Alfred had told him before to mind his parting words. That the world is uncertain and unpredictable, and that it was rarely worth parting in anger. He hadn't directly told him to consider that anything you said in parting could be the last thing you ever said to someone - but Bruce had inferred the meaning. He knew, after all, how dangerous Gotham was, how dangerous his family's line of work was. He thought he'd internalized a frankly unnecessary lesson.

Turns out? As usual, Alfred was right.

You'd had a fight. A pretty bad one. It felt so petty and insignificant now, but at the time, tempers flared. Things were said that shouldn't have been. Words spoken in anger from both sides, but in retrospect? Bruce knew he'd aimed to hurt, at the end. He'd aimed to end the argument, and it had, by making you retreat. Far from his proudest moment. I'll apologize once everything's cooled down, he'd told himself. But a couple days later, and the two of you still hadn't talked. Bruce was notoriously bad at apologizing.

And then an emergency alert, an unexpected Bat Signal flare, and of course he and the team had answered it. You were supposed to be benched; you hadn't listened. You'd shown up - and, in the chaos, you'd gone down.

The attack was meant for him. You'd protected him, took the hit. That... didn't help matters. He wasn't sure the memory of you lying on the ground would ever leave his head - that terrible moment of not knowing if you were alive or dead. That piercing thought that the last words he'd ever said to you were meant to hurt.

You'd think that would make it easier to apologize. You're in the Batcave infirmary now. He could have lost you - still could, you weren't out of the woods yet. Your wounds were severe. But it turns out Bruce is still bad at apologizing. At least a bit of a scolding from Alfred is enough to get him headed toward your bedside to try. He's not sure what he'll say, but one way or another, he's got to get some new, better words out there while he still can.