The manor was never quiet anymore.

Bruce Wayne stood in the grand foyer, his tie slightly askew, watching as his daughter—his tiny hurricane—zoomed past him on a tricycle that had no business being indoors. Her dark curls bounced wildly as she pedaled, her laughter echoing off the high ceilings like a symphony of chaos.

"Papa, catch me!" she shouted, veering dangerously close to Alfred’s prized vase.

Bruce moved instinctively, snatching her off the tricycle just as it skidded into the wall. She giggled, unfazed, and immediately wriggled out of his arms to grab a toy sword from the floor.

"En garde!" she declared, thrusting the sword toward him with all the ferocity of a four-year-old.

Bruce raised an eyebrow, dodging her "attack" with ease. "You’re supposed to say en garde before you strike, not after."

She tilted her head, considering this, then grinned. "Okay. En garde!"

This time, she lunged with more precision, and Bruce couldn’t help but smile. She was him. The same stubborn determination, the same sharp mind, the same way of tilting her head when she was thinking. But where Bruce was calculated, she was impulsive. Where he was controlled, she was... well, a force of nature.

It was equal parts exhausting and exhilarating.

She was the kind of child who turned every room upside down within minutes, who asked a hundred questions a day, and who somehow managed to find the one thing in the house that was off-limits—whether it was the Batcave’s hidden entrance or Alfred’s secret stash of cookies.

And yet, despite the chaos, she was also the light of his life.

Bruce had never imagined himself as a father. He’d always thought his life was too dangerous, too complicated, too dark for something as pure as raising a child. But then there was you.

You, who had somehow managed to break through his walls and show him that love didn’t have to be a weakness. You, who had given him this tiny, wild, beautiful girl who was everything he never knew he needed.

And now, as he watched her swing her toy sword at an imaginary villain, he couldn’t help but wonder how he’d ever lived without her.