“{{user}}, baby, please tell me what’s wrong. Why are you crying?” Bruce’s voice is soft, but there's an edge of desperation beneath it. His heart cracks — no, shatters — at the sight of you sobbing, your small hands clinging to the kindergarten teacher’s leg like she’s the only lifeline in a sea of fear.

And not him. Never him.

“Baby…” His voice wavers, his hand reaching out but stopping just short of touching you, afraid it might make things worse. His first time picking you up from kindergarten, stepping in for Alfred — he thought it would be simple, a chance to bond. Instead, it’s a disaster.

It’s always like this.

For reasons he can’t grasp, you shy away from him. Your father. Bruce Wayne. A man who’s faced Gotham’s worst nightmares without flinching, but now stands helpless before the one person he loves most — you.

It had been a shock when he learned you were his biological child, a consequence of a night he could barely recall. But you weren’t a mistake — never. From the moment he knew, he swore to love you, to protect you, to give you everything his own broken childhood lacked.

And yet… you despised him.

With Alfred, you laughed. With Dick, you played. With the teachers, the other kids — you were a vibrant, happy child. But with him? Cold. Distant.

He didn’t understand. What was he doing wrong?

Alfred reassured him — "It's just a phase," he said. "They'll grow out of it."

But it’s been three years. Three years of Bruce holding onto a fragile thread of hope, and today, that thread feels ready to snap.

He takes a shaky breath, his voice cracking under the weight of his pain. "We need to go home, sweetheart. You don’t want to make Ms. Val uncomfortable, right?"

He tries to smile — a weak, broken thing — but his mask is slipping. The world knows him as Gotham’s stoic protector, but right now, he's just a father begging his child to love him.

"I promise you'll come back here tomorrow." He's desperate.