you. You should be the one holding her, not the other way around.

Tim calls every evening. You didn’t let him leave Gotham—he has school, exams, responsibilities. The last thing you wanted was to uproot his life for your pain. Still, he calls, his voice a lifeline on the phone, awkward at first but steadier as the days pass. He asks how you’re eating, if you’re sleeping, if Cass is helping. 

He doesn’t say anything about Bruce, and you’re grateful. 

Alfred calls too, though less often. His voice is always even, his words carefully chosen. He never pushes, never pries, but every time he ends with, “You are missed, madam.” And that sentence alone is enough to undo you when the line goes dead.

Dick was there too, at the farm. He showed up two days ago, saying he had some time to spare from Blüdhaven, but you knew better. You found him on the porch that first morning, coffee mug in hand, looking out across the fields. His expression was heavy, but when he saw you, he smiled, and that smile almost shattered you.

And yet, even in all this comfort, your thoughts stray. 

You miss Jason. 

God, you miss Jason. 

You can’t say it aloud without choking, because saying his name still feels like a betrayal of your lungs. Jason should be here. Jason should be arguing with Clark about chores, sneaking pies from your ma’s windowsill, leaning against the porch railing with that sharp grin of his. He should be here. 

But he isn’t. 

You think of Damian as well. Not with hatred—you could never hate a child. But not with love, either. His very existence feels like salt rubbed into your oldest wounds. A son that wasn’t yours.

Sometimes, though, when your mind isn’t clenched with grief, you find yourself curious. You wonder what he’s like when no one’s watching. You wonder if he tilts his head like Bruce when he’s calculating, or if his eyes soften like his when he lets his guard down. If his laugh—if he even laughs—is warm or cruel.

You are terribly curious. And deeply hurt. You imagine him at the manor, running through the halls, eating breakfast at the table, maybe even standing in the cave where you once stood with your boys. 

And every time you picture it, your chest tightens with something ugly, something that feels too much like grief.

The week that followed was heavy, drawn-out in a way that made every hour feel longer than it was. Your absence from the manor created a hollowness, a vacuum that no amount of routine or mission could fill. 

For the kids, it wasn’t simply about you not being around—it was about the fracture they had never once imagined happening. You had always been their center, the still point in the whirlwind of Gotham nights and shadows, the warmth that had stitched them together. And now, you weren’t there.

The three of them had not sat together like this in months. The space itself felt heavy—nostalgia hanging in the air, but laced now with grief and confusion. They had learned, all of them, in different ways, about Damian. And now they had to face the question that had been twisting in their stomachs since the moment the truth had been spoken.

Dick leaned forward first, elbows on his knees, hands interlaced so tightly his knuckles whitened. His jaw clenched and unclenched, that storm of anger within him barely contained. 

“I still can’t believe it,” he muttered, voice low but fierce. “After everything—after all the years, after all the times she carried this family on her back—he just shows up with a kid? And what, expects her to just take it?”

Cass sat curled in the armchair across from him, legs folded beneath her, silent as ever. Her eyes flicked to him, then down, then to Tim. She didn’t say much—not yet—but the message in her expression was clear: she agreed with him.

Tim shifted uncomfortably, running a hand through his hair before exhaling. “Something about the story doesn’t sit right with me. It feels incomplete. There’s something we’re missing, some detail Talia hasn’t told anyone yet.”

“Doesn't change the fact that he cheated on mom.”

“Maybe he didn't—”

“Oh, please.”

“I’m not saying it’s okay. I’m saying we don’t know everything. There’s more to this. There has to be. Bruce wouldn’t just… I mean… the timing, the secrecy—it’s unusual. And I have this instinct… call it intuition, if you want, that we’re only seeing one side of the story.”

Dick glared at him. “One side of the story? Mom’s standing on the side of hurt and heartbreak. She doesn’t need your ‘maybe he’s innocent’ side right now. She needs us on her side, telling her that he fucked up. Plain and simple.”

“You’re biased,” Cassandra said sharply, leaning forward, tone cutting but protective. “Of course you’re on her side. We all are. But that doesn’t mean dad is inherently evil. He’s complicated, Dick. Mom knows that. We all know that. But she needs to hear the truth from him—not our assumptions.”

Tim’s brow furrowed. “I think the issue isn’t just the truth. It’s the timing. Bruce didn’t know, he claims. Talia kept it secret. But the problem is mom and him were already together when Damian was born . . . even if Bruce doesn't even remember conceiving him.”

“You don’t get it!” Dick shot back, voice cracking in frustration. “I know he didn’t know, maybe, but the way this went down . . . you weren't there. You weren't there when mom lost all of the babies. You don't know how much it broke her. Do you know how many nights she cried herself to sleep? Do you know what it’s like to be fourteen and hear your mom fall apart behind a locked door and not know what to do? Jason knew. He saw it too. We both carried that. And now—he just shows up with this kid, this kid that’s half him.”

At Jason’s name, the table fell silent again, the weight of his absence pressing on all of them. Cass lowered her gaze, her lips pressed into a line. Tim exhaled heavily.

Dick swallowed hard, his throat thick. “We lost him too. And she never stopped loving him. She never stopped mourning him. And now she has to mourn her relationship with Bruce on top of all of it? No. No way. I won’t let him talk his way out of this.”

Cass finally spoke, her voice calm but firm. “Mom deserves the truth, not your anger. Don’t confuse the two. If you’re this furious when Bruce speaks, you’ll drown out her chance to hear him.”

“Cass, he doesn’t deserve to be heard.”

“But she deserves the choice,” Cass countered sharply. “You can’t make that choice for her. None of us can.”

The words hit him like a blow, because she was right. He wanted to protect you so badly, wanted to throw his body in front of you like he had as a kid, shield you from every ugly truth in the world. But maybe, in doing so, he was keeping you from deciding for yourself what you wanted to do with Bruce’s truth—or his lies.

“Bruce isn’t perfect,” said Tim, “and yes, he’s awful at explaining himself sometimes, but he isn’t malicious. He wouldn’t betray mom like that on purpose. Something else is happening, and I want to know what it is before we all start labeling him a cheat.” 

Dick leaned back in his chair, dragging a hand down his face, his voice quieter now. “Fine. I get that. But if he tries to make excuses—if he tries to spin it—I’m going to lose it.”

“You’ll lose it regardless,” Cass said with a small grin. “But at least now you’re admitting it.”

A quiet fell over the kitchen, the kind of silence that isn’t empty but weighted, filled with the unspoken truths and shared pain that the three of them carried. For a moment, they could almost imagine peace settling into the farmhouse, even if only briefly.

Then Dick’s voice broke the silence again, quieter this time, almost vulnerable. “I just… I can’t stand seeing her like this. Mom’s been everything to us. Everything. And now she has to face this? I don’t care what Bruce says—she deserves better. She deserves all.”

And he hated how much you still care for Bruce, but he doesn't say it out loud. He hates how your eyes still glim when his name is mentioned by Tim, or how curious you were about how he was at the Manor, if he was eating well, if he was going to the Enterprises, if he took care of his bruises after patrolling.

He hated how much it hurt him to remember.

He hated how much it hurt to see his family breaking.

He thought about Jason. Jason would’ve had something to say—sharp, biting, probably unforgiving. Jason never forgave Bruce easily, and if he were here—if he were alive—he’d have torn Bruce to shreds over this. 

The thought hit Dick like a blow, tightening his chest until he almost couldn’t breathe.

Finally, Cass broke it, her voice almost gentle. “She’s stronger than you think. Stronger than all of us, maybe. Don’t underestimate her.”

“I know she is,” Dick said quietly, staring at the doorway. He could see the faint light spilling in from the lamp you’d left on. “That’s the problem. She’s strong enough to forgive him.”

And he didn’t know if he could survive watching that happen.

You knew Bruce wasn’t home when you crossed into the city. Tim had told you himself in that gentle way he often did when he thought you needed space. “He’ll be out all day, working and patrolling,” your youngest had murmured over the phone, as though carefully offering you a fragile gift.

That was why you came.

The Manor had always been his place, his shadowed domain of secrets and control, but the gardens… the gardens had always been yours. 

The earth never lied. It never betrayed. The soil never wove illusions; it simply yielded to the care of your hands. When you pressed your fingers into the damp dirt, when the smell of fresh earth rose up like a hymn, it was the closest you’d ever come to breathing easy in Gotham.

This place was sacred to you. And you needed it tonight more than you could ever explain.

Whiskers padded out from behind the hydrangeas, her fur as pristine as ever despite her habit of exploring the entire estate. 

“There you are, lady,” you murmured, crouching down as she wound herself between your ankles. You scooped her up easily, burying your cheek against her soft coat. 

She purred, a little rumbling engine of comfort, and you laughed lightly. 

“I missed you too. You’ve been holding down the fort while I was away, huh?”

It was almost peaceful — almost enough to dull the raw sting of the past weeks.

You knelt down near the patch of forget-me-nots—blue and bright even against Gotham’s dim light, fragile things that reminded you of innocence never given a chance. You’d planted them for her, the daughter who never came into the world, who never opened her eyes to meet yours. The blue petals swayed in the faint wind, stubborn against the chill, and you traced them with trembling fingers.

Next came the white anemones with their dark purple centers. Jason’s. For your boy who should’ve grown with you, who should’ve had afternoons of stories in the library, muddy shoes in the garden, laughter against your shoulder. Instead, he was memory and ache and guilt stitched into your bones.

And the white flowers—soft, gentle, and eternal—were for the babes you lost beyond counting, for the tiny lives that slipped through your hands before they even had names. A field of ghosts blooming in silence.

You pressed your hands into the dirt, eyes closing, and breathed in. The quiet of the garden filled you, the kind of silence that was less empty and more sacred. For a while, you almost forgot the world inside the Manor, the tension in your children’ eyes, the wound that had opened when Bruce appeared with a child you had never known.

But then a voice cut through it—sharp, precise, and far too direct for ten years old.

“So you’re the woman my father weeps over.”

You stiffened, fingers curling in the soil before you forced yourself to sit back on your heels. Turning slowly, you found Damian standing at the edge of the path, arms folded, posture unnervingly straight for a boy his age. His green eye studied you with the same intensity you’d seen from one man on countless nights. 

Only this time, there was no warmth in it.

“Damian,” you said, trying to keep your voice steady, neutral. The boy had haunted your thoughts since he appeared — a boy who was Bruce’s, but not yours. A boy whose very existence was a reminder of loss.

He approached, each step measured, deliberate. His eyes swept over you — from your boots sunk into the soil to your simple blouse and cardigan, finally to your face. He didn’t disguise the disdain in his voice.

“I know everything about you.”

“Do you?” you asked, voice quiet, not rising to meet his coldness.

“Yes.” His tone was clipped, assured, as though reciting something memorized. “Daughter of Jonathan and Martha Kent. Younger sister of Kal-El. Raised on a farm in Smallville. Current occupation—emotional ballast for a man far above you in every single way.” 

His gaze swept you up and down, lingering in a way that wasn’t cruel but detached, like an examiner sizing up a specimen. 

“I cannot see what makes you so important. You are… lowborn. And yet he carries you as though you were royalty.”

You blinked, inhaling slowly, tamping down the sting of those words. Not because they hurt—he was a child, and children often mimicked the cruelties of the adults who shaped them—but because you recognized the shadow of Talia’s tongue in them.

“I see,” you murmured. “And I imagine you’ve said the same thing to him?”

Damian’s lips twitched—not quite a smile, more a smirk. “I have told him many things. He doesn’t listen. He never stops brooding. He mopes. It’s pathetic.” His nose wrinkled in disgust. “A man of his strength, reduced to this. Feelings.”

You stared at him for a moment, searching the lines of his face. The boy was small, still soft around the edges despite the blade of his words. His arrogance didn’t mask the truth—it was a shield, one that covered something sharp and confused.

“Your father is human,” you said gently. “He feels. Even if you don’t like it.”

He gave a sharp sniff. “Feelings are distractions. Weakness. Mother trained me to cut such things away. Yet Father… he indulges in them. Because of you.” His gaze narrowed, as if you were some puzzle he couldn’t quite solve. “I fail to understand how.”

Damian rolled his eyes, as though even the thought disgusted him. 

“He walks through this . . . place. Mopes. Cries like a child.”

Your heart squeezed in your chest. Bruce. Always silent when it mattered, always burdened by guilt, always unable to say what you needed him to say. And yet, here was his son—this boy who should have been a wound—telling you in clipped, disdainful tones that the man still bled for you.

Damian tilted his head, studying you again. “Do you want to know the truth?”

Your eyes widened slightly. “The truth?”

“Yes.” He said it with such conviction, such surety, that for a moment you almost believed he was older than his years. “The truth about my birth. About why and how I exist.”

You swallowed, throat dry. “Go on.”

Damian stepped forward, his boots crunching against the gravel. He spoke the way only a child raised among power could—measured, formal, and far too honest. “I was not born naturally. I was conceived through in vitro fertilization. My mother acquired genetic material from father. She took it from Gotham National Hospital. I have studied the files. It was during the time when you yourself attempted the same process.”

The air in your lungs froze. You stared at him, hands limp in your lap.

“Your… what?”

“Your attempt,” Damian repeated coolly. “You tried to conceive a child with him through artificial means. I know. I have read the records. My mother intercepted them. She took what she wanted. Father’s samples. His DNA. She used them to create me. He did not betray you in the way you think. I am a product of science.”

Your breath trembled out of you, your entire body going still. For a moment, you couldn’t hear the wind, or the cat brushing against your leg, or the distant hum of Gotham traffic. All you could hear was the rush of blood in your ears, the pounding of your heart as the weight of those words sank in.

“You’re telling me… Bruce never…”

“Correct,” Damian said coolly. “He was ignorant. Until recently. He did not seek me. Mother delivered me to him. And now he stares at you as though you hold his life in your hands. Which, apparently, you do.”

You almost smiled at that, despite everything. “Maybe one day you’ll understand that love doesn’t make people weaker. It makes them human. And your father… he’s human, no matter how much he tries to be something else.”

For the first time, his composure wavered. Only for a flicker — but enough for you to see it.

Silence settled between you. Whiskers brushed against your side, curling into your lap as though to anchor you to the earth. Your hand moved over the soft fur, each purr a small vibration against your palm. 

