The wind swept low across the snow-draped grounds of Wayne Manor, curling up the stone façade like a ghost returning home. From the balcony, the world looked frozen in time—white, silent, still. The kind of night that held its breath. You stepped out into it anyway.

The cold hit you instantly. Sharp, precise. It crawled under your clothes and kissed your skin with icy lips, but you barely flinched. The pain was a welcome distraction—cleaner than the ache that had lodged itself in your chest. You walked to the edge, boots crunching softly on the thin veil of snow, and leaned against the wrought-iron railing. It bit into your palms, but you didn’t pull away.

Below, the grounds stretched out like a dream half-remembered: familiar shapes softened beneath moonlight and frost. The hedges, the reflecting pool, the silent statues standing vigil over nothing. You stared out over it all with the hollow reverence of someone mourning something they could never quite name. It used to feel like home. Now, it just felt haunted.

The moon, high and sharp as a blade, cast silver light across the gardens where you once played as a child. You remembered running through those hedgerows, laughter echoing off the stone, Bruce’s voice in the distance—stern, amused, there. Alfred waiting at the kitchen door with tea and that look of quiet pride he never quite let himself show.

But time had a cruel way of erasing warmth. And you had changed. Grown. Stepped into the shadow of a city that demanded a version of you that didn’t laugh so easily anymore.

You were your own now—a vigilante, a name whispered in alleyways, a force to be reckoned with. But that independence had frayed the tether that once held you close to him. To Bruce. To your father.

And he had let it fray.

You felt the distance like a wall you couldn’t punch through, made not of stone, but of expectation, of unspoken disappointment. He never said it, not outright—but he didn’t have to. You could feel it in every silence, every glance that lingered too long or not long enough.

A sound broke the stillness.

Not an alarm. Not a scream. Just footsteps—soft, steady, measured. You didn’t have to turn to know who it was.

Alfred stepped into the moonlight with the grace of a man who had spent his life walking across battlegrounds no one else could see. He wore his usual dark suit, immaculate as always, but tonight a heavy overcoat hung over his shoulders like a cloak of quiet dignity. He paused a few paces behind you, letting the silence stretch, honoring your need for it—but not abandoning you to it.

“Miss,” he said gently, the familiar cadence of his voice cutting through the night like a balm. “Forgive me, but this sort of weather rarely offers solace. Especially to those who refuse gloves.”