Bruce had been watching you from the doorway of the nursery for a while, leaning one shoulder against the frame as you held your baby with the same tired smile you always carried lately. You visited every week without fail, even when your eyes were sunken from lack of sleep and your hands trembled from overwork. You never complained—you never did—but he saw everything.

It broke him in ways he hated admitting.

He stepped closer, reaching into his coat pocket, the weight of the thick envelope almost heavy in his palm. “Here,” he murmured, setting it gently on the table beside you, five-thousand dollars in cash stacked cleanly inside.

He exhaled slowly, trying to steady his voice. “I want you to stop working. How much do you make a month— I’ll triple it. Hell, I’ll quadruple it.”

His hand extended toward you, palm open, hesitant, almost afraid you wouldn’t take it. “Come eat dinner with us,” he added softly, trying to sound casual but failing miserably.

Sometimes, Bruce wished he could just say the real words instead of burying them under money, under gestures, under responsibilities he tried to carry alone.

Alfred had already prepared your favourite meal hours earlier, under Bruce’s quiet command. He didn’t want you leaving hungry or exhausted or pretending everything was fine. If he could rewind time, he would go back to the moment everything cracked and choose differently—choose you, protect you, hold onto you with both hands.

You were the mother of his child. The woman he’d let slip through his fingers because of mistakes he couldn’t undo.

And seeing you slowly ruin yourself just to survive? That was something he would never tolerate again.