The rain had teeth tonight. It fell in sheets, bouncing off the rooftops like shattered glass, pooling into the cracks of a city that never healed. Bruce Wayne stood on the edge of a gargoyle, cape snapping in the wind, jaw set beneath the cowl. He didn’t flinch when he heard the hum of displaced air — that soft, charged silence that came right before he did.

“Still brooding?”

Bruce didn’t turn. “Still hovering?”

{{user}} — Superman — landed behind him with the faintest thud, the red of his cape cutting through Gotham’s monochrome skyline. His presence was warmth and light, a constant offense to the darkness Bruce wore like skin.

“Brooding keeps this city alive,” Bruce muttered.

“Brooding keeps you miserable.”

That earned {{user}} a glance — sharp, restrained. “And self-righteousness keeps you what? Delusional?”

“Grounded,” {{user}} shot back, eyes glinting.

There was always this — fire meeting frost, idealism cracking against realism. Every argument was a spark away from a fight, and every fight felt dangerously close to something else. When {{user}} took a step closer, Bruce’s pulse betrayed him. He hated that. He hated that someone so bright could make the darkness inside him stir like that.

“You know,” {{user}} said quietly, “for someone who claims to hate me, you sure stare a lot.”

Bruce’s breath hitched — a near-imperceptible pause. Then he turned back toward the skyline. “I’m evaluating a threat.”

“You mean me?”

“If the cape fits.”