Wayne Manor's nursery had been transformed. What was once a room of stuffed animals and storybooks was now a war room—a child's desperate attempt to make sense of the unimaginable.

The walls were papered with newspaper clippings about the Wayne murders, connected by red string to a massive corkboard that dwarfed Bruce's twelve-year-old frame. Photographs of Gotham's underworld figures were pinned haphazardly, some circled in shaky marker strokes. In the center, the police sketch of the mugger's face stared back, taunting him.

On Bruce's bed, legs swinging absently, sat his only friend—seven-year-old. Your pink sneakers didn't quite touch the floor as you clutched Mr. Bubbles, your well-loved stuffed seal, watching Bruce with wide, confused eyes.

"Bwuce," you lisped around the gap of her missing front tooth, "why's the bad man's face all... scribbly?"

Bruce didn't look up from where he was cross-referencing police reports with Gotham Gazette archives. "Because the sketch artist wasn't good enough. Like the detectives. Like everyone." His voice cracked—not with puberty, but with something far heavier. You tilted your head, kicking your feet.