Damian had gone quiet, his sharp eyes studying you with the scrutiny of someone far older than ten. It was unsettling—how much he looked like Bruce, how much of his mother’s severity was carved into his small frame. Then, you noticed the flicker. His gaze wasn’t fixed on you anymore.

He was staring at Whiskers.

The little cat, oblivious to the tension in the air, turned her head, her bright eyes catching the light. Her tail flicked lazily as though she were aware she’d gained a new admirer. You couldn’t help the faint smile tugging at your lips.

You tilted your head slightly. “Have you had the pleasure of meeting Whiskers yet?”

Damian didn’t blink. “Yes. Pennyworth presented us to one another. He said she had seniority in this household.”

You chuckled, shaking your head. “That sounds like Alfred.”

At the mention of Alfred, Whiskers stirred, slipping gracefully from your lap and padding toward him with all the poise of a queen bestowing her favor. Damian tried to look unaffected, his arms still locked behind his back, but when the soft white cat brushed against his shin and let out a loud purr, his composure cracked just slightly. Slowly, almost reluctantly, he crouched down and scooped her up.

Whiskers settled into his arms as if she belonged there, head nudging beneath his chin, her rumbling purr loud enough for you to hear across the garden. Damian adjusted his hold with surprising gentleness, cradling her securely even as his gaze snapped up to you. Cold, sharp, defiant — as though daring you to comment.

You smiled faintly, tilting your head. “She seems to like you.”

“She has distinguished taste,” he replied without pause, his tone edged like a blade. And then, tightening his grip slightly on the cat, he looked at you with eyes too old for his ten years. “Now, it is your responsibility to stop making my father cry.”

The words hit you like a lash, sharp and unfair, though not entirely untrue. You opened your mouth, closed it, then let out a long breath. Damian stood there holding Whiskers, who purred louder under his chin, the image so strange and tender that it made your heart ache.

You wanted to tell him it wasn’t that simple. That love didn’t answer to commands, that hearts broke and healed in their own stubborn time. But looking at him, you realized this wasn’t the moment to explain love.

This was a boy trying to make sense of a father he barely knew, a father already cracked open by loss and regret. 

“He is pitiful. And I have no patience for it. If you are the cause, then you should be the cure.”

So, you nodded slowly, voice quiet. “I’ll do my best, Damian.”

His eyes narrowed slightly, as though measuring the truth in your words. Whiskers purred louder, nestling against him, and though he didn’t smile, you caught the faintest shift in his expression. 

Almost human. Almost soft.

And it made something click in your heart.

[neellscapsule]

ok . . . kent!batmom chapter coming todaaay :DWE HAVE ANGST AND THE TRUTH no jason tho

[neellscapsule]

ooookay . . . new updates of ALL the series coming up next weekend :DD so so so sorry for the late updates, things have been HARD i feel like a single mother with all the kids on my job and studying as well no jokes

ANYWAYS next friday saturday and sunday i promise i'll update

[neellscapsule]

COME BACK GIRL 😭😭🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻 r u ok?

IM SO SORRRYYYYYY i've been working non-stop this week because i had to take some of my courses's exams and kids are CRAZY about them

i promise to update when i have the free time

[neellscapsule]

SO SO SO SORRY FOR NOT UPDATING LATELY

i have been working as a part-time teacher to kids at my institute so i'm not so much on the computer as lately, maybe today i'll update two chapters; perhaps one from webs of pain and another for the kent!batmom series :DDD

[neellscapsule]

a masked roof, a biological appearance

summary | time passes, but memories don't fade. you have a weird encounter with a hidden face . . . or more than one, but at the end nothing can surpass damian al ghul's presence.

pairing | bruce wayne x kent!reader. platonic batboys & cass x kent!reader

warnings / tags | this actually does not have that much hurt to batmom?????but like . . . red hood is here. so hurt/little comfort to him. fluffy family bonding with the others. bittersweet ending of chapter

word count | 5k

authors note | hi there!! english is not my first languaje so there might be some mistakes, or not, it can depend :)

this is part of the kent!batmom!reader series. this can be read as part 15. you'll the other parts on the masterlist.

taglist | @maolen @joonunivrs @c4ssi4-luv @fanfics4ever @inejskywalker @resting-confused-face @fionnalopez @stargirl9911 @idek101-01 @shqyou

@mei-simp @serendippindots @sirlovel @aixaingela @pjmgojo @antixsocialx2 @nisarelle @realiliumfr @gojoswaterbottle @connnn

@jjoppees @yall-imhere @sabrinasoppositee @nekotaetae @wendee-go @idiomaticpunk @fandomlover1235 @nommingonfood @omisotolongo @lortheswiftie

@owihitmyhead @mosseetrees @c4xcocoa @qardasngan @radicalcannoliqueen @jeshomie @cutie232 @ravenqueen27 @thy-crimson-king @thewiselionessss

@fernomenal @chiizuluvr @natalia42069 @invinciblewaffles @changyumi3 @mbioooo0000 @caramelised-onions @nymphzy0 @lilylovelyxo @notahappystan

THE MORNING OF YOUR THIRTY-SEVENTH BIRTHDAY BEGINS WITH WARMTH.

You wake slowly, gradually surfacing from sleep to the subtle pressure of lips against your temple. Bruce has always been like this—soft in private, reverent in the moments he thinks you aren’t fully awake. You feel him before you see him, the weight of his hand gentle against your waist, his breath warm on your cheek, then your jaw, and finally your shoulder.

“Happy birthday,” he murmurs. His voice is low, gravel-laced from sleep, still carrying the intimacy of night.

You tilt your head toward him without a word, letting him continue, soft kisses melting into your skin like candle wax. His hand spreads over your belly, thumb sweeping along your ribs with an affectionate press.

“You don’t look a day over twenty-five,” he mutters into your hair, lips curling, “but I have irrefutable evidence of your actual age in my safe downstairs.”

You laugh—quiet, but genuine. “Evidence?”

“Mmhmm. License. Passport. A file labeled ‘Kent—Wayne, Y/N’.”

“You keep a file on me?”

“I keep a file on everyone,” he says, smiling against your cheek. “Yours just happens to be my favorite.”

“I love you,” you murmur, fingers curling around the sheet. “Happy birthday... to me.”

He smiles bigger. “Morning missions are canceled today.”

You let out a contented breath and settle back, the world soft around the edges for the first time in weeks.

As if summoned by prophecy, your bedroom door bursts open with all the force and drama only children—and Alfred—can carry. Behind them bounds Ace, his claws scrabbling against the hardwood floor before leaping effortlessly onto the bed, and last—but not to be forgotten—Miss Whiskers the cat slinks her way across the room, tail flicking with regal entitlement.

“Happy birthday to you—!”

“—happy birthday to you!”

“Happy birthday, mama—!”

The singing is off-tune, chaotic and stumbling over itself, but you barely have time to laugh before the whole room is full. Tim enters first, balancing a massive tray of breakfast with the careful hands of a boy who probably bribed Alfred with tech work to help him. Cassandra is close behind, clutching the edge of the tray to help. Dick follows in socks that slide on the floor, his hair an overgrown mess of curls, and Alfred walks behind them with all the calm grace of a man used to waking up early for every major holiday.

You sit up slowly, sweeping the comforter up over your chest as you lean into the headboard, smiling so widely your cheeks ache.

“Careful, careful!” Alfred warns as Tim sets the tray on your lap. “Master Timothy, do not spill the syrup on her lap again.”

“That was once, Alfred,” Tim mutters, half-pouting. “Once.”

“Once too many,” Cassandra adds in deadpan, but you see the curve of a smile in her mouth as she perches herself by your side.

Bruce groans and flops onto his back beside you, one hand shielding his eyes. “You’re lucky I love you all,” he says into the ceiling, voice gravelly.

“You’re lucky we made pancakes,” Tim says, grinning now, clearly proud of the work. He points to the top stack. “That one has a candle. For blowing out. It’s the birthday one.”

Indeed, a single birthday candle—pink and a bit crooked—has been stabbed into a tall pancake, the wick already smoking faintly from being lit downstairs.

You shake your head in disbelief. “You all planned this?”

“Of course we did,” Dick says proudly. “Cass supervised the syrup-to-pancake ratio. Tim made the coffee. I was... moral support.”

“I made the list,” Cassandra says softly.

Your gaze slides to Alfred, who bows his head and offers a fond smile. “It was a group effort. But allow me to assure you, no one left the kitchen with unwashed hands or unsupervised fire.”

Your heart warms. Completely and without hesitation.

“Madam,” he says, formal as ever, though you see the fondness dancing in his eyes. “Many happy returns.”

You sit there, tray heavy with pancakes and steaming coffee, your family crowding around you on the bed, all warmth and chaos and love. Your children. Your animals. Your people.

Tim leans over your shoulder and nudges the plate. “Blow the candle, mom.”

You glance around the room, at the hopeful faces, at the kids trying to be casual and Bruce trying not to get smothered by a hundred-pound dog, and you close your eyes.

You blow.

Applause erupts around you. Whiskers flinches and Ace barks once, as if offended he wasn’t warned. Tim beams. Cassandra claps her hands gently.

Bruce leans in to kiss your cheek again. “I love you,” he whispers. “Every year more.”

“I love you back,” you murmur.

Dick leans in to kiss your cheek with an exaggerated smooch. “Happy birthday, mom,” he says, loud and proud. “God, thirty-seven? You’re so ancient.”

Bruce groans again. “You’re still grounded.”

“I’m literally not even living here right now,” Dick replies, unbothered.

Cassandra leans in and rests her head on your shoulder. “I made the card,” she whispers.

“You did?” you ask, touched.

She nods, and from beneath one of the pillows, she carefully pulls out a folded paper full of hand-drawn symbols and flowers. On the front is a little sketch of your garden, her signature now unmistakable in the corner. Inside, the message is simple.

Happy birthday to the best mom in the world. Love you forever, your daughter Cassandra.

You don’t realize your eyes are misty until Tim tries to pass you the syrup and you blink too hard to see the bottle clearly.

For a while, it’s nothing but laughter and coffee and the kind of slow joy you’ve fought for. It’s been two years now—two years since Tim started calling you “mom” without flinching, two years since Cass came into your life and quietly wrapped herself around your soul. Two years of growing, healing, building something new.

You think of Jason—always. You wonder what he’d look like now, how his voice might’ve deepened. If he’d still call you “ma” in that gruff, reluctant way that made your heart flutter. He would’ve turned eighteen this year. You breathe in and let the grief pass gently, respectfully, like an old companion.

You all stay like that—eating, laughing, sharing soft smiles and playfully stealing bites—for well over an hour. Your phone buzzes sometime between coffee refill two and three. Bruce picks it up from the nightstand and peers at it.

“Smallville.”

“Put it on speaker,” you say, mouth full of berry pancake.

He does.

“Happy birthday, baby girl!” your mother’s voice cries through the line. Behind her, you hear your dad trying to figure out speaker settings.

“I got it! No, Lois said—oh, there we go. You hear us, sweetheart?”

You laugh. “Loud and clear.”

Lois cuts in with a sarcastic drawl. “Happy birthday, Y/N. We’re trying to keep Jon from eating the cupcakes meant for your virtual party.”

“Too late!” Jon’s voice says proudly. “I got blue frosting!”

Conner snorts. “That was your cupcake.”

“Happy birthday,” Clark says gently, his voice coming clearer now. “I hope they’re spoiling you over there.”

You glance around the room—at the tray on your lap, the kids half-fighting over whipped cream, Bruce kissing your temple—and you smile. “Yeah. I think they are.”

The call lasts longer than it should, but nobody minds. Even Bruce smiles when your mother insists on telling a story about your eighth birthday and a goat from the neighbor’s farm. You hang up feeling full in ways no breakfast could cause.

After that, the Justice League transmissions begin. Diana sends flowers and a beautiful poem in Themysciran. Hal sends a recorded birthday serenade that is absolutely off-key. J’onn writes a hauntingly beautiful message about strength, resilience, and peace. Even Ollie calls—though he’s more interested in catching up on gossip.

And the kids’ friends all send messages. Stephanie’s is the longest, chaotic and peppered with sarcasm.

“I would’ve baked you something but last time I set off the fire alarm. Cass tried to stop me. She tried signing at me from the couch like ‘STOP. OVEN. DEATH.’ Anyway, happy birthday, mom two.”

You laugh so hard Bruce makes you tea to keep you from choking.

But the truth is, despite all the brightness of the day, the back of your mind doesn’t stay quiet.

Because you’ve felt it again. That feeling. That slithering unease crawling up the back of your neck.

For weeks now, you’ve been feeling watched. Not overtly. Not enough to raise alarms. But enough that your skin prickles at the back of your neck. You’ve told Bruce, casually. He said he’d sweep the area more thoroughly. Tim ran a few digital traces, checked the perimeter cams. Nothing. No breaches. No spikes in digital traffic. Nothing unusual.

But still.

It’s been there—during your walks with Ace, when the dog pauses for a second too long, staring at something behind you before you turn and find nothing. It’s been there at pilates, when you catch a shadow moving across a mirrored wall that no one else notices. It’s been there at interviews, press events, even just shopping with Cass—who once held your hand a little tighter in a department store without knowing why.

Cass leans into your other side. “Big party tonight.”

“Yeah,” you sigh, pretending it’s a burden, though it’s not. “You’re all coming, right?”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Tim says.

“Gotham needs to see what royalty looks like,” Dick adds from across the room. “And it needs to know I’m still your favorite, mom.”

“You’re literally not,” your third son replies back, nose wrinkling. “There’s no ranking system.”

“There is,” Dick says without hesitation, as though he’s been holding this argument in his pocket for years. “One day a year. It’s a sacred event. Mom’s birthday. On this day, I, Richard John Grayson, hold the coveted title of Favorite Child.”

“I’d like to motion to have this unconstitutional system abolished,” Tim mutters, raising a hand like he’s at a city council meeting.

“Overruled,” Dick replies, cheerful as ever. “Motion denied. Appeal rejected. I am democracy.”

“You are drama,” Tim snaps back.

“Oh please,” Dick sighs. “You say that like it’s not a birthright. Do you know how many years I spent in tights?”

Cass finally makes a sound — a little snort — before muffling her mouth with her free hand. You catch her eye, eyebrows raised. She grins wider and lifts her hands with casual ease.

“Dick was favorite yesterday,” she signs. “I’ll be favorite tomorrow.”

