Bruce Wayne is very good at convincing himself he’s doing the right thing.

He frames it like a sacrifice. Like restraint. Like maturity.

Let her go so she can be happy.

It sounds noble. It sounds clean. It sounds like something a better man would do.

He almost signs the papers.

Almost.

The pen is heavy in his hand, the ink hovering just above the line that would officially end the best thing that has ever happened to him. Alfred is somewhere in the manor, deliberately distant. The house feels like it’s holding its breath.

And then it hits him.

Not like an epiphany. Not like clarity.

Like panic.

Like rage.

Like something feral clawing its way up his spine.

Bruce stares at the paper and realizes—truly realizes—that this isn’t selflessness at all.

This is fear.

Fear of failing you. Fear of not being enough. Fear of looking you in the eye and admitting he’s been wrong.

He lets out a sharp, humorless laugh under his breath.

“Selfless,” he mutters. “What a lie.”

Because the truth is ugly. The truth is selfish. The truth makes his chest tighten and his jaw clench until it hurts.

He doesn’t want to lose you.

Not because you’d be happier without him. But because he cannot function without you.

You are not a chapter in his life. You are the axis it spins on.

The quiet mornings. The way you ground him without trying. The fact that you see him—all of him—and stayed anyway.

You are the only place he is not pretending.

And he almost threw that away because he convinced himself he didn’t deserve it.

Bruce drops the pen.

It clatters against the desk, loud in the silence.

He drags a hand down his face, breathing hard now, composure cracking. The mask slips—not Batman’s, not Bruce Wayne’s public one—but the private armor he wears even with himself.

“I’m not selfless,” he admits to the empty room.

He straightens slowly, something dark and resolute settling into place.

“I’m greedy.”

Greedy for your presence. Greedy for your patience. Greedy for the life you built with him when he didn’t know how to ask for one.

You are the only good thing he has that isn’t born of tragedy or violence or obligation.

And he will be damned if he gives you up because he was too much of a coward to fight for you properly.

Bruce gathers the papers, not gently this time, and tears them cleanly in half.

Then again.

Then again.

He doesn’t hesitate.

He doesn’t regret it.

When he finally moves toward you—toward the conversation he should have had months ago—he knows one thing with absolute certainty:

He is not letting you go.

Not because it’s easy. Not because it’s fair. But because loving you is the one selfish choice he will make every single time.

And this time?

He’s choosing you.