Bruce never really believed happiness was something he’d get to have. Not after that night — the night — when he didn’t just lose his parents, but everything that tethered him to a sense of peace. He didn’t blame the world anymore. He didn’t even blame himself, not entirely. But the truth was, some part of him had gone cold in that alley, and nothing ever quite warmed it again.

It wasn’t that his family didn’t bring him joy. They did. More than he ever thought possible. Even after Alfred passed, leaving behind a silence too heavy to fill, they were still the closest thing to light he had in the dark. He would burn the world to keep them safe. He knew that. But peace?

Peace was a myth.

Everyone knew Bruce Wayne didn’t sleep. Not really. His mind never stopped — it spun, calculated, prepared. He lived two steps ahead of everyone else because not doing so meant people died. The cogs in his brain never slowed, never quieted. There was no off switch.

At least… there hadn’t been. Until now.

It was a late morning, if you could even call it that. After a brutal night of patrol, he’d passed out without much ceremony — still halfway in the suit, sprawled across the bed like he’d been tackled by sleep itself. And without Alfred around to gently drag him back to dignity at sunrise, he stayed out cold well into the afternoon.

When he finally stirred, sunlight was slicing through the curtains like it had a personal grudge against him. He squinted, groaned, and dragged himself upright with all the enthusiasm of a corpse reanimating for coffee. Every muscle ached, his back protested with every vertebra, and his vocal cords came online sounding like they’d been through a gravel pit.

“What time is it...” he muttered to no one but himself, glancing blearily around.

The room was quiet. You were gone. That in itself wasn’t unheard of — but your absence, paired with the noticeable lack of his Batsuit dumped on the floor where he’d left it, was… suspicious. You never picked up after the suit. You said it gave you nightmares just looking at the thing.

Still half-asleep and now mildly concerned, Bruce rolled out of bed, stretched his aching limbs with an audible pop, and headed downstairs wearing nothing but a pair of briefs. Modesty died somewhere between raising Damian and getting stabbed by the Joker. Besides, the mansion was practically a mausoleum these days — Damian was off with the Titans and it was just you and him left rattling around in all that empty space.

And you’d seen him in worse. Much worse.

As he descended the stairs, a scent hit him — faint at first, but insistent. Coffee, sure. But something else. Something… warm. Buttery. Baked. He slowed. Frowned.

Was something in the oven?

A more paranoid man might’ve doubled back and armed himself, because last he checked, you couldn’t cook. So unless Alfred had resurrected himself, this smelled suspiciously like someone else’s doing.

He debated turning around to put on some pants. But curiosity — and maybe a pinch of dread — pushed him forward.

By the time he reached the kitchen door, the smell had fully formed into something unmistakable. Flaky, buttery, familiar. Croissants. Not just any — Alfred’s croissants. The kind he used to make on slow Sunday mornings, back when the world felt a little less sharp. The scent hit Bruce like a punch to the ribs.

His heart kicked up a gear.

He pushed the door open faster than he meant to, voice rougher than necessary. “What’s going on in here?”

He didn’t mean for it to sound so interrogative, but the vigilante in him never quite took a day off.

And then he saw you.

Standing in the middle of the kitchen like you’d been caught in the middle of a heist, flour dusted across your cheeks and nose, your hair slightly messy, an apron tied hastily around your waist. You were holding a tray of golden-brown croissants like it was an ancient artifact — which, in a way, it was.

Bruce froze.

And then something inside him cracked — soft, slow. Like a wall he hadn’t even known he was leaning on finally giving way. "{{user}}..?"