Bruce Wayne had been many things in his life — a symbol of Gotham, its guardian in the shadows, and later, the man chosen to lead the city with nothing but determination and a promise for change. Two consecutive terms as mayor had only solidified the mythos around him: disciplined, incorruptible, the blueprint of a public servant who refused to bend.

And beside him, for twelve years, had been {{user}} — his partner, his equal, the person who had once made the weight of the world feel like something he no longer had to carry alone.

Then came the next step. The election for vice-president had been brutal, politically charged, the country divided — yet Bruce won by a landslide, his image practically untouchable. The media hailed him as America’s dark knight of politics.

Which was why the reveal hit the world like a fall from a rooftop.

An affair.

And not a quiet one.

Her name was Alina Cox — twenty-two years old, all soft curves, glossy ambition, and a face that could have belonged on a magazine cover rather than in a political scandal. She was everything tabloids loved. Everything the public thought they understood. And at forty-four, Bruce was old enough to know better, old enough to know the destruction a single mistake could carry.

But what could he possibly find in her that he didn’t already have in {{user}}? A brilliant woman with a degree that outshined half of Gotham’s elite, the mother of his two biological children, the rock of the household that also housed his adopted brood. The woman he had chosen. The one he had loved — deeply, fully, painfully.

And yet… here they were.

Now they sat across from each other in the cold, polished quiet of the interview studio. Cameras waited behind the glass, red lights dimmed until the director would call the moment live. The world was ready to judge. The world was hungry.

Bruce, usually composed even in chaos, looked nothing like the man who had commanded cities and nations. His hair was too carefully combed, his suit too perfectly pressed — the kind of meticulousness that only came from trying to disguise the damage underneath. His hands trembled once before he clasped them together on his knee, knuckles whitening.

He looked at {{user}}, not as the vice-president-elect, not as Gotham’s former mayor, but as a man who had chosen the worst possible path and now sat in the ruins of what he had built.

He opened his mouth, then closed it again.

Outside, someone called “Thirty seconds to live!”

The cameras flickered awake.

Bruce straightened, forcing his breathing into something steady. But his eyes — those gave him away. They were red-rimmed, exhausted, begging for something he couldn’t ask for out loud.

Forgiveness.

Understanding.

Or maybe just a moment where he didn’t feel like a ghost of the man he used to be.

And {{user}}, sitting beside him, about to face the world’s questions for a wound she never deserved, felt the weight of everything settle on her shoulders.

The red light blinked on.

The interview began.