Tim groans. “You two are seriously delusional.”

“You’re all delusional,” you interject finally, eyes still sleepy but smile blooming warmer with each second that passes. “Do you want the truth?”

The room goes quiet. Four sets of eyes land on you at once — Dick’s wide and eager, Tim’s narrowed with suspicion, Cass’s intense with anticipation, and Alfred’s politely interested, sipping tea like this is a morning soap opera.

You make a show of stretching your arms over your head, smothering a yawn, and then you reach for the fork beside your pancake with agonizing slowness. You chew a bite. Swallow. Take a sip of juice. Then:

“I don’t have a favorite.”

All three groan at once.

“Come on!”

“That’s a lie.”

“Not true,” Tim insists. “You literally kissed me on the forehead first this morning. That counts.”

“Only because you elbowed me in the ribs to get to her first,” Dick retorts, throwing a pillow at him with perfect aim.

Cass says, cheeky and quick: “I brought her the coffee.”

“And I brought the syrup,” Tim says quickly.

“I brought the charm,” Dick announces proudly.

“I brought the dog,” Alfred deadpans from the doorway, setting his tea aside.

That earns a round of chuckles.

“Alfred wins,” you declare, raising your glass in a mock toast. “Favorite forever.”

“Traitor,” Dick whispers, feigning heartbreak as he clutches at his chest like he’s been mortally wounded.

“Unfair advantage,” Tim huffs. “He made pancakes.”

“I helped,” Cass adds. “I put the candle in.”

“Let’s be honest,” Bruce’s voice calls in from the closet doorway, low and amused. “Only reason none of you are actually her favorite is because I got to her first.”

Dick lets out a theatrical gasp. “You stole our mom with seduction?”

Tim blinks. “Oh my God. Ew.”

Cass is already shaking with laughter, her fingers stuttering through a very expressive, chaotic sentence involving the word “betrayal” several times. You cover your mouth to stifle a giggle.

“She’s my wife,” Bruce replies smoothly, resting a hand on the curve of your shoulder as he leans down to kiss your temple, slow and deliberate. “That’s allowed.”

“That’s favoritism,” Dick cries.

“That’s romance,” you correct, smirking into your coffee.

“You’re all terrible,” Tim mutters, though he doesn’t seem particularly upset. “We’re supposed to be showing her love, not launching a full-on popularity contest.”

“Tim’s just mad he’s not winning,” Cass declares.

“I am not,” he snaps, looking straight at her.

She raises both brows.

“Okay, maybe a little,” he admits, sitting back with a scowl.

“I think,” you murmur slowly, resting your hand over Bruce’s wrist where it lingers on your shoulder, “that this morning has made me feel like the luckiest woman on the planet. And I think that anyone who brings me a second pancake might secure a temporary win.”

All three jump into action.

“On it!”

“Wait—no—I got it!”

“Move, nerds!”

The tray tips slightly, and you almost lose a fork to the floor, but miraculously everything remains intact. Cass bolts ahead, plate in hand. Dick leaps over the edge of the bed like a gymnast. Tim is practically airborne behind them.

“Good God,” Bruce mutters.

“Every year,” Alfred sighs.

You lean back against the pillows, heart full, laughter warming your chest. Ace barks once, excited, and tries to chase after the trio. Whiskers lifts her head from the blanket, unimpressed, and jumps onto the pillow as if to remind everyone she, in fact, is the true favorite.

The gala sparkled around you.

Gold chandeliers flooded the grand hall with a honeyed glow, and the dark marble beneath your heels shimmered like liquid ink. The building—Gotham’s refurbished Astoria Theatre, a place that had once seen opera and violence in equal measure—had been transformed into a palace of warmth and light for you. Bruce had insisted on it. 

Gotham’s elite had shown up in tailored tuxedos and glittering gowns, every one of them eager to smile and raise a glass to her, the woman who had made the Prince human, the heart that softened the myth.

Your birthday gala was already trending in Gotham social circles. “Gotham’s beloved,” one headline had read. “The softer heart behind Wayne.”

You’d laughed when Vicki Vale sent you a preview of her column—claiming it was meant to “balance the image.” You didn’t mind. You liked being the softness, the warmth, the tether. You liked standing in the glow of the chandelier with a smile painted on your lips and your hand wrapped around a flute of champagne, watching the people around you light up like candles.

Clark had made a speech. Lois had kissed your cheek. Even Selina had flown in—draped in velvet, her signature grin sharp as ever as she twirled you across the floor in a surprisingly graceful spin.

“You age like a secret,” she’d whispered against your cheek. “No wonder Bruce still can’t take his eyes off you.”

You’d laughed, flustered, hiding your flushed face behind a crystal glass.

And now, hours in, with music still thrumming gently in the air and laughter bouncing between the pillars, the attention had started to catch up to you.

Not in a bad way. Just… loud. Too much all at once.

“You look like you need a breath,” Bruce murmurs against your ear. He’s handsome, devastating in black, one hand resting comfortably on your waist. “I’ve watched you charm forty-seven different people in the last two hours. I counted.”

You smile tiredly, leaning into his touch. “You’d think I was the one running for mayor.”

“No, you’re just beloved,” he replies. “More dangerous, honestly.”

You press a quick kiss to his cheek and mumble, “I’m going to get some air.”

He kisses you back, slower. “Alright. But if you don’t come back in ten minutes—”

“You’ll come get me.”

“Exactly,” he says, his gaze softening, jaw still tense like always. “Ten minutes. I’ll time it.”

You step away with a grateful smile and disappear up the grand staircase, your heels echoing against the marble, slipping into softer silence with every floor. The upper terrace is quiet, tucked above the gala, its floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Gotham’s skyline. You slip through the doors, out into the breeze. The chill is sweet relief. A balm.

You close your eyes. Breathe in. Let the night air undo the tension in your shoulders. Gotham glows below you. The music becomes a murmur behind thick walls. The stars are faint. But you let yourself be small beneath them, just for a second.

And then you feel it. The same sensation that’s been haunting you for weeks.

The eyes.

A cold tickle runs down your spine, a breath on the back of your neck—except there’s no breath, no breeze, just that feeling. You’re not alone.

But this time, for the first time… you see him.

Across the rooftop, half-shadowed by the arched curvature of a decorative gargoyle, stands a man. Not just any man—tall, broad, easily Bruce’s height and build. His shoulders are massive, arms braced with thick leather. But it’s the helmet that stops your heart for half a second.

A red helmet. Blood red, high-gloss, molded like a skull and faceless all at once.

You don’t flinch. You don’t run.

Your stomach clenches like a fist, but there’s no fear blooming in your lungs. No spike of danger. Just a tightening in your chest—foreign and familiar at once. Something instinctual. Something human.

You tilt your head slightly.

“Are you the one who’s been following me?” you ask, your voice calm — a murmur that curls into the night.

The helmet doesn’t move.

You squint through the dark, shifting your weight slightly on your heels. 

“I’ve felt you for weeks,” you continue, softly now. “Walking my dog. While going out. Even when I'm buying flower seeds. I thought I was going crazy.” 

Your voice doesn’t waver. 

“I’m not crazy. Yet, you never do anything. Just watch. Are you looking for something?” You pause. “Or someone?”

He tilts his head just barely — not in acknowledgment, not even confirmation. Just… something like listening. His fingers twitch, gloved hands tight at his sides.

You try again. “If I’m in danger, just say so. I can take it. I’d rather know than be left guessing.”

Still, he doesn’t move. No words. Just that helmet reflecting the lights of the city. Something about the shape of his shoulders, the stance of his legs — you’ve seen something like it before. Familiar in a way that makes your chest ache. But you can’t place it. You don’t dare.

 Your heart is speaking a language your mind hasn’t caught up to yet.

“Why?” you whisper, almost to yourself now. “Why do I feel like I know you?”

The wind shifts again, tugging strands of hair into your eyes. You don’t move to fix them.

He flinches.

It’s quick. Subtle. But unmistakable. A slight tightening in his shoulders, his chin angling down half a degree. It hits you like a wave crashing over raw skin — a surge of something too complex to name. Like grief. Like memory. Like recognition hidden under years of dust.

He takes another step — one foot on the ledge now. You think he might leap, vanish into the sky like some ghost, some myth.

And then—

“Auntie?”

You blink.

The rooftop door bursts open, golden light from the ballroom spilling into the night. Jon’s voice is sweet and bright and too loud against the hush.

“Aunt, are you out here?” he asks, running toward you. He’s ten now, all limbs and energy, dressed in a tux that doesn’t quite sit right on his skinny frame. His red-and-blue tie is crooked.

You turn to him on instinct. “I’m here, sweetheart.”

“Uncle Bruce said to look for you. The dessert table’s out now and they have macarons, real ones, like the ones in Paris!”

You smile, grabbing his little hand warmly, turning your body with him—only to glance back, just for a second—

—but he’s gone.

The man in the red helmet.

Vanished. Like smoke, like mist. The corner of the rooftop where he’d stood is empty again, just dark stone and wind and the silence he left behind.

You frown slightly, lips parting. But there’s no trace.

“Come on, Auntie,” Jon tugs insistently. “They’re gonna run out. Mom says the lavender ones are the best and I want you to try them before dad eats them all.”

You let him lead you. Your fingers grip Jon’s hand a little tighter.

But your eyes drift once more to that far ledge.

There’s something strange swelling in your chest. You’re not frightened. You’re not confused, but something in your gut refuses to let go. Like a song you used to hum in the dark. Like a name you’ve forgotten how to say.

(You never see the figure slip down the fire escape, muscle and leather and silence; never see the helmet come off once he hits the shadows. Never see the streak of white hair beneath the edge. Never hear the way his voice cracks like dry paper when he mutters softly to himself, just two words.)

“…hi, ma.”

(But he’s gone before the wind can carry it anywhere but the night.)

You sit in front of the vanity, bathed in the soft golden hue of the bedroom lamp, fingers working the cream into your skin with practiced, gentle swipes. 

The end of your nighttime routine is always meant to bring you some semblance of peace — the familiar scent of lavender and hyaluronic acid, the cold smoothness of glass jars, the soft bristles of the brush you use to comb your hair. All of it should feel grounding. But your mind isn’t cooperating.

The memory creeps back like it has every night for the past week. That rooftop. That night air. That man. You still haven’t said a word about him to anyone — not to Bruce, not to Alfred, not even to Clark, who would’ve squinted at you with that overly concerned look he inherited from your father. But you’ve kept it in. 

Not out of fear, exactly — you’re not afraid of the man in the red helmet. If anything, the memory of him feels… unfinished. Like something left unsaid, unread, a name dangling on the edge of your tongue without ever quite taking shape. His presence didn’t scare you. It rattled you, sure, unsettled you — but not in the way danger does. In the way familiarity does. That unbearable tug that pulls somewhere behind your ribs when something deep inside you recognizes something your conscious mind cannot.

You exhale slowly, running your fingers down the arch of your jaw as you look at yourself in the mirror. The edge of that rooftop flashes behind your eyes — the glint of moonlight off that crimson helmet, the firm weight of his silent gaze. His sheer stillness. The way your voice had filled the quiet. The way he had said nothing in return.

And the worst part — the part that lingers like a splinter under your nail — is that when Jon called for you and you turned your head, just for a second, he had vanished like smoke. Gone in an instant. And still, the feeling remained: that you had just seen someone you knew. Someone long gone. Someone you’d mourned.

The skin around your eyes tightens as you reach for the under-eye serum. You press it in with your ring finger slowly, one tap at a time, but your thoughts are elsewhere again. You’d replayed every detail. 

The way he stood — tall, grounded, not a single ounce of insecurity in his posture. He’d been solid, grounded, heavy. Like he’d been trained to stand like that. And those broad shoulders, the width of his chest — he’d been built for combat. 

Not lean like Dick or narrow like Tim. Broad like… like Bruce. But not Bruce. And not Clark either. Not a soldier. Not a god. Something else. Someone with pain carved into his very stance. Someone who watched you like he didn’t know how to speak anymore.

You blink, pushing the bottle back into place. You don’t want to dwell on it. But you do. You always do.

The subtle sound of the grandfather clock chimes downstairs. You hear the faint, nearly inaudible swoosh of the Cave’s entrance shifting, the near-silent hum of systems disengaging. Bruce is coming up. But he doesn’t come to the bedroom — not immediately. That makes your brows furrow. You glance at the clock again, then the door, and wait. A few minutes pass.

Still no Bruce.

You sigh, standing up slowly and grabbing your robe. The silk glides against your arms as you wrap it around your frame and tie the belt with a quick knot. Barefoot, you step out into the hallway, the coldness of the wooden floor making you shiver slightly. 

The manor is quiet — no flickering lights, no sounds of movement. You pass by the stairs, down the long corridor, and find Ace curled near the fireplace. His big head lifts just slightly, those warm eyes following your approach.

“Hey, handsome,” you whisper, crouching to give him a gentle rub behind the ears. “You waiting for him too?”

Ace leans into your touch, tail thudding once against the floor. You smile, kiss the top of his furry head, and keep going.

The lights are on in the living room. You pause in the archway, still in the shadows of the hall, and then you hear his voice. Bruce. Low, not that calm, careful.

“—you don’t speak of her that way. Ever. Do you understand me?”

Your brow rises slightly. You step through the doorway.

Bruce is standing tall near the hearth, part of his suit still on. His jaw is locked tight, arms crossed. But your eyes go straight to the boy standing near the center of the room.

A child.

A boy. No more than ten, maybe eleven. Shorter than Jon but standing far more rigidly, shoulders squared like a miniature soldier. He’s dressed in black — high-collared, fitted, polished. His hair is raven-black, combed back with ruthless precision. His skin is olive-toned, his features sharp. His eyes — green. Bright green. Piercing.

You blink.

At first, you think Bruce’s picked up another stray. Another orphan. Another lonely soul from Gotham’s cracked corners. You’ve done it before. You’ve done it so many times. And your heart has always had room for one more.

But then you look closer.

And it hits you, all at once.

The shape of the boy’s nose. The set of his jaw. That slight downturn of the mouth when he frowns—just like Bruce does when he’s pretending not to be upset. And the arrogance in his voice. The cold assessment in his eyes.

“Hi,” you managed, softly. Quietly, with a politeness that felt absurd in your own living room. “I’m Y/N.”

