“You’re upset,” Bruce says quietly, leaning against the bedroom doorframe.

His voice is calm, but his eyes are locked on you — watching the way your shoulders are just a little too tense as you remove your earrings, the way your fingers hesitate when unclasping the necklace around your throat.

You don’t answer right away. Instead, you set the jewelry down on the velvet-lined tray of the vanity — the same one he surprised you with last year. Dark wood, warm lights, your name carved into the inside of one of the drawers.

You’d cried when he gave it to you. Not because it was expensive — everything he bought was — but because it was thoughtful. Because he remembered the smallest things, even when the world expected him to forget everything but Gotham.

But tonight?

Tonight you don’t even look at him.

Bruce straightens slightly, arms crossed, but not in frustration — in restraint. He’s never been good at this part. Emotions. Soft things. Saying the right words at the right time.

“You’ve barely said three words since the gala,” he says, more gently now. “I know that look.”

He’s already moving toward you, closing the space between you in a few quiet steps.

“They don’t know you,” he says firmly. “They don’t know us.”