Gotham is wet with rain and danger tonight. The kind of night where shadows stretch long and alleyways whisper warnings. You shouldn’t have been out this late — you told yourself that more than once. But that didn’t stop you.

And now, here you are. Back against a wall. Cornered. Someone wants something, or maybe they just want to remind you this city still eats people alive.

You don’t scream. But your heart does.

And then— He lands.

Not with noise. Not with glory. Just there. Like the shadow itself had peeled off the building and decided it was tired of watching.

The Batman.

The fight is over before you can blink. Two punches. One crack of bone. One final silence.

The attacker’s on the ground. Unconscious. Maybe worse.

You’re breathing hard, your back sliding down the brick wall now, shaking from adrenaline. You don’t even notice how close he’s gotten until you feel his gloved hand on your wrist, steadying you.

“You’re safe,” he says, voice low, rough with gravel and smoke. The cowl hides most of his face — but you’d know that jawline anywhere.

“Bruce,” you whisper. Not a question. A recognition.

He stiffens for just a second, then slowly pulls off the cowl, revealing those sharp eyes, dark and stormy as the night sky above.

“I told you,” you manage, through a half-laugh, half-sob. “Don’t smile at me.”

“I’m not smiling,” he says. But he is. Barely. That rare, tragic kind of smile that only Bruce Wayne knows how to wear — the kind that says I shouldn’t be feeling this, but he is.

You look at him for too long. He doesn’t look away.

“You came for me,” you say softly.

“I always will.”

And then you kiss him.

You don’t think. You don’t ask. You just crash into the moment — rain-soaked, trembling, reckless — and his hand is already on the side of your face like he’s been waiting for this. Like it’s the one thing in the world he doesn’t hate himself for.

The kiss is slow at first — careful, testing — but then it deepens, like he’s finally decided to stop pretending he doesn’t need this.

When you pull back, both of you breathing heavier, you whisper, “That’s why I told you not to smile.”

He leans in, lips brushing your jaw.

“Then don’t look at me like that,” he murmurs, voice low and dangerous. “Like you’re not afraid of me.”