He gives you one disinterested sweep of his gaze — head to toe — and raises a single unimpressed brow.

“So,” he says, voice steady and cool. “You’re the woman who warms my father’s bed.”

You blink.

Bruce growls. “Damian.”

You don’t move.

You can’t move.

Everything in you stills, like your blood has stopped pumping entirely. Like your organs have turned to stone. Your hand is still curled gently at the edge of your robe, and your nails dig in before you even notice it.

He called him father.

You glance at Bruce, sharply, not trusting your voice yet, and then look back at the boy, stunned.

“Did he just—” you swallow, your tone dangerously calm, “—did he just refer to me as your night companion?”

The boy shrugs with infuriating nonchalance. “Should I have said concubine?”

“Oh my god,” you mutter, not looking at him anymore, instead turning fully to Bruce, whose face looks like it’s been carved from granite. “Did that child just call me a whore in the most diplomatic way possible?”

Silence.

Bruce doesn’t deny it. He doesn’t even blink.

And that’s when the numbers start adding up in your head, as easily as breath. He’s ten. Or close to it. Ten years old, with that face and those eyes. And ten years ago, you and Bruce—you were already together. You were already raising Dick. Already sharing a bed. Already deep in love. Maybe not married, maybe not as steady as now, but it wasn’t casual. It wasn’t new.

Your stomach twists violently.

Your lips part, but nothing comes out.

You can’t breathe past the lump in your throat. You step backward, just once. Just to keep upright. It’s not the betrayal that hits hardest. It’s not even the secrecy. It’s the sight of the boy—the proof—a child that bears Bruce’s features, flesh and blood. A child someone carried for him, birthed for him.

A child that wasn’t yours.

Because you tried.

You tried.

Year after year, doctors and heartbreak and hospital beds and grief. You buried one. You mourned others before they even had names. You named them, and he held you while you screamed yourself sick into his shoulder.

And now this.

Now a ten-year-old with your husband’s face is standing in your living room, and Bruce didn’t warn you. Didn’t tell you. Didn’t say anything.

You stare at him, stunned, trembling. “When were you going to tell me?”

Bruce finally speaks, but his voice is rough. Measured. “I didn’t know about him until recently.”

You pursed your lips. “How recently?”

He doesn’t answer.

That’s answer enough.

There’s something ugly rising in your chest now, something bitter and furious and deeply, deeply sad. 

You force yourself to look at the boy again—Damian—and you wonder if it’s wrong to feel what you feel. He’s a child. And it’s not his fault. But the hole in your chest has been carved wide by every failed pregnancy, every doctor’s quiet apology, every night spent curled in Bruce’s arms as he promised you again and again that it didn’t matter. That you were enough. That your family—his family—was yours, no matter what.

But now there’s this. Flesh of his flesh. Blood of his blood.

 “Talia never told me. Not until recently. She raised him in the League. I—I didn't know of his existence.”

You shook your head. “That doesn’t change what it means.”

“I didn’t betray you,” he said, quieter now, moving closer. “He was born—”

“When we were together,” you hissed. “He looks ten. Look at him. You do the math. We were together. Engaged, even. We had a child together by then, Bruce, for fuck's sake.”

The boy doesn’t speak. He just watches you.

“He’s yours.”

“Yes.”

You flinch when Bruce answers. You expect it. You knew it from the moment the boy looked at you with those eyes—so like his father’s. So unlike your own.

You take a step back. Then another. And Bruce doesn’t stop you.

You say, without looking at him, “I need a minute.”

He doesn’t follow.

You walk to the hall. You don’t run. You don’t cry. Not yet. You walk, slow and steady, through the old corridors of the manor until you reach your room. Your shared room. And you close the door behind you, softly.

Then you sink to the floor.

And you cry into your hands, knees pulled to your chest, sobs silent and shaking, full of a grief that you thought you buried years ago.

Because now it’s alive again.

Now it has a name.

And it’s standing in your living room.

[neellscapsule]

intro. girl with one eye

summary | it takes you losing an eye for your family to realize that they don't want to lose you, to make them realize how much they actually love you, and how much you actually despise them

pairing | platonic yandere batfam x batsis!reader.

warnings / tags | angst, literal mutilation, y/n is mentioned as a female, trauma, reader hates her family so family issues as well. it gets worse and worse actually no better. this is a bit more darker than usual, as reader is not the nicest and the batfamily turns a bit dark for her. NO INCEST because we don't mess with that here 🚫🚫 but future PLATONIC yanderes!

word count | 5k

authors note | hi there!! english is not my first language so there might be some mistakes, or not, it can depend :) please vote <3

bruce is 44-45. barbara is 28. dick is 27. cass is 23. jason is 22. steph is 19. tim is 18. duke is 17. damian and y/n are twins and are 15.

next.

YOU WOULD NEVER FORGET IT.

You could forget a lot of things —or not, actually: your Mother hated it when you forgot about stuff, often reminding you that as a princess and heir, you couldn't allow yourself that—, like one of the many rules your Father had, or that you now lived at the Manor, or how annoying teenagers can be. 

But not that day.

Never.

Years ago, when your brother Damian and you arrived at the Manor alongside your Father, you didn't have much hope. Despite growing up without him, you never wished to know him. You were more than satisfied at your Mother's side, pampered and trained and still so loved. 

There were no differences there. No one treated you as less than what you were: the future of the League. Raised to be a killer, made to be a future wife and a warrior, a protector of your brother. And you were okay with that. Perhaps a bit less with the 'wife' part, but that could be arranged as well.

You grew up with gold, fine silk and swords in your hands. And you were more than okay with that too.

Which is why you hated the Manor so much.

Everything was different there. Everything you knew, every part of your life already planned, crumbled down. Your Father was nothing like your Mother. Nothing of what she had told you as well. He was nothing like your brother and you.

He didn't believe in killing, despised it, and punished the both of you every single time the word was mentioned. He also didn't like the extensive training you had since you were merely an infant. And you would think he also didn't like you a lot.

But it was okay —it wasn't—. You didn't like him much either. It was only fair.

The only good thing you would put on your Father's favor was that he let you be 'Batgirl', a sidekick that started with Barbara Gordon when she was younger. Likewise, he let your brother be 'Robin', as the adopted companions had once been as well.

You loved being Batgirl. You took the greatest of proudness on it. Despite not enjoying your Father's presence, you never wished to disappoint him either, and it seemed he preferred you more as a sidekick than a daughter, as you proved yourself to be helpful and extremely efficient.

Of course. You would very much prefer working alone, or only with Damian, but the old Batman didn't even allow the thought of it. If it was not him who stood by your sides, it was Grayson as Nightwing, or Drake, in the lowest of cases. 

So you still don't know how Damian and you got there alone. How is it that you ended up in that stupid warehouse on your own. You just knew that you couldn't bear you see those men grab your brother, especially when he snarled and tried to kick away.

He couldn't escape.

And you couldn't let them hurt him.

You and your brother had always been far too close. Raised with no social instincts, with poor physical affection from your maternal family, no limits on what was right and what was wrong. You slept on the same bed from time to time still, and when you first arrived at the Manor, barely ten, you couldn't even enter your own room without feeling alone. You missed him even if he was just a room apart.

In school, you joined the art class just for him, and he waited very patiently while you were at your swimming club. You shared the same classes, the same schedules, you both trained with each other, and patrolled together.

So you did what you had to do. You mocked them. You made them so angry they forgot about him, tied him up and left him on the side. But you continued, and continued, and continued. All to make time, to not let them get close to Damian again. You were sure that by any moment your Father would arrive. 

You just didn't know when to stop. 

One of them, eyes red with rage and exclusively drug-lived, ripped your mask apart after a particular mocking got to him. Didn't even bother to actually see your face —if he had, perhaps, he wouldn't have done what he done: he would have taken another choice of torture.

He took his pocket knife, rusty and dull, and smashed down on your face. He didn't even taunt you, he just did it. You turned your face around, as to not let the metal enter your forehead.

Instead, it pushed right into your eye.

Once, twice, thrice. 

You lost the number after that.

It slashed your face, destroyed your whole eyeball. You had never suffered such pain before, nothing of what you had experienced before could compare to having that ordinary knife shoved almost to your brain. 

The pain was not sharp. It was molten. Blistering. A heat that radiated from the core of your skull and exploded outward in pulses. You screamed. You didn’t even realize you were screaming until you choked on your own breath, your voice reduced to something hoarse and primal. 

There was no clarity — only flashes. Red, black, white. The world shook under the weight of it. You clawed at your restraints, wrists tearing against the rough rope, skin breaking. Damian was shouting — his voice was raw and feral, but muffled, as though you were underwater.

Your legs kicked involuntarily, muscles twitching as every nerve in your body revolted. It wasn’t just the eye. The trauma sank into your jaw, your temple, your throat. It felt like he was cutting through not just your eye, but your entire sense of self.

You felt it rupture. Felt it pop.

The pressure released — a grotesque, wet sensation. It was warm. It rolled down your cheek in thick pulses, staining your lips copper. Blood. Fluid. You couldn’t cry — your tear duct had been left intact, but there was nothing for it to cradle anymore.

He kept going.

“Still got that damn mouth on you?” the man barked, voice scratchy with a smoker’s growl and something much worse — glee.

You didn't answer. You couldn’t. Your body was seized in shock, muscles locked. The agony was consuming everything — your thoughts, your memories, your pride. There was no Batgirl here. No League prodigy. Just a child strapped to a chair, skull fracturing under a lunatic’s blade.

“YOU BASTARD!” Damian was screaming. Over and over, his voice echoing, cracking. “I’LL KILL YOU — I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU—”

“Shut him up,” another voice said. Older. Colder. You heard the wet impact of a hit and the thud of your brother’s body against the wall. He grunted, but he didn’t stop snarling.

They left you slumped, barely upright, head hung low, eye a ruined socket. You could hear your own heartbeat in your ears, louder than the voices. Louder than Damian’s desperate shouts. Louder than the world.

You were fading.

Not passing out, not yet — that would have been a mercy. But fading, like a flickering signal on a broken radio. Everything became distant. Your fingers stopped moving. Your lips trembled.

But you didn’t cry.

Your mouth opened in a cry, but it was broken. Shattered by the pain. You choked on it. Swallowed it. Your body arched against the chair, against the ropes biting into your arms, and you wished for a moment you could just black out. Just a second. But you stayed awake. 

Then came the second stab. There was no grace to it. Just brute force. The blade twisted, angled wrong, and you felt the serration drag. Something tore again, and it burned. Not like fire, not anymore. It was acid. Acid in your skull. Acid down your jaw. It rippled all the way down to your spine and back up through the top of your scalp. You felt your fingers curl and your wrists strain and the ropes snap skin. You thought you’d vomit — and you did, just a little — down your chin and onto your suit.

You tried to breathe, but it came in hiccupping gasps. You tried to think, but your thoughts were consumed by the horror — not of death, no — but of mutilation. Of being broken.

And then he laughed.

The man laughed like he was carving a pumpkin, like it was a game. He turned your head to the side, gripping your jaw with greasy fingers. He was breathing heavy, sweat slicking his forehead. And he said — so easily, so plainly — “What’s the matter, girl? Thought you were tough.”

You spat at him. Or tried. It didn’t reach.

He hit you. Just once. Across the cheek, opposite your ruined eye. Your head cracked back and hit metal. You think you saw stars. Or maybe it was just the other eye struggling to stay open.

Damian was thrashing, gagged but shrieking behind it. Desperate. You turned your good eye toward him, tried to give him… something. Reassurance. Love. A silent goodbye?

Another hand grabbed your chin again. The knife hovered now, inches from your face. The man wasn’t finished. He wanted more.

You whispered, because it was all you could do, “Go ahead. I’ll still kill you after.”

He laughed again. This time more viciously. “You’re done, sweetheart. You ain’t killin’ anyone. Not like that.”

But he didn’t strike again.

Not because he decided to stop. But because of the noise — a crash — and then another. The door exploded inward. Gunfire, screaming, the unmistakable screech of metal and cape and fury.

You barely saw it. You were already fading.

You heard Damian gag and sob and yell “Father!” before the gag was ripped away. And someone was screaming louder than you now — the man, probably, being slammed into the wall. A sick crunch followed.

Then hands. So many hands.

Hands on your shoulders, your wrists, your jaw. But these were warm. These were careful. These weren’t enemies.

One of them was soft — softer than all the others — fingers brushing your face and muttering something under their breath.

“Y/N, can you hear me? Oh my God—Y/N—can you hear me?”

Grayson. You knew his voice even as the darkness clung to your ears like wax.

You whimpered. It was all you could do.

Your throat burned. “He… he took it.”

“We know,” he said. “We know, sweetie. You’re okay now. You’re gonna be okay.”

He was lying.

Because nothing was okay.

You felt someone lift you. The cape, the smell of it, the warm inside lining — it was your father. You knew by the way he moved. Silent but precise. Every breath he took was rage restrained.

“I’ve got her,” he said. Quietly. Too quietly.

You wanted to say something to him. Something mean. Something sour. You didn’t know. The pain was overtaking you again.

“It hurts,” you whispered.

“I know,” Bruce said. And that was all.

You passed out somewhere between the warehouse and the sky.

And when you woke again, it was like drowning.

The first thing you noticed was the smell — disinfectant and something older, like dust and citrus cleaner and the faint hint of metal. Then the lights, too bright and clinical, burning the inside of your one good eye. Your entire skull throbbed, throbbed so hard you were sure it had cracked from the inside. 

There was pressure, a dull pulse that rhythmically pounded against your left browbone, and heat — a sort of sticky, horrible heat like your skin had been wrapped in cotton soaked in your own blood and left to fester.

Your mouth was dry. Your lips stuck to each other. Your tongue felt like sandpaper pressed into raw meat. And yet, none of that compared to the sensation clawing inside your chest.

You were aware.

Of what was gone.

Of what was missing.

Of what you could no longer feel behind the bandage that wrapped half your head like a grotesque imitation of a helmet.

“No—” you rasped. “No, no—”

The left side of your face is numb and too hot at once. Something is wrapped tight around your head, dragging over your scalp, cheek, temple. It itches. It stings. It suffocates. And the longer you lie there, blinking through the blur of the right side, the more you feel the rising panic clawing up your throat.

“Hey—hey, you’re awake.”

It’s Jason.

