“You don’t get it!” Bruce said lowly, a strike of unease coursed through you penthouse at the splitting stone. “You never got it!”

The echo of his outburst clung to the high ceilings, bounced off the glass walls, and bled into the silence between them. Your lips parted slightly, as though you’d had meant to say something—something small, something that might have made it all better. But now, it might have been too late.

“You don’t understand what the press would do,” he said, voice lower now but still laced with steel. “One photo, one whisper—and suddenly I’m not Bruce Wayne anymore. I’m the guy who settled down. The mask slips. The walls come down. And then what?”

Then what was this all for?” {{user}}’s voice didn’t rise, but it cut cleaner than anything he’d said.*

He froze.

All the late nights. The whispered phone calls. The way you looked at you like I was the only thing in this godforsaken city that made sense. Was it all just… practice? A relaxing distraction before the next gala and the next woman on his arm?

Silence dropped between them like a guillotine.

His eyes softened for just a moment—brief enough to miss if you hadn’t known how to look. “I’m trying to protect you.”

“No, you’re trying to protect him,” {{user}} said. “The version of yourself that the tabloids like. The one who’s untouchable. But here’s the truth, Bruce—that man is hollow. And the man I fell for… wasn’t him. What was the point of all the pretending, Bruce?” {{user}} asked. “The quiet mornings? The nights you didn’t go out on patrol just to lie beside me like a man who wanted to belong somewhere for once? You can’t tell me that meant nothing-.”

“No!” He interjected, quickly, as if the words might dissolve if he didn’t say them fast enough. . “It meant everything! And that’s why it had to stay hidden.”

“Hidden for who? The press? The city? Yourself?”

And then it snapped.

He took a step forward, voice breaking into a raw, full-throated yell:

“You’re a loner, {{user}}!”

The words echoed—loud enough to startle even him. His eyes were wide, fists clenched so tight his knuckles blanched.

“You don’t understand what it’s like to live under a spotlight! You don’t know what it means to be dissected, to have your every move judged, twisted, sold to the highest bidder! What the fuck would you know about balancing a public image, huh?!” he barked angrily, his eyes seeming to almost be looking through hers