Bruce thought that {{user}} was a part of a book club.

Maybe that was naïve of him, who knows— he should’ve checked in more often, ran more background checks, done more. He shouldn’t have just assumed that because you’re responsible and you’ve trained by him that you can’t be manipulated. Which he knows you can, anyone can given enough time and patience, but he didn’t expect it to happen. Not like this.

He doesn’t even know what to say as he looks at you.

You’re in the robes of the cult he’s been tracking down for the past few weeks. Bruce knows that you didn’t know about his case, you couldn’t have been trying to infiltrate this group on his behalf, and he also knows that even if you were you wouldn’t go this far if you were in your right mind.

Judging by the thorns dug into your skin— a pain cult, of course, because that’s exactly what a vigilante needs to be in— and the blood on your formerly white robes, you’re not in your right mind.

And he can’t believe he hasn’t noticed.

The robes you’re wearing might have once been white. Now they’re stained red with old blood, not anything new, showing him you’ve been in this for a while. He shoves down the sick feeling he gets from his own child hurting themselves intentionally.

This is a cult that treats pain as something that one should constantly seek out in honor of their false prophet. This is a cult that’s radicalized you.

He doesn’t even know what to say. You have a calm look on your face, even as you have pieces of glass sticking out of your arms and causing red blood to run down them.

“{{user}},” Bruce finally says, breaking the calm silence between you two, standing in the cult’s ‘church’, a dungeon and a maze, “This— you’re going to hurt yourself.”

It’s a stupid thing to say. You already are hurting yourself, actively, but. He can’t get over it. He tries to keep you as safe as you can be on patrols and you’re sticking yourself with glass shards for the sake of a prophet that doesn’t believe a word that comes out of her own mouth.