“Back with us, little bat.”

His voice tries to sound calm, but there’s a tension to it. A sharpness behind the trembling grin you can’t see.

You try to sit up and the pain hits you all at once. Your skull pounds. Your stomach flips. You collapse back onto the bed with a sharp gasp, and the machines spike briefly.

“Easy, Y/N. Don’t rush it.”

You don’t care. You lift your hand, touch the gauze. It’s thick, layered, taped down hard. Your heart pounds.

“What did they do to me?”

“Y/N,” he said, softer this time. “You’re okay. You’re safe. You’re in Leslie’s clinic. You made it out. You’re—”

But the words twisted in your ears. Made you sick. You weren’t okay. You weren’t safe. You weren’t whole. You weren’t.

You jerked away from his hand like it burned you. Your body betrayed you, shaking too hard to sit up fully, but you tried anyway. 

“No,” you whisper, fingers trembling as they hover at the edge of the bandage. “No, I’m not.”

And then another voice — clearer, gentler — “Hey. Hey, it’s me.”

Dick.

Your mind reached toward the sound like a rope in a storm.

“You’re okay,” he said, kneeling by your bedside. “You’re gonna be okay, I promise—”

“No!” Your scream cracked your throat open. You shoved at the blanket, at the sheets, at the wires in your arms. “No, I’m not! I’m not—!”

You clawed at the bandages before they could stop you. You didn’t even know what your fingers were doing — they were frantic, desperate — but you felt the gauze tear. The tape pop. Someone grabbed your wrist.

“Stop—!”

“Let me go—!”

“Y/N—!”

But it was too late.

The bandage dropped to the side of your face like wet tissue.

And you saw yourself.

It wasn’t a proper mirror. Just the reflective metal of a tray table across the room, but it was enough. The lighting caught it just right. And in it — half your face, bright under the fluorescents, pale and wounded and horrifically wrong.

Where your left eye once was, now sat a gaping wound stitched in a rough crescent. The lid was still there, partly, as was the bruising and raw lines where Leslie had sealed what she could. But it was concave, empty, the orbit sunken deep. A pit. A hollow.

You saw it.

And you screamed.

“NO! NO—NO—PUT IT BACK—”

You screamed so loudly the sound tore through your ribs and chest and made your throat bleed. You twisted and flailed and grabbed at the edge of the bed, trying to stand, to do something — but your legs gave out. Dick caught you before your knees slammed the tile.

Jason was behind you now, arms wrapping fully around your back and middle, holding you still. Your body trembled violently, like it wanted to rip itself apart. You couldn’t even breathe. You were choking on nothing, gasping like a fish pulled out of water.

“Let me go—please, let me go—”

“Y/N, you have to calm down,” Jason said into your ear, his voice straining. “You’re gonna hurt yourself worse—”

“I can’t—I can’t—I can’t—”

And then Leslie was there. She didn’t say a word. Didn’t ask permission. You didn’t even feel the needle until it was in your arm. A sting, a push of warmth, and then—

You sagged. Not instantly. Not completely. But your limbs slowed. Your heart — hammering against your ribcage like it wanted to escape — finally began to soften its rhythm. Your voice broke into hiccuped sobs, then whispers, then nothing but silence.

Jason still held you.

Dick still crouched in front of you, his arms around your shoulders.

Your head drooped against one of them. You didn’t know who. You didn’t care. All you knew was the absence of your eye. The echo of what used to be there. And the horrific realization that this was permanent.

You would never get it back.

Never.

Leslie sat on the edge of the bed beside you. You could feel her eyes on your face — not judgmental, not clinical. Just sad. Just impossibly, unbearably sad.

“It's gone,” you whispered. “It’s really gone.”

She nodded slowly. “Yes.”

You blinked. Your right eye burned with tears that never came. The left — the one that wasn’t there — still ached. Still itched. You wanted to claw at it, to scrape out the pain. But you couldn’t lift your hand anymore.

“Why does it still hurt?” you asked. “Why can I still feel it?”

“Because the nerves don’t understand yet,” Leslie said. “Your body still thinks it’s there. It’s called phantom pain. It happens to amputees. Eyes too. I’m sorry.”

You didn’t answer. You just laid there.

“Just sleep,” Leslie says, her hand brushing your hair. “Just let go.”

Since there, nothing had been the same. You spent weeks at Leslie's clinic. Weeks isolated from reality, surrounded by the white walls of the clinic, the clink of surgical trays, and the quiet rustle of Leslie Thompkins’s slippers as she moved like a ghost between your room and the halls. The only company you had was your own nausea, your dreams—which bled into nightmares—and the unbearable nothingness inside your eye socket.

No one was allowed in.

Not even Damian.

Not Dick. Not Jason. Not Cass, though she’d tried more than once to slip in silently through the ventilation. (You heard her once. You didn’t say anything. You wanted to, but the words died in your throat.)

The only one Leslie let through the door was your Father.

And even then, only because you didn’t get a say.

Leslie followed his orders when it came to you. She always had. The same way Alfred used to defer to him. The same way Dick never raised his voice when Bruce lowered his. The same way the whole damn city of Gotham bent to Batman’s unrelenting shadow.

And you were no different.

He came in quietly every night—always after dark, always after patrol—and sat in the single chair near your bed. Sometimes he would bring you books. Or your favorite herbal tea, the one Damian swore you loved as a child. Sometimes he would just sit there, silently reading reports or rechecking your medical chart even though he already had it memorized. A few times he tried talking.

But you never responded.

Not once. Losing an eye wouldn't change your distaste of your Father.

It wouldn’t unwrite the years without him. It wouldn’t erase your Mother’s warmth, her fierce pride when you beat your tutors with a blade, the soft silk of your robes as you sparred in the gardens under moonlight. It wouldn’t change the way he treated your training like abuse — it was. How he recoiled from the version of you that wasn’t his.

But the loss changed everything else.

Especially in your heart.

While you had never been extroverted enough to be called anything close to warm, you had still once possessed a fire inside of you. A flame. The heat of your mother’s blood and the League’s training and your own sharpened pride—your defiance, your discipline, your hunger to be great.

Your identity had been built on precision. You were Talia al Ghul’s daughter, the League’s prodigy. You moved like smoke through shadows, struck faster than most men could blink. You trained beside Damian — and often above him — with pride, discipline, and the terrifying assurance of a child that knew what she’d been built for.

But now?

Now, even reaching for a glass of water made your hands tremble.

You’d gone from warrior to weakling. From fire to ash.

One eye gone, and so was your depth perception. Your balance. Your peripheral vision. Tasks you’d never had to think about now tripped you up at every corner. You couldn’t pour a drink without missing the cup. You couldn’t catch a thrown object — not without tilting your head and praying you judged it right. You’d reach out for a vase on your bedside table and knock it over instead, sending it crashing to the floor, ceramic in pieces.

You’d shove everything off the table. Off the bed. You didn’t even know what you were breaking anymore. You just needed the noise. Needed something to match the chaos inside your chest. Because you couldn’t take it — the constant, aching absence in your skull. The way the gauze would get damp from your tear duct. 

It mocked you. Your own body mocked you.

At night, you'd feel the phantom of it — the memory of having two eyes. The illusion that if you just blinked hard enough, the world would go back to full. But it never did. There was always the dark spot. The void.

Even walking became different. Subtle, strange — like your body forgot how much space it occupied. Corners caught your shoulders. Doorways felt too tight. You’d turn your head too fast and flinch, not because you were in pain, but because your brain was still learning how to be broken.

And the migraines. God, the migraines.

Leslie explained them calmly. “Your brain is adjusting to monocular vision. That left orbit was traumatized, and even though the nerves are dead, the tissue’s still healing. It’ll take time.”

But nothing helped.

Light became an enemy. Flashbangs in the dark. Shadows where there should be none. You stopped trusting your sight entirely. Your right eye twitched sometimes, under the pressure of carrying everything alone. You couldn’t bear the feeling of someone coming up on your blind side — it made you flinch and snarl and lash out.

No one told you that losing one eye meant you'd feel like less than one person.

Once Bruce decided it was “time,” you were taken back to the Manor.

You didn’t say goodbye to Leslie. She didn’t expect you to.

The car ride was silent. Damian sat beside you, his arms folded, his jaw locked in that tight, uncomfortable way that meant he was trying not to speak. Bruce was driving. You didn’t know why he didn’t just send Alfred or Dick, but maybe he thought he was doing something by showing up. Maybe he wanted to be the one to bring you home.

Home.

What a joke.

You didn’t say a word the whole way there.

The Manor looked the same when you arrived. Of course it did.

Gothic arches, heavy stone, windows like darkened eyes. Alfred opened the door before the car had even come to a full stop, as if he’d sensed your arrival from a mile away. His expression softened the second he saw you. His age showed more lately — his hair was whiter than you remembered, and his eyes crinkled more with sorrow than sternness.

“Miss Y/N,” he said gently. “Welcome home.”

You didn’t reply.

You walked past him. Your boots were too loud in the entry hall.

You were fifteen. You’d been raised by assassins. You were trained to kill before you were trained to write. And now you couldn’t even grab a damn vase without guessing where it actually was. You couldn’t train. You couldn’t patrol. You were off the roster.

You weren’t Batgirl. You weren’t anyone.

You weren’t sure when exactly Damian started sleeping in your bed again. One night blurred into another, your dreams stitched together by broken lights and phantom pain. You woke up from one of them, gasping into your pillow, only to find the weight of something curled against your side. Small. Familiar.

Damian.

He was facing you, eyes shut but his brow furrowed, his fingers twisted into the hem of your sleeve like a lifeline. His breath was slow but shallow, like he was fighting off some nightmare of his own and refusing to let it show. He hadn’t cried, not once, not since the night in the warehouse. But he’d been quieter. Rougher around the edges. Quicker to snap at the others and always within arm’s reach of you. You weren’t sure if he was guarding you, or himself.

You didn’t say anything. Just stared at him for a long moment, your one eye adjusting to the dark, your vision split permanently in two.

And then you let him stay.

Because he was still half of you, and probably the only part left that still made sense. You didn’t know what kind of person you were anymore. Not Batgirl. Not a warrior. Not anything that felt familiar. But you were still a twin. Still his sister. Still his.

Damian was still there. Still yours. Still half of you. And maybe, if you closed your good eye and lay there long enough, the rest of the world would fade. Maybe, for just a while, you wouldn’t feel so unbalanced. So ruined.

You moved just enough to rest your hand on his hair, fingers slipping into the familiar black strands. He didn’t stir.

He started showing up every night after that.

Sometimes early, sometimes after patrol. You’d hear his soft footsteps before the door opened. Always without a word. He’d slide under the blankets, press close to your side, and fall asleep with one hand curled near yours.

You never stopped him.

You never would.

You shared too many things with him — your first steps, your first blades, your first blood. You were born together, trained together, made together. And now you were broken together, too. Even if only one of you bled for it.

He never mentioned your eye.

Not once.

But when you got frustrated and knocked something over again, or walked into a wall, or missed your footing — he was there. Steady. Silent. Sometimes he picked things up for you. Sometimes he just placed a hand on your wrist until your breathing steadied.

And when the nightmares got bad — yours or his — you curled together like you had when you were small, nothing but soft breath and bruised ribs and shared, smothered pain between you.

Damian always curled inward when he slept. Like he didn’t trust the air around him. Fists tucked under his chin, knees close, spine slightly bent even when the mattress gave him space. But since the warehouse, since the night you lost your eye — your eye, God, that phrase still made you sick — he had stopped pretending to sleep alone.

Once, he whispered: “It should’ve been me.”

And you whispered back, “It wasn’t.”

You didn’t talk about it after that.

Eventually, Leslie said it was time.

Your orbit had healed. The worst of the inflammation was over. There were still sutures inside your skin, layers of muscle and bone trying to knit back together. You’d need follow-ups. Long-term scans. Some of it might never fully recover. But the gauze? The gauze could finally come off.

You should’ve felt relieved.

You didn’t.

You felt exposed.

You felt seen.

They didn’t let you do it alone.

You tried to protest, of course. Tried to tell them it was your face, your choice, your eye — or what was left of it. But the moment Alfred stepped into your room with the medical tray, Bruce behind him, Damian already sitting near the headboard like a statue, you understood that it wasn’t up for debate.

Alfred approached like he was performing a ritual. Not a task. Not a job. Something sacred.

The tray was placed beside your bed, a clean cloth folded at the corner, sterile scissors gleaming under the light. You sat propped up with pillows, hands balled into the sheets, your chest tight enough to crack.

Bruce sat in the chair across from you. No cape. No armor. Just him. Plain clothes, face unreadable, eyes locked on yours.

No one spoke. Not until Alfred dipped the scissors into disinfectant and murmured, “Miss Y/N… May I?”

You wanted to say no. You wanted to scream and hide and throw the blankets over your face. But you swallowed hard and nodded.

He worked slowly, gently. The scissors snipped through gauze like whispering paper. The first layer peeled back, and cold air hit your cheek, your brow, your eyelid. The texture of exposed, healing skin made your stomach twist. Alfred’s hands didn’t tremble once.

Another layer. And another. And then the last. The gauze fell into the tray like old linen, stained with hours of dampness and sterile creams. Your face was bare.

You didn’t move. You didn’t breathe.

You just stared straight ahead at your Father’s face, searching it for something — disgust, sorrow, judgment — but it wasn’t there.

There was only quiet.

You kept your good eye trained on Alfred’s collar, on the soft silver of his tie pin. He didn’t comment on the tears spilling from your left tear duct — steady, unearned, grotesque in their asymmetry.

Alfred gently packed the bandages away and said, “The patches arrived this morning.”

You nodded without speaking.

The black one fit best.

Leslie had sent a few to the Manor, no doubt working through one of her reliable medical suppliers. The white patch — classic, clinical — looked absurd. It got dirty too fast. You tried it once and ripped it off within the hour. The beige one disappeared into your skin but made the hollow too obvious, drawing more attention than it hid. The soft cloth one looked like something out of a pirate film.

The black patch was clean. Sharp. Neutral. It didn’t ask for pity. You could pretend it was tactical, even stylish. Something deliberate. Something chosen.

But every time you put it on, you felt the echo of what it was hiding. A whole part of you. Gone.

The world saw it differently, of course.

