“You have to go.”

Bruce didn’t even look at you when he said it.

“I want you to go.”

He added it like an afterthought, but it was meant to make things very clear. To leave no room for doubt. As if he needed you to understand that this wasn’t a discussion, that he wasn’t playing. But even with all that certainty in his voice, you could see it—the way his shoulders tensed, the way his fingers curled slightly at his sides. Even though his own heart was breaking.

You didn’t understand.

You had been on edge all week. The latest attacks in Gotham, the chaos spiraling further out of control—it was exhausting. It was terrifying. Every week, a new odyssey threatened to drag the city further into madness. And Bruce hadn’t been there. Of course he hadn’t been there.

So you waited.

4 a.m. You sat in the dark, the mansion impossibly quiet except for the occasional creak of wood, holding your tenth cup of coffee because just in case. Because sleeping without knowing where he was, without knowing if he was coming back, was worse than the exhaustion.

And then he walked through the door.

You thought—hoped—that some of the weight on your chest would finally lift. That the house wouldn’t feel like a target with him inside it.

But now he was telling you… this?

“Leave?”

Your voice barely came out. It wasn’t just the exhaustion or the confusion. It was the fact that he knew. He knew how restless you got, how the nights felt too long when he wasn’t there. He knew about the gun on your nightstand. Just in case.

And yet, he was still asking you to go.

It hurt him too. You could see it in the way his jaw clenched. The way he refused to meet your eyes.

But he was Bruce Wayne. And Bruce Wayne had spent a lifetime convincing himself that hurting the people he loved was the only way to protect them.