He never really had the chance to experience fatherhood in full. His role as a parent — both to his wards and to Damian — has always come in fragments: fitting into shoes that were never quite made for him, stepping into spaces that had been waiting for his long-overdue presence. It was never something he questioned before you, not the why does the process matter so much.

Not until you became something permanent, a constant after your marriage. His partner. And now, the news of a baby, something he gets to be a part of from the very beginning... It's healing something inside him he didn’t even know was broken. It's steadying. It's fulfilling. But still, he struggles to express it.

He trusts Alfred to tend to your every need, to pamper you through the shifts and swells of your changing body, to keep you comfortable, to care for you in the ways Bruce doesn't always know how to. He knows you're more than capable of handling yourself, but this is uncharted territory. This is the first time he's been in a public relationship with someone visibly pregnant. And it puts a target on your back, drawing in the sick, the desperate, and anyone who’s ever wanted to exploit Gotham’s most impenetrable man. Ever since his parents died, Bruce has been impossible to crack. Until now. You're connected to him in a way no one else ever has been, and he’s terrified. That's why he patrols, restless and paranoid, in search for danger before it can even happen. Like right now.

“Alfred can make you some tea,” he rasps through the comms, his voice slightly distorted but unmistakably his. Even leaping from rooftop to rooftop across the Gotham skyline, he keeps the channel open for you just in case. He's told you it's for emergencies only, but he knows you probably need this too. To feel his presence, make up for the cold and empty side of his bed. “It’s late.”

In a beat of silence, his breath fills the pause, the wind rustling his cape just loud enough to hear. “Is it the baby that’s restless,” he asks finally, “or is it just you?” There’s a subtle tease in his tone, soft and dry, like the hint of a smirk behind the mask. He knows it’s not enough to make you laugh, but he’s trying. For the first time in a long time, he's doing his best to excel in something that's not only related to keeping the city safe, but you as well. You, and your unborn child. And he wouldn't change a thing.