Wayne’s daughter, injured in a freak accident. The media latched onto the story like it was fiction, spinning it into a tale of bravery and trauma and noble recovery. “A tragic incident,” the headlines read. “Still under investigation.” The official press release said it happened during an off-duty car crash. Gotham clutched its pearls and murmured in sympathy, turning your pain into cocktail party gossip.

But only you — and the family — knew the truth.

Only you remembered the warehouse. The rusted knife. The sound of Damian’s voice breaking as he screamed for someone to help you. Only you could still feel it — that moment the blade went in, that sickening pop, the burn of your own body eating itself alive.

Every look you received now — on the street, in the Cave, in the damn mirror — was a reminder.

They didn’t see Batgirl.

They saw the girl with one eye.

But once, just once, you woke to find Damian already awake beside you, eyes open, fixed on the ceiling.

“Would you want it back?” he asked.

Your voice was barely a whisper. “What?”

“Your eye. If you could. Would you want it back?”

You didn’t answer right away.

You thought about what it had cost you — the balance, the vision, the grace.

“There's a debt to be paid,” you whispered. “With his eye.”

He didn’t say anything after that, but his fingers pressed into yours, hard, and pressed again, a promise that, one day, he'd give it to you.

[neellscapsule]

i have to admit that i desperately want to write about a platonic!yandere!batfam x damian's neglected twin sister!reader who has just lost an eye to a villain????????????????and has to learn so much stuff again?????????????

anyway so in love with the idea. but i HAVE to continue with batmom and webs of pain 😩😩😩

[neellscapsule]

Hello! Im a huge fan of your Kent Batmom fic and was wondering if you had an ao3 account by any chance. If that’s not the case then I hope you’ll consider trying it out. Im sure your works would be a hit. You’re a wonderful writer and your stories are simply amazing 🫶

i have one but i didn't put any of the kent!batmom stuff on there yet. i don't spend much time writing on ao3 but more reading. thank youuuu 💗

[neellscapsule]

Aaaaaah!!!!!! Sweets, may I just say, your writing? Amazing. Can't stop thinking about it. I fear Kent!Mom and her kids will be forever imprinted on my mind. Instead of therapy, I'll just forward you the funeral bills, because the day this series ends is the day my heart will stop, lolol. But in all seriousness, thank you so much for yet another wonderfully thoughtful, sweetly gorgeous, boldly showstopping chapter. Wishing you allllll the best.

WHEN DID WE PASS FROM THERAPY BILLS TO FUNERAL ONES??????????????????????

jokes aside I LOVE YOU ALLL SOOO MUCH. i've so many messages like this, i'm sorry i'm not able to reply to all of them most of the time but i read them and i send you all my love and thanks 😭❤

[neellscapsule]

How many chapters do u think the bat mom series will have?

i think it may have like twenty chapters?????perhaps a little less. i actually originally thought it would be like fifteen chapters but well, things got out of control !!!!! but by now we are not lacking much stuff. we still need to read jason's return, damian arriving, the fight and the make up between batmom and bruce about damian. then maybe some moments of damian and batmom because the bond between these two starts rocky but it grows ok

[neellscapsule]

What does Kent!reader think about Alt!reader?

I can’t imagine there being any tension, but I feel like it’d just be so…horrible. To see someone who is essentially you but has definitely had a horrible, depressing and lonely life whilst you (despite having trauma) have an abundance of love and support.

I really, really hope that if alt!reader does return (even in headcannons) that she can get some sort of happiness. I know she has alt!Clark and his family but I am a true believer that she deserves literally everything omg I love her so much😭

batmom!reader has the biggest heart on earth but i think she couldn't bear to see alt!reader. not in the 'i hate you' way. more like in the 'i pity you so much it hurts to see you' and like- that's her. in another universe, but her.

batmom!reader grew up as the biggest mama's girl in the world. what do you mean ma died in that universe??????????what do you mean your pa died in your arms???????????what do you mean you don't have kids?????????

i believe she would try to help with something, but they don't have much to relate about. batmom!reader has never had that much tragedy in her life —not counting the miscarriages and jason's death—, while alt!reader is full of it.

they are like the opposites of each other.

batmom!reader has parents; alt!reader lost them years ago. batmom!reader has kids and bruce as her husband; alt!reader doesn't have kids and bruce is merely a companion of the jl. batmom!reader doesn't have powers; alt!reader is completely enhanced.

the only thing they both have is clark, and they both kind of rely on him most of the time, growing up as close siblings. it's just that for alt!reader clark was more of a father than a brother, having to step up after jonathan's death; while batmom!reader and clark just had the most fun and free childhoods of their lives

[neellscapsule]

If alt!bruce and alt!Kent did ever get together like long term, what would the dynamic be like?

A slow burn between them would be great, my girl needs some love lol.

Childfree Uncle and Aunt who have a bunch of pets (the pets are the variations of the batkids in this au).

omg yes the pets being the variations. totally love it

i think they actually have a pretty good dynamic, they mostly discuss like an old married couple so, they are on their way. i do think they are both depressed so either they heavily depend on each other or need space before being all lovey

i can see alt!bruce doing everything in his power to help alt!kent!reader. he would make her the most beautiful, full of tech, suit of her life. and alt!kent!reader maybe doesn't have that much of everything, but that girl has a heart of gold buried between those ice walls she has built

i mean even in the chapter they both question the 'what if'. i believe they both think about it, they both punish themselves over the idea of wanting more and more, and that is what could bring them together at the end

[neellscapsule]

I know that her story is meant to be tragic but GOD do I seriously want alt!kentmomreader to have like a happy ending of some sort.

Or maybe not even that, just like some happiness in her life.

Although I know Spiders are meant to have thoroughly tragic lives, to a point it just feels depressing and horrible(obviously your writing is amazing but it’s just SO angsty😭).

Since Spider is so worried about people dying, maybe she can have like her own Deadpool. Or maybe Respawn (Damian’s half-brother) is like her sidekick.

you just submitted this but i HAVE the physical need to talk about it

alt!kent!reader is a very tragic type of character, almost doomed by it. losing the kents, not being able to love without fearing the future mourning, knowing there's is an other-self out there in the universe that has a 'good' life (despite we know that kent!batmom has her moments of tragedy as well). but i can see her being happy in her way

i could see her as a very good mentor to troubled youth, people who have experienced some kind of trauma. if we are mentioning some possible protégés, i could see respawn, roy harper, and i could totally see her being close with raven. but i don't think she would actually raise any of her other-self's robins.

NOW about her own deadpool omg could you imagine that, so chaotic. i think she's part of the spidersociety, because i love the spiderverse. i think she's really close with hobie, and actually can get along with miguel when she's not acting. i think she would totally see both sides, miguel's and miles's, but i don't think she would get into the hunt. she just goes back to gotham. to batman, in some kind of way

[neellscapsule]

for some reason it's not letting me tag anyone else on the taglist of batmom!reader. so so so sorry for everyone :( i'll see how i can fix it as soon as possibly

[neellscapsule]

okay i just found (and devoured) your kent!batmom! series and saw the whole damian thing. do you think clark would somehow sympathize with bruce over the whole ivf thing since it’s somewhat similar to what happened to him with conner? like clark totally still fucks him up but after that, how would it play out?

i think clark is the most understanding between both parts. like he loves his sister, she's the one who could totally make him go totally crazy if something happened. kent!batmom is literally on his top three weakness.

but he knows bruce. he knows the man behind the mask, and he knows he would never cheat on her, he would never hurt her knowingly, much less with a child. so he totally roughs him, beats him a bit, but he talks, and he tries to be there for him as well, knowing it's not easy. i think he would totally volunteer to take damian, as bruce did for him taking conner on several weeks

[neellscapsule]

a restless boy or a silent girl

summary | you go back to the manor, your husband is more than pleased to have you back, and the unusual child wants everything and expects nothing.

pairing | bruce wayne x kent!reader. platonic tim drake x batmom!reader. platonic cassandra cain x batmom!reader

warnings / tags | angst, mama and papa reconcile (🙌), reader getting better after being able to rest and adopt whiskers. we have some fluff, tim drake needs batmom despite everything /cassandra cain is a girl who needs all the love from batmom too, tim's backstory doesn't completely follow canon. mentions of neglection and trauma

word count | 6.6k

authors note | hi there!! english is not my first language so there might be some mistakes, or not, it can depend :) there's a bit of a time skip between lines here. like we have some weeks between the fight and coming back, then we have mentions of some months passing, and then we have almost a whole year skip. so this covers 2015-2016

this is part of the kent!batmom!reader series. this can be read as part 14. you'll the other parts on the masterlist.

taglist | @maolen @joonunivrs @c4ssi4-luv @fanfics4ever @inejskywalker @resting-confused-face @fionnalopez @stargirl9911 @idek101-01 @shqyou

@mei-simp @serendippindots @sirlovel @aixaingela @pjmgojo @antixsocialx2 @nisarelle @realiliumfr @gojoswaterbottle @connnn

@jjoppees @yall-imhere @sabrinasoppositee @nekotaetae @wendee-go @idiomaticpunk @fandomlover1235 @nommingonfood @omisotolongo @lortheswiftie

@owihitmyhead @mosseetrees @c4xcocoa @qardasngan @radicalcannoliqueen @jeshomie @cutie232 @ravenqueen27 @thy-crimson-king @thewiselionessss

@fernomenal @chiizuluvr @natalia42069 @invinciblewaffles @changyumi3 @mbioooo0000 @caramelised-onions @nymphzy0 @lilylovelyxo @notahappystan

@sad-girl09 @bunniotomia @lordbugs @pastelsweaters-and-bubble-t @sick2mystomach @redpool @lumestar

THE GATE CREAKED OPEN.

Not as loud as you expected it to. Not with a scream, or a wail, or the groan of grief rusted into iron. Just a soft hush of hydraulics, the way it always had — as if the manor itself was politely welcoming you home.

You stood there for a moment, suitcase in hand, Whiskers curled in your coat. 

The manor stood unchanged. Gray stone against the blue cast of evening, windows lit like lanterns scattered through the hollow of a home you once helped fill. It was only when Alfred took your bags from your hand with a quiet “Welcome home, Miss,” and a barely restrained look of relief that your spine finally uncoiled enough to breathe.

It had been three weeks. Twenty-one days of rural silence, cinnamon oatmeal, Clark’s hovering shadow, and the long-limbed weight of a purring cat that refused to leave your chest at night. And now… now, you were back. Your steps echoed softer than you remembered against the wood floors. The silence inside wasn’t cold, though—it was taut. Waiting.

He was waiting.

You didn’t have to ask. You felt it.

So when you turned the corner into the great room —leaving Whiskers on the floor—, you weren’t surprised to see Bruce already there, still in his slacks and shirt sleeves, as if he'd been standing the same way all day. Hands in his pockets, jaw locked so tightly it looked like it ached. He didn’t move when he saw you, not at first. Just watched. Every inch of you. Like you were a ghost that might evaporate.

“Hi,” you whispered.

Your voice cracked on the single word. It was still a little raw—unused, tender, like a bruise not quite gone. But it reached him. It shattered him.

He moved. Across the room in wide, aching strides until his arms were wrapped so tightly around you, you weren’t sure where his heart began and yours ended. You felt it, the depth of him. The pressure of his grief pressed up against your own.

His hands are in your hair before you can speak again, and he pulls you into his chest with a force that isn’t rough — just desperate. Desperate and warm and real. His heartbeat crashes against your ear. You fist his coat in your fingers.

He buried his face in your neck.

“For three fucking weeks,” he murmured, his voice hoarse against your temple, “I’ve been losing my mind. I have not held you in my arms. I have not seen you, touched you, heard your voice. I have missed you.”

You closed your eyes. Let it all settle.

The warm scent of him. The dampness at the edge of his collar. The sheer weight of his arms. He hadn’t shaven in a day or two, and his breath stuttered unevenly every time you exhaled too sharply. As if you might disappear.

“I’m here,” you said, even though it didn’t feel true yet. “I’m trying.”

You pulled back just slightly. His hand stayed at the nape of your neck, fingers curled. Yours found his cheek, the roughness of stubble, the heat of him underneath. “You look older,” you breathed.

“You look exhausted,” he replied. “But beautiful.”

You let a small breath pass between your lips. Then, carefully, reverently, you touched his face.

You traced his face with your fingertips. The arch of his brows, the edge of his jaw, the corner of his lips. You had memorized every inch of him long ago, but it had never hurt to touch him before. It did now—just slightly, just beneath the skin. It hurt to be near love when you'd been clinging to grief so tightly for weeks.

“I’m sorry,” you said quietly. “I couldn’t… I couldn’t stay here. Not with that pain. Not with everything.”

He nodded, jaw tightening. “I know. I didn’t blame you. I only wanted you safe. I was scared you’d never come back.”

Your chest ached, painfully and suddenly.

“I didn’t know if I would either,” you admitted, “until I saw how much I missed you. And Alfred. And the manor. Even the goddamn portraits.”

He actually smiled at that, though his eyes remained wet and dark. “I almost took them all down,” he said. “Everything. It felt like this place was choking me.”

Your fingertips slid down to his shoulder. “You didn’t?”

“I didn’t. Because that would’ve meant erasing you. And Jason. And… her.”

You swallowed hard, the tension locking up your spine again.

“I failed you,” you whispered.

“Don’t.” His hand dropped to yours, firm. “Don’t say that.”

“But it’s true.” You turned, stepping just out of reach, needing space to say the thing that weighed on your ribs like stone. “I was supposed to carry our child. Protect her. And I—”

“Don’t,” he said again, more sharply this time. “Don’t do that to yourself.”

You turned back to face him, breath unsteady. “How can I not? It wasn’t just Jason I lost in that moment, Bruce. It was her too. I still feel it sometimes, in the morning. Like a phantom kick. And I remember… and I remember screaming with her still inside me. Dead.”

His throat bobbed, silent.

“I know,” he finally said. “I was there. I held both of you. And I would’ve given everything to take that pain from you.”

A stillness filled the room. You stared at each other for long, quiet moments. Two people torn open by the same storm. You both sat down.

“I’m not ready to try again,” you said softly. “Not now. Maybe not ever.”

He crossed the space to you once more, holding your face between his hands this time. His forehead touched yours. “We don’t have to. We never have to.”

“But I know you—”

“I can give up the idea of a biological child, Y/N. I can give that up. I already have. But I can’t give up you. Don’t ask me to do that.”

