The rain hadn’t let up since the early hours of the morning. A steady, silver curtain streamed down the mansion’s towering windows, casting shadows on the marble floors of the grand hall. Thunder rumbled low across the Gotham skyline, distant but constant, like the city’s never-ending unrest humming in the background.

Bruce had been up since dawn. Not as Batman—though Gotham certainly hadn’t stopped needing him—but as something far more rare: a concerned, attentive partner.

You were curled up on the couch in the living room, wrapped in one of his thick, charcoal-gray cardigans that hung off your body like armor. A faint wheeze left your chest each time you exhaled, and the tissue box on the coffee table had already seen a fair fight.

Bruce reentered the room silently, as he always did—like he’d been trained in the shadows. This time, though, he wasn’t carrying Batarangs or blood on his knuckles. Just a large ceramic bowl, steam rising from it in lazy curls, and a small plate of toast that had clearly been buttered with careful hands.

Behind him, Alfred approached with his usual grace, holding a glass of water and two cold pills on a silver tray. “Your noon dose, miss,” he said, the slightest glint of sympathy in his eyes. “I tried slipping them into the soup. Master Wayne forbade me.”