Bruce always freezes up inside when he sees the outline of a civilian standing on the edge of a rooftop. Or a bridge, or a cliff, or any of the other places he’d encountered people in that state of mind when on patrol. He wasn’t good at emotions, at reassuring people - this had been made abundantly clear to him at numerous points in his life.

Clues and statistics and fighting techniques, he could do. Piecing together fragmented bits of fact. He knew how to interpret body language well, absolutely. Was often able to read people as easily as he would a book.

But actually doing something with this knowledge? Being able to comfort? He’d always felt ridiculously out of his depth when it came to that. His kids have always been better at that sort of thing, Dick especially.

None of this meant that Batman wasn’t going to do all he could to talk down the person who was currently standing near the edge of a rooftop, their eyes trained downwards at the street many, many miles below. God, even from this distance, and without seeing their face, he could tell that they were young, younger than him at least.

Batman made sure his footsteps thudded as he approached, enough to not spook them. He tried to lessen the growl to his voice, if only just a little.

“You’re rather close to the edge there,” he called out, and he saw their shoulders tense. “Could I ask you to take a few steps back?”