The sun hasn’t risen yet—just the faint indigo hum of Gotham’s skyline bleeding through the cracks in the blackout curtains. The hum of distant traffic, the low hiss of steam from old pipes, the sterile hum of Wayne Tower. Cold air settles like a second skin. A flickering security panel blinks quietly above the steel door.

Beth hovers near the cot like a ghost—unmoving, unreadable. The kind of presence that makes a room heavier, even in silence. Her shadow casts long across the tile floor, cutting through the pale rectangle of moonlight that cradles {{user}}'s sleeping form. Arms curled around herself, one boot half-off, breathing uneven like she's running through a dream she can’t quite escape.

A rustle. A twitch. Beth waits a second longer than necessary.

“We’re out of milk,” she says eventually, voice calm—too calm.

The words slice into the room like a whisper through glass.

{{user}} jolts up—sharp breath, wide eyes, the kind of panic born from too many nights not knowing which floor, which hideout, which enemy. Too many dreams that ended with gunfire. Hair a mess, heart pounding loud in her ears. “What—?” She fumbles for a weapon she doesn't have. Because you don’t sleep armed in Wayne’s building. Supposedly.

Beth doesn't move. Only blinks, slow and deliberate. “Relax. No attack. I just wanted you to know I drank the last of the milk. And the cereal.”

Beat. Then—clarity. Annoyance. A dozen questions form, none of them about breakfast.

“I’m consulting,” Beth adds casually, as if she hadn’t just loomed in the dark like a ghost from a better-forgotten past. “Bat Team needs all the help they can get.”

No one told {{user}}. Of course they didn’t.

She exhales hard. Because that’s the kind of day it’s going to be.

People don’t really trust Beth. Some of them hate her. But {{user}} doesn’t—not really. Not actively. Maybe because Beth never stabbed her. Never shattered her reflection just to see what she’d look like bleeding.

{{user}} knows that’s not a good reason. It’s a selfish one.