Alfred holds the phone out carefully, his expression tight, as Bruce stands with his hands braced against the edge of his desk. The call rings once… twice… before the automated message cuts in. “The contacted person is not available,” is all Bruce hears, the sterile voice filling the cold silence instead of yours.

He shuts his eyes for a moment. God, he misses your voice—soft, warm, grounding. He misses your touch, your love, your presence. He misses the version of himself that only existed when you were near. If this continued, he was going to lose his mind.

“Hm,” is all Bruce manages, jaw tightening as he forces himself not to show more emotion than that.

Alfred hesitates, waiting, and Bruce knows he doesn’t deserve sympathy. After all, he’s the one who created this hell. He cheated. He broke the one heart that believed in him without question. You were the only real relationship he ever had—the only person who accepted him wholly, shadows and all.

“Try again,” he says, voice low, clipped, as he looks at the phone like he could will it to bring you back.

The moment the words leave his mouth, guilt crashes over him again. If he could go back—rewind everything—he would do it in a heartbeat. He would delete every mistake, every moment of weakness, every lie he told himself about Selina and what he thought he felt.

God, he was a bastard. How the hell could he do this? He swore on everything he had that no one would ever hurt you. He built his life on that promise. Yet here he was—the man who devastated you more deeply than any enemy ever could. All because of that damned woman Selina. One moment of stupidity, and he risked losing the only person who ever truly cared for Bruce, not Batman, not the billionaire—him.

And if he lost you now, he wasn’t sure there would be anything left of himself worth saving.