You might say you had been sold.

Marriage. Bride. All such lovely, gilded words—mere silk ribbons tied around the wrists of a willing sacrifice. A prettier way to package the sale of something fragile, beautiful and never belong to itself again.

You were given to him as one might present an offering to an emperor, wrapped in white lace and trembling expectation.

And your husband—oh, your perfect, perfect husband. Thomas Wayne jr, six feet two inches of gold and marble, sculpted by wealth, power, and the ancient, unshakable certainty that the world had been carved to fit him.

And yet—oh, and yet.

You see the way his eyes cut, not with admiration, but with amusement—the cold, detached amusement of a man peering down at ants, finding their smallness, their insignificance, funny.

On the first night, he gave you a gift.

A ring? No. A promise? Hardly. A set of keys, resting heavy in his palm like the weight of your future.

"You are the mistress of Wayne Manor," he said, almost offhandedly, as though the words themselves were a joke, as though he found it quietly amusing that this kingdom of his should require a queen at all. With the patient condescension of a father instructing a child, he guided your fingers over each one—large, small, brass, heavy as fate.

And then, at last—

"This one," he murmured, holding it up between two elegant fingers. A peculiar key, a lonely key, cold as it settled in your palm. His fingers ghosted over your hair as he smiled—softly, almost gently . "This one is special. A little room in the far corner of the third floor, my dear." A pause. A breath. A whisper of wicked amusement.

"Don't open it. It's a secret."

When the final key fell into your trembling hands, something inside you shuddered, as if you had stepped unknowingly onto a path laid out long before you had ever set foot in this house. As if the script had already been written, and your only task was to play your part.

As if the door had been waiting.