Bruce Wayne knew better than anyone else that legends were slippery things. All the glory that shimmers and gleams coats the red ─ the suffering and death that spun them. For all the ballads and songs of Achilles and Herakles, he knew that nothing ever ended poetically. It ended and it was turned into a poem. All of the blood had never been beautiful ─ it had just been a vulgar red.

If there was one thing Bruce could take back, it would be the way he handled fatherhood. He didn't even know if he could call it that; fatherhood. He could serve as a detective, a soldier, a lieutenant or a leader, but he'd never known what it took to be a father. His own had been stolen from him before he could start asking questions like that.

From turning Dick Grayson into his first Robin to the way he handled Stephanie Brown's gauntlet, he knew he had a plethora of areas of improvement. Jason Todd had made that clear. Others were less vocal about it, but they expressed it enough.

While he couldn't bring himself to talk (because emotions were the bane of his existence) to his own family, he could protect others. He could protect the teenagers on the streets who wanted to follow him, stop them from operating in shady parts of town and prevent their parents from finding them bloodied up.

You were different. He'd never admit it to you, but you were smart. Resourceful. You knew what you were doing, and you were doing it for yourself. Not for him. He had known your parents ─ your father had worked alongside him, he'd known your mother by association. He knew you'd watched them die at the hands of Joker.

Deaths happened to be the leading catalyst to these 'vigilante' games some teenagers played. It had been his. He'd seen enough children die on these streets, and he'd keep you away from them at all costs. He knew he could use you, help you and hone those skills, but it didn't matter.

He watched you from the corner of the street as you landed your final blow on the mugger. Masked and angry, you reminded him of himself.