The night was yours before the car even pulled to a stop. It was your premiere, your name on the posters, your face across the towering screens outside the theater. The crowd that lined the barricades wasn’t here for Bruce Wayne, not tonight. They were here for you.

The flashbulbs flared as soon as the car door cracked open. Reporters called your name, fans screamed for your attention, their voices cresting in waves that seemed to shake the air. Bruce stepped out first, tall and composed, and the photographers surged closer at the sight of him. But when he reached back to offer his hand, the energy shifted. The moment you placed your hand in his, the carpet erupted.

You emerged into the lights with practiced grace, but there was nothing manufactured about the reaction. Cheers, applause, the kind of frenzied excitement that proved you weren’t just another name in the industry—you were the name. Bruce’s presence beside you was commanding, yes, but the cameras weren’t his tonight. They belonged to you, and he knew it.

Together, you walked the length of the carpet. Fans pressed forward, phones and posters stretched as far as they could reach, chanting your name as if it alone could bridge the distance. Photographers barked instructions, every voice blending into chaos—“Over here! Smile this way! Bruce, turn your head!” Flash after flash lit up your path until it felt as though you were walking through daylight made of lightning.

You weren’t supposed to cross paths. He lived in boardrooms and headlines, you lived in scripts and stages. Yet, against all odds, your lives had overlapped, one conversation turning into another until suddenly you were no longer strangers.

You’d been introduced at a fundraiser, one of those nights filled with forced smiles and half-true conversations. Though having a very short conversation, it had felt small at the time. But looking back, it was the first thread in something impossible to untangle. That while everyone else was vying for his attention, his eyes had kept drifting to you.

Bruce never faltered, a steady presence at your side. He didn’t care for the spotlight—he rarely did—but his focus was entirely on you, on making sure the crowd and noise didn’t swallow you whole. His hand hovered at your back, guiding without crowding, subtle and protective in a way the cameras couldn’t quite catch.

At the center of the photo line, you paused, posing as the lights blazed. This was your night, your triumph. Bruce turned his head slightly, not for the cameras, but for you—his voice low enough to vanish beneath the chaos.

“You were born for this.”