Your lip quivered at the sound of your name in his voice. Gentle. Ragged. Fiercely devoted.

“You gave me everything,” he snapped — not in anger, but in agony. “You gave me peace. You gave me a home. You gave me Dick. You gave me Jason. You gave me this life. Don’t ever speak like you failed me. I already lost our boy, and our daughter. I can’t… I won’t lose you too.”

Your hand settled over his heart. Thudding, real. “I’m still here. Bruised. But I’m still yours.”

Bruce’s eyes are on you — steady, shadowed, gentle in a way most people would never believe him capable of. But you’ve always seen it. The tenderness that lives in the lines beside his mouth, in the crease of his brow when he watches you brush your hair, in the softness with which he speaks your name when he thinks you’re asleep.

“Come here,” he whispers.

And when you move onto his lap, your knees on either side of him, arms loose around his neck, he holds you like you’re breakable. Like the ache in his ribs might splinter at the feel of your weight.

“I missed you,” you whisper.

And then, at long last, he leaned in.

Not hungry. Not desperate. Just a kiss. Gentle. Long. Painful in its beauty. His lips lingered against yours like he was remembering how they felt. Your fingers curled into his shirt, grounding yourself. Your other hand never left his cheek.

When you pulled apart, your forehead stayed pressed against his.

“I missed you too,” he murmured back, kissing your temple.

And then, the two of you just sat there, for a long time, the sun watching from above the manor’s windows, the ghost of a son and the memory of a daughter between you — but not separating you.

Whiskers meowed, jumping onto the couch, walking closer to you. You gazed at her, softly smiling.

“So . . . you adopted a cat?” Bruce wondered, one eyebrow twitching.

“Something like that,” you caressed her head, enjoying the low purring. “She was in the rain while I was there as well. We sort of clicked together.”

“She's cute. Just like her owner,” he said softly, leaning forward to press a slow kiss to your jaw. 

The warmth in his voice made your eyes flutter closed. For the first time in months, your bones didn’t feel hollow. For the first time in months, the silence between the two of you didn’t ache — it hummed. Not with pain, but with peace.

“Did you name her?” he asked.

You smiled — not a full smile, not yet — but something small and shaped like hope. “Yes,” you said, brushing your thumb against the soft fur again. “Miss Whiskers.”

“Whiskers?” The subtle lift in his brow and the twitch of his mouth betrayed his amusement.

“I'll have you know Miss Whiskers is a very lovely lady.” You sat on the sofa again, grabbing the cat to bring her close to you, kissing her fur. 

He laughed — a real laugh. Not forced or broken, but warm and low and deep, like it belonged somewhere down in your ribs. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Miss Whiskers is clearly a very dignified lady.”

You narrowed your eyes, then reached out to slap his chest with the back of your hand, the sound light. Whiskers turned her face up to him, sizing him up like she hadn’t quite decided whether he’d earned her favor yet.

You watched them both — Bruce with his quiet patience, and the cat with her delicate pride. And you smiled again, this time without thinking.

“I’m glad you brought her back,” Bruce said after a pause. His eyes were focused on the cat, but you could feel the weight of his words on you. “The house needed a little noise again. A little life.”

Your throat tightened — not in pain, but in that aching softness that came from someone seeing you fully.

“Sometimes I think she saved me a bit,” you whispered. “That night . . . I was out in the rain, and I couldn’t feel much of anything. But she cried. And I picked her up. And I remembered I could still care for something.”

Bruce didn’t say anything, but he nodded once, slow. He let his hand slip over yours, gently twining your fingers. You turned your palm over to hold him.

You sat there for a long while like that — no words, no movement, just the two of you and a cat who had decided your lap was home.

Eventually, Bruce turned his head, resting his temple lightly against yours. “I missed this,” he murmured. “I missed you.”

You didn’t answer right away. You simply let your hand leave Whiskers’s back to brush up the side of Bruce’s face. You traced his skin with your fingertips, gentle and slow, like trying to remember every curve and edge you had once known by heart.

And he let you do it. Let you memorize him again.

His fingers came to rest softly over your wrist, grounding you. You took a breath. Then another. You had learned how important that was these days — to pause before you spoke, to test the weight of your own thoughts before offering them into the world.

“Tell me about the boy,” you murmured, after a beat. “Tim.”

Bruce blinked, and for a second you saw something behind his eyes that made you wonder if he’d been waiting for you to ask. Maybe he thought you never would. Maybe he thought it would be too painful. But he nodded, voice low.

“Timothy Jackson Drake. Thirteen years old. Gotham native. His parents were . . .” He exhaled, leaning forward, resting his arms on his knees. “They were good people. Good intentions. But they weren’t built to be parents.”

You listened. Not to the words alone, but to the silences between them. You knew Bruce too well not to. He had a way of shaping truth around the edges of what he didn’t say.

“What happened to them?” you asked softly.

He rubbed his face. “They were killed. Some international mercenary — it was messy. His father was in contact with a lot of archaeological buyers, mostly black market. Got in over his head.”

“Oh,” you breathed. “God.”

“Tim was with them. On one of their trips.” Bruce’s jaw clenched, his voice tightening just enough for you to feel it in your spine. “I found him a few nights after. He recognized me.”

You furrowed your brows at that. “Recognized you?”

Bruce glanced toward you, the corners of his mouth twitching in something like admiration and sadness all at once. “He’s . . . smart. Smart in a way that’s sharp. Unnerving, even. He’d figured out the Robin identity when he was younger — back when Dick was still wearing the mantle. He connected the dots. Tracked movements. Built patterns.”

You looked down, blinking. A thirteen-year-old. A kid. So brilliant and still so vulnerable. Your heart pulled with instinct and ache at the same time.

“And now he’s Robin,” you said.

Bruce gave a faint nod. “I tried to say no. I didn’t want to — not after everything. But he’s persistent. And he’s already figured out too much to simply look away. He sees this life like a puzzle, and he’s convinced himself he can solve it. He’s not doing it for vengeance, not really. He’s doing it because he thinks he has to.”

You stared at the rug beneath your feet, your hand resting on Whiskers again. The kitten pressed into your palm, still purring.

“Is he safe?” you asked. Your voice came out smaller than you expected. “With this? With all of this again?”

Bruce didn’t lie. You hated that about him and loved it too.

“No,” he said. “But he’s safer with me than out there alone, chasing shadows without training.”

You nodded. You knew it. Knew the answer before you asked.

“Do you have custody?” you asked next.

Bruce sat back against the couch, exhaling through his nose. “I have guardianship. Legal, through Leslie’s contacts. Adoption . . . we haven’t talked about that. He hasn’t asked.”

You didn’t press. How could you?

The word adoption sat bitter on your tongue — not because of Tim, but because of the raw bleeding place in your heart where Jason still lived. You could still smell his old books in the corners of the library. Still see the scuffs of his shoes at the entrance of the Cave. Still feel his breath on your cheek from that last embrace — his last ever — and you knew if you let the grief overtake you again tonight, there might not be enough thread left in your soul to sew yourself back together.

So you didn’t press.

You sat quietly, your hand now resting on Bruce’s knee, thumb brushing back and forth like a lullaby.

“He’s around the same age,” you murmured. “As Jason.”

Bruce didn’t move. You didn’t look at him.

“I know,” he said, voice wrecked.

And that was it.

You didn't compare. You didn't need to. Tim wasn’t Jason. Could never be Jason. And still, that didn’t mean he didn’t deserve safety. Or patience. Or warmth. He was thirteen. And the world had already swallowed half his life.

“I’m not ready,” you admitted, your voice barely a whisper. “To see him with the suit again. To watch another boy put on those colors. It’s like seeing a ghost. It’s like someone stole Jason’s shadow and put it back in motion.”

“I know,” Bruce repeated. This time, he turned and took your hand fully in his. “You don’t have to be ready now. You don’t have to do anything. Tim knows about you. He’s been asking. But I told him he’d have to wait.”

“What did you tell him about me?” you asked, surprised.

“That you were my wife,” Bruce said plainly. “That you were kind. And strong. And that you’re grieving. That sometimes, grief makes the best of us quieter than we want to be.”

You turned your face away and blinked, holding in the rush of emotion. Your chest rose and fell with a small gasp.

Bruce touched your knee gently. “You’ll love him, eventually. I know you will. He’s not Jason. He’ll never be Jason. But he’s a child. And you love children like no one else I’ve ever known. It’s how I knew I loved you.”

The words struck you, a warm ache behind the eyes. You didn’t cry — not tonight — but you leaned forward, pressing your lips to his cheek, your nose brushing his temple.

“And I love you,” you whispered.

He turned to you, and for the first time in weeks, his smile reached his eyes.

“I know.”

The afternoon light is gentle and overcast, filtered through thin clouds that soften everything it touches. Your shoes press softly over the flagstone as you cross the back terrace, arms loosely wrapped around your own waist. You had no strength to witness the decay of something you once nurtured with care. Something inside you refused to imagine what the rain or the wind or time might’ve done to it.

You almost brace yourself as you reach the gate, hand hovering over the latch like it might burn.

Then you step in.

And stop.

Because the garden is… beautiful.

Not untouched, not frozen in time, but not ruined either. The soil is turned and dark, fed. The flowers are clean of rot or mold, the beds gently weeded. Your daughter’s forget-me-nots bloom in scattered soft blue clusters, bowing their tiny heads in memory. And Jason’s anemones—those white petals ringed with bruised purple at their centers—still sit in their solemn little semicircle beneath the big pine. There are even new vegetables in the second patch, familiar carrot tops poking green and healthy from the rows.

You frown faintly, eyes narrowing just a little with confusion, with recognition. Someone’s been here.

You turn your head—and that’s when you see him.

Tim.

He’s crouched low by the roots of a tomato vine, one gloved hand brushing away a spot of dust from a label stake. At first, he doesn’t notice you. His head is bent, his movements careful and practiced. He hums very faintly under his breath—some orchestral score you vaguely recognize. 

You cleared your throat gently.

You see the moment he sees you. His eyes go wide, and he jolts, nearly toppling backward into the rosemary bush behind him.

“Oh! I—uh—hi! Sorry! I didn’t—uh—I didn’t know you were here!”

You blink, startled by the sheer volume of words that pour out of him all at once.

“I wasn’t—well, I wasn’t trying to mess with anything, I swear. I mean, I was kind of messing with it, but only in the taking-care-of-it kind of way. Not the messing-up kind. Alfred said it was okay. That, uh… that maybe it’d be good for me. And for you. And the plants. And the air quality. I’ve read studies—”

You step closer, trying not to smile too quickly.

“Did you take care of the garden?” you ask softly.

You remembered Jason in the garden — the way he once fought a wasp for your strawberries, the scowl he’d wear when he accidentally plucked a green tomato. You remembered his muddy boots. His proud grins. The way he always offered to carry the basket. 

And now here was Tim, a boy almost the same age Jason had been when he first moved into this house. A boy who had stepped into that suit far too early, already shaped by his own losses. A boy who didn't demand anything from you, but still flinched when he saw you.

Tim stops mid-ramble. Freezes. Then nods once. “I did,” he says, voice quieter now, more uncertain. “I mean… I tried. I didn’t want to make you mad. Or hurt your feelings. Or—touch something I shouldn’t. I’m really sorry if I did. I tried to leave the memorials alone, mostly Alfred helped with those. I just… I didn’t like seeing it all empty. And no one else was really—coming out here. And the soil needed water. And the carrots were sprouting and I didn’t want them to rot. And I figured, maybe… I don’t know. I figured maybe you’d want it still nice.”

You breathe in. And then you exhale, long and slow.

There’s a visible relief in his posture when you don’t yell. When you don’t look angry. When you don’t turn away.

He stands now, wiping his hands hastily on the knees of his jeans. “Sorry,” he says again, ducking his head. “You probably don’t want me here. I get it.”

You shake your head. “No,” you say, reaching forward to brush some stray soil off one of the forget-me-nots. “It’s just… you surprised me.”

“Oh.”

The wind shifts slightly. You glance over at him. He’s smaller than Jason. Narrower shoulders. More serious posture. He stands like he’s ready to bolt at any moment, but his eyes—those too-old eyes—never stop watching you.

“I didn’t mean to,” he says. “It’s just… I remember the first time you saw me. In the suit.”

Your throat tightens a little.

“I know you didn’t like it,” he adds quickly. “It’s okay. I would’ve hated me too.”

“Don’t say that,” you say immediately, a little sharper than you meant.

He flinches.

You take a breath, dialing it back. Your voice softens. “I was in pain,” you tell him.

“I know,” he says, so simply and plainly it knocks the wind out of you.

He doesn’t demand your love. Doesn’t even really expect kindness. You can see it in his shoulders, in the way he stands crookedly, leaning away from your shadow like it might scold him. A child who’s learned to fold himself inward. To speak softly and ask for nothing.

Jason had yelled when he was nervous. Dick had bargained. But Tim… Tim made himself invisible. You hate how familiar that looks on a child’s face.

You step a little closer, and he tenses, but you only reach down to touch a bit of lavender.

“You did good, Tim. The garden looks beautiful.”

His eyes flicked to yours, startled.

“You’re not mad?”

“No,” you replied gently. “Not mad. Surprised, maybe. But not mad. You did a good job. Everything’s very healthy.”

“I looked up your method,” he blurts. “Online. I found the stuff you published on plant pairings and moon-cycle weeding. You really know a lot. I mean, like, a lot.”

That makes your lips twitch faintly. “It’s not just vegetables that need care. The flowers help them too.”

“Yeah. Exactly! Like—like the marigolds near the tomatoes. Natural pesticide, right? And the way you buried the compost under the edges instead of turning it weekly. It builds slower, but the nutrients release better. You’re really smart.”

His words come faster now, tumbling out of him like water over rocks. You let them. It’s easier to hear him speak than it is to fill the silence yourself. And honestly, it’s sweet. His voice is earnest, not performative. He’s not trying to impress you to gain something. He just wants to talk to you. Wants to be accepted.

You glance over at him again, heart tightening with something warm and painfully tender.

“Have you eaten?” you ask quietly, gently.

He blinks, caught off guard. “Uh—I—kind of? Not really.”

“Would you like something?” you offer. “Maybe we could sit down somewhere. You could tell me about that compost method you read.”

Tim’s face lights up so suddenly it stuns you.

