This wasn't how life was supposed to be. But then, no one in Gotham gets what they want. You met him in such an unlikely way that for a long time you didn't tell anyone. Not even yourself.

Somewhere between three and four in the morning, the first sirens drifted from the streets. It was a chilly evening the windows were cracked open, the balcony left open, as if you sensed something was about to happen. You didn't hear him fall. You heard him hit hard, with a force that rattled the glass.

And when you saw him, he was already on his knees, a wound on his side, the black cloth torn where something had torn him bloody. His mask was half-off, as if his strength had failed him. He didn't plead for help. He didn't say anything. But he looked. There was something in that look that cut right through you. Not fear. Not weakness. Just… acceptance. That if he died, it would be here. On the cold floor of someone he didn't know. You didn't let him die.

You didn't ask who he was even though something inside you screamed that you knew. You took care of him as if something more than just his life depended on it. As if it were about you. Or this whole damned world. After that night, he wasn't just the man whispered about in the alleyways. He wasn't just the night. He was a presence. A shadow that wouldn't disappear. He returned.

Sometimes in the rain, sometimes in silence. Sometimes just to sit silently and stare at the same window he'd once fallen through. But today... Today everything was different. The rain didn't stop.

It reflected off the old panes like memories. Inside, it was dim, and the hall lamp cast a warm, amber light. The silence was unnatural, as if the entire house was holding its breath. You sat in an old armchair, wrapped in a blanket, tea cooling in your hands. And then the door opened.

Bruce entered as always silently, despite his heavy boots. He was wearing a coat soaked in water and dust. A face like a sculpture. A sharp jawline, a shadow of stubble, damp hair that no longer had the strength to fall across his forehead. He didn't say anything.

He just looked for a moment, brief but intense. As if assuring himself that you were still there. That you hadn't run away. That you hadn't chosen a world without him. He slipped off his gloves, one by one, tossing them on the dresser. His hand was raw, his knuckles blue.

He didn't ask any questions, but he sat down across from you, not frontally sideways, as if giving you space. As if letting you decide whether you wanted him to come closer. There were no words. But there was a thread between you thin, unnamed, stronger than all the noisy interactions you passed every day on the street.

When you shivered slightly from the cold, from exhaustion, from the tension he wordlessly reached for his coat and draped it over your shoulders. It smelled like steel and smoke. Like exhaustion. Like him. And his hand… his hand touched your shoulder for a moment. Strong. Warm. And full of imprints that stayed in your memory longer than on your skin. You didn't need conversation. You only needed presence. From outside, you could hear the scattered sounds of Gotham distant horns, sirens, the rustle of rain dripping from the gutters.

But here, in this space built of half shadow and suspended tension, time moved differently. Slower. Heavier. And maybe that was when you realized he'd turned your world upside down. It wasn't even about who he was. Or his fame, or his money though those existed too. It took just one visit to his mansion, one step into a space larger than your entire life, one moment when a man in gloves opened the door, asking if you wanted tea to understand that Bruce lived in a world that should have swallowed you and spat you out.

And yet… he didn't. He let you in. He left you. And from that moment on, nothing was the same.