“Really?” he asks. “You want to hear about it?”

“I do.”

“Okay,” he nods, bouncing a little in place. “Okay, um—I can help clean up too. Like, I can grab the gloves and the spade and—”

“Leave it for now,” you say gently, walking toward the gate. “It’ll still be here later. Come inside.”

He scrambles to catch up to you, practically bouncing on his toes.

“And maybe you can tell me about your favorite project. Or your least favorite. Or… anything you want to talk about, really,” you add softly.

He blinked. “You want to hear about my projects?”

“I’d love to.”

He hesitated, then stepped out of the garden bed. His hands were still gloved, and he wiped them nervously against his jeans.

“Well… there’s this one about tracking satellite patterns,” he mumbled, already walking after you as you turned toward the house. “And a few data logs I’ve been analyzing. I think Gotham’s crime spikes are seasonally predictable based on a few consistent markers. I mean, not always — outliers happen — but the math still works. Mostly. And I’ve been comparing it to Blüdhaven’s data, which is a mess, honestly…”

You listened. Let him talk. Let him walk beside you.

And for the first time in a long time, something in your heart didn’t ache. Not in the same way.

You opened the door for him, and he walked inside, still explaining his theories, still nervously glancing back at you every few words — and you smiled at him each time.

He was a child.

A child you would care, nurture and help grow, as if he were one more of your flowers.

You noticed it in the little ways. The way he walked on the edges of his sneakers to keep quiet, like he didn’t belong in a house where laughter once rang out. The way his eyes darted to yours every time he entered a room, searching your face for any shift in mood, any trace of tension or disapproval. The way he apologized for things he didn’t do — just being nearby, breathing too loud, standing where Jason once stood.

Tim Drake had been in the manor for months now. A brilliant boy with a sharp mind and far too old eyes for thirteen. He spoke like someone who read too much and trusted too little. You recognized the signs. Grief aged you. Grief sharpened your tongue and shrank your spine, made you fold into yourself until you could disappear.

You hadn’t known what to do with him, not really. You’d tried. And God knows you had tried gently. 

You smiled when you had the strength. You asked about school, about the strange little gadgets he built in the Cave. You brought him cocoa on cold nights when he stayed up too long watching crime footage. You had stocked the pantry with the snacks he liked. You'd helped him decorate his bedroom, let him pick his own books, quietly placed a soft blanket across his desk chair one afternoon when you realized he never asked for one.

But you hadn’t opened the door all the way.

You couldn’t. Not yet.

You still walked the manor like a half-shadow. You still woke up gasping in the middle of the night with the feeling of loss pressing into your sternum like a vice. The ache of a child gone. The emptiness where your daughter should have cried. The memory of a boy’s laughter you’d never hear again.

And Tim — Tim saw all of that.

He tiptoed around your grief like it was a sleeping dragon. Carefully. Quietly. Sometimes, he didn’t even speak unless spoken to. And though he’d never said it out loud, you could feel it in the way he lingered near you when he thought you weren’t looking. In the way he watched you read, or listened in on your conversations with Alfred. In the way he lit up when you did smile at him, like it was a gift too rare to name.

It broke your heart. But you didn’t know how to let him in. Not fully.

Then, it happened. And nothing could have prepared you for it.

It was a late Saturday morning, lazy and quiet. Rain drummed against the windows. Bruce was still downstairs in the Cave, and Alfred had gone out to collect a delivery. You were in the hallway, arms full of folded blankets you meant to bring to the guest rooms, when you heard Tim’s voice from the living room.

“Hey, mom, do you know where—?”

Silence.

Everything stopped. You froze just outside the doorway. So did he.

You turned to look at him. Tim stood by the couch, remote in hand, halfway through asking you where the HDMI cable had been moved. But the word was still hanging in the air. Mom.

He realized it the moment you did. His eyes went wide. His mouth parted, but no words came out. You didn’t even have time to call out before he dropped the remote and bolted.

“Tim—?”

But he was already running up the stairs.

You dropped the blankets onto the bench and followed him, heart climbing into your throat.

“Tim! Wait, sweetheart—”

You heard the sound of a door slamming. The study.

You reached it seconds later, breathless and startled, your hand pushing it open slowly.

He was there. Curled up in the far corner of the room, between the bookshelf and the edge of the old rug. Knees pulled tight to his chest, head ducked low, hands over his face like a child trying to disappear. His body trembled with every breath, small sharp sobs escaping against his will.

You crossed the room in seconds and knelt beside him. Your hand came to his cheek without thought, cupping him, your thumb brushing a tear that had no right to be there.

“Tim,” you whispered softly, “hey. What’s wrong?”

“I’m sorry,” he gasped. “I didn’t mean to call you that— I didn’t mean to— I didn’t— I didn’t mean it—”

“Tim,” you breathed, your voice cracking.

“I’m sorry,” he sobbed again, curling tighter. “I didn’t mean to upset you, I just— I forgot, I didn’t— I wasn’t thinking, it just came out— I know I’m not— I know I’m not—”

Your heart split clean down the center.

You leaned in and kissed his forehead.

“Tim,” you whispered, your hand cradling the back of his head now. “It’s okay, honey. I’m honored.”

He blinked up at you, eyes glassy, mouth open in shock. “You— you are?”

“I am,” you said, gently, firmly. “You didn’t upset me. You didn’t do anything wrong. I know it just slipped. But even if it didn’t… even if you meant it… I’d still be honored.”

He blinked again, and his lip quivered before he broke into another soft sob, burying his face in your shoulder without hesitation. Like he’d been waiting for that moment his entire life.

You held him.

Held him like you hadn’t held anyone in months. Held him the way you used to hold Jason when he came back from patrol aching and too proud to say it. Held him the way you imagined you would’ve held your daughter had she lived long enough to know your touch.

Tim clung to you, and you let him.

You rocked slightly, whispered soft things, smoothed your hand over his hair. You said his name again and again like a prayer, a grounding weight, something real in the storm of it all.

“I know I’m not him,” Tim whispered at some point, voice so small it was almost nothing. “I know I’m not Jason. I’m not trying to be. I swear I’m not—”

You held him tighter.

“Oh, Tim,” you whispered. “I know you’re not him. You don’t have to be him. You’re you. That’s all I want.”

“I didn’t mean to take his place.”

“You’re not,” you promised. “No one could ever take his place. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a place for you, too.”

He didn’t speak after that. Just leaned in closer.

Minutes passed.

Eventually, his breathing evened out again. You stayed beside him on the rug until his eyes closed and his body went still, exhaustion pulling him under. When you were sure he was sleeping, you stood quietly, tugged a blanket from the armchair, and draped it over his small frame. Then you sat beside him again. Just in case he woke and needed to know he hadn’t been left.

And when Bruce came home later that day, walking into the study only to stop at the sight of you curled up beside a sleeping Tim, your hand resting protectively over his shoulder — you didn’t explain. You just looked up at your husband with a soft, tired smile.

You didn’t need to say anything.

He saw everything.

The adoption papers were signed two weeks after that.

It was late.

The kind of late where Gotham felt heavier than usual. Rain licked at the high windows of the Batcave, clinging like fingerprints, and you could still hear the echo of the comms static buzzing in the back of your head. Barbara was already unstrapping herself from the monitoring system, the wheelchair’s gentle hum following her as she moved. You moved first, brushing past her gently, leaning in to press a kiss to her cheek.

“Go rest, Babs,” you murmured. “I’ll take over from here.”

She sighed, a mix of gratitude and exhaustion. “You sure?”

You nodded, touching her shoulder briefly, already turning toward the monitors. “I’m sure.”

The sound of her wheels turning echoed away slowly as she pushed herself toward the lift, disappearing into the ceiling. You exhaled softly. It had been a long night — one of those heavier patrols, the kind that left them all quieter than usual, drained and contemplative.

You didn’t turn right away. You recognized the weight of the boots even before you heard the hum of the belt. Bruce was home.

Batman, Robin… and— someone else.

Your hands stilled above the panel. A new rhythm stepped onto the platform. Lighter. Quieter. Not hesitant exactly, but purposeful in a way that made your pulse quicken.

You stood.

Bruce descended first, cowl already peeled back, eyes tired but alert. Tim followed, hair tousled, cape slung across one shoulder like a scarf, chewing on his lip.

But it was the third that made your breath catch. A girl.

No, not just a girl. A teenager. Black suit, mask off now. Bare arms crossed over her chest. Short-cropped black hair stuck damp to her forehead. And eyes—those eyes. Wide, but not frightened. Observant. Piercing.

She looked at you like she already knew you. Like she had seen your face a hundred times before in some dream she couldn’t explain.

Bruce stopped a few paces from you.

“This is Cassandra,” he said simply. “She’s staying with us.”

Her name dropped into your chest like a stone into a well.

You blinked. Once. Then again. But your response wasn’t confusion. Or fear. It was something else. A tug at the center of your ribs. Like the way a mother recognizes the cry of a child she hasn’t yet met.

You nodded, offering a gentle smile without forcing it wider than what you meant. “Hi, Cassandra.”

No response.

But you caught the flicker in her eyes as she looked at you — sharp, precise, and something else entirely. Something wounded and instinctual. You didn’t reach for her, didn’t step closer, didn’t extend a hand she’d be forced to take. You simply kept your tone quiet and even. You were already so used to speaking gently.

“Do you want anything?” you asked, voice soft like it always was after midnight. “Food? A blanket?”

Still nothing. But she didn’t turn away.

“She doesn’t speak,” Bruce murmured beside you. “But she understands. And she’ll stay with us.”

You nodded. “Okay.”

That night, Cassandra didn’t go to bed. Not really. She sat in a corner of the manor’s second floor guest room, legs drawn to her chest, unmoving. When you came by with folded pajamas and a soft throw blanket, she didn’t look at you. But she didn’t stop you either.

You placed the blanket beside her on the bed, quietly adding, “I don’t mind if you don’t speak, Cassandra. You don’t have to talk for me to listen.”

She blinked, once. Her fingers twitched faintly.

She didn’t leave your side after that.

It wasn’t abrupt, not exactly. It was as if she slipped into your orbit and simply never drifted out. One moment she was watching you from the hallway, and the next she was sitting cross-legged on the library floor while you organized donation books. No words. No questions. Just presence. Observing. Breathing near you as if your pulse was the metronome she’d never had.

Bruce told you what little he knew. Seventeen, he’d said. Raised with violence—trained for it, shaped by it. Emotionally? Much younger. Hurt in ways most people couldn’t begin to process.

“She’s not ready for school. Or therapy. Or labels,” he had murmured in the dark one night as you lay facing him in bed, curled up beneath the quiet of shared grief and heavy breath. “But she trusts you. She walked past me to stand behind you. That was the first choice she made on her own.”

You had nodded slowly, your hand resting on Bruce’s chest, fingers tracing the edges of old scars.

“I’m not trying to fix her,” you said. “I just… I want her to know peace is allowed.”

Bruce had kissed your knuckles for that. Silent. Reverent.

She walked into rooms without speaking and sat in corners without needing permission. You never called her out. Never shooed her away. When you made muffins in the manor kitchen, she sat cross-legged on the counter and watched your every motion. When you braided your hair, she’d appear behind you with a gentle tug at the brush. When you fed the cat, she knelt by your side, watching how you cradled it as if even the smallest life deserved tenderness.

You never reached for her first. Not once.

Always a question first. “Can I touch your hand?” you’d ask, your palm out, flat and patient.

Sometimes she nodded. Sometimes she didn’t. But when she did, her fingers would curl into yours like it was the only place she’d ever known softness.

She slept in the room closest to yours, but she never locked the door. More than once you’d find her curled on the couch in your office, or sitting in the garden outside your window. She’d sit through long mornings of you working through Wayne Foundation grants, her body curled on the rug, eyes flicking between your fingers and your pen. 

She didn’t want to interrupt. She didn’t need anything. She just… needed to be close.

You read her poetry sometimes. You read slowly, enunciating each word. You weren’t sure if she liked the sound of your voice or the peace of being near you — maybe both. She shadowed you more closely than Bruce’s cape. 

You’d open a door and she’d be there. You’d hum while watering the plants and she’d already be two steps behind, kneeling to gather the soil with her palms. She didn’t flinch anymore when you touched her shoulder. She even let you tuck her hair behind her ear once — then sat perfectly still afterward, as if afraid to undo the contact.

Eventually, you began signing.

At first, it was you sitting in the sunroom, a book of American Sign Language open on your lap. Tim helped sometimes, too—he was better at memorizing things quickly. But Cassandra… she knew gestures. She knew the shape of intention. Her fingers were graceful, fluid. She understood expression, silence, posture. She didn’t need words to read a room.

You learned slowly. She watched you closely, correcting you with the gentle nudge of a finger or a nod of her head.

“Thank you,” you signed one night after dinner, deliberately slow, the fingerspelling awkward but clear.

She blinked once, and then nodded, then lifted her hands.

“You’re welcome,” she signed in return, small and shy. Then she signed it again, slower, showing you the flow of the motion. She smiled—barely, but it was there.

Your heart cracked at the edges.

Alfred adored her in his own reserved way—offering tea in a cup just her size, placing a second cookie on her saucer even if she hadn’t asked. Tim brought her quiet little games to try—dominoes, puzzles. Dick brought her stories and laughter and late-night whispered nonsense in the hallway when she couldn’t sleep.

But it was you she clung to like gravity.

You were never sure what it was—what she saw in you. Maybe it was that you didn’t push her. That you didn’t ask for the story. Maybe it was your voice, or the smell of flour on your skin. Maybe she recognized the grief in you before you’d even told her. You didn’t try to be her mother. You didn’t treat her like a project. You treated her like a soul.

The first time you tapped your fingers beneath your chin, moving them upward to your cheek near your ear, she tilted her head.

“Home,” you said aloud softly. Then repeated the sign.

Cassandra’s eyes gleamed. She lifted her hands — slowly, shakily — and curled her fingers near her chest.

“Safe,” you breathed. “That’s right.”

You signed again. “Home.”

And she returned, pressing her hands near her heart. “Safe.”

Your eyes stung. You didn’t let the tears fall.

Later that week, she brought you a flower from the garden — a pink azalea, simple but precious. She didn’t explain it. But you knew what it meant.

You pressed it between the pages of your journal and smiled.

No words. But all the language in the world.