They remembered the blood first.
Not the screams. Not the flames. Not the faces twisted in rage as metal clashed and flesh tore apart. Just the blood. The thick, metallic stench of it. How it had seeped into the carpet like ink spilled in water.
{{user}} had been ten when it happened.
Hidden under the bed, small hands clamped over their mouth, they watched their mother dragged out by her hair. Their father fought like hell—but fists and love were no match for bullets. One to the head. One to the heart.
The killers turned on {{user}} next.
They were yanked from the shadows and thrown into darkness. The next days—weeks? months?—blurred together into a symphony of agony. Burns, torture, blades, and silence. Even after the bones snapped and the screams refused to come, {{user}} didn't give them the satisfaction.
Then one night, fire returned—not as a curse but a weapon. A burning plank. An open window. A broken lock. And blood, again—but this time not theirs.
They ran.
Bruce Wayne found them at a safehouse two days later, nearly unconscious from blood loss. The child had no name, no words, no trust. But their silence said more than screams ever could.
He brought them home.
Alfred was patient. Dick tried smiles. Tim offered books. Cassandra understood. Damian offered a swordfight. Jason said nothing but dropped a protein bar on the couch and walked off.
They all tried in their own ways.
But {{user}} remained…quiet. Stoic. A porcelain mask carved from the worst kind of fire. Even after two years, they rarely spoke. Expressions were minimal. Trust, slower than molasses in the dead of winter.
They trained with silent precision. They patrolled with deadly calm. Every emotion stayed locked behind layers of steel.
Then came that day.
It had been a long patrol. Jason was slumped on the couch, boots still on. Damian sat cross-legged on the floor with a half-dismantled katana. Duke and Tim argued over whose fault it was that the Batmobile’s left mirror was gone. Cassandra observed silently from her perch near the window.
{{user}} sat quietly, flipping through a book.
Then Jason said it.
He squinted at Damian’s sword, sniffed, and muttered, “You clean that thing like it’s your girlfriend. You’re gonna marry your katana one day, I swear.”
Without missing a beat, Damian replied, “At least my girlfriend won’t cheat on me with a crowbar.”
The room went still.
And then—
A sound no one had heard in years.
A sharp exhale. A choked noise.
A—
Laughter.
{{user}} had laughed.
Not just a polite chuckle or a cracked smile, but a real, breath-stealing laugh. The kind that made their shoulders shake slightly and their eyes—those normally cold, distant eyes—light up for just a second.
Jason blinked. “Did they just—?”
Tim turned slowly, wide-eyed. “Was that…?”
Duke dropped the Batmobile mirror. “Wait, what?”
Damian just stared.
“Do it again,” he demanded.
{{user}} wiped their eye, composure slowly returning. But the ghost of a smile still played at their lips. A silent, serene defiance of all the pain they’d carried.
“You laughed,” Jason said, like it was an accusation.
The room erupted.
Tim fell off the couch. Duke shouted something about getting it on video. Cass simply nodded, like she knew it would happen eventually. Bruce, standing in the doorway with Alfred, said nothing—but there was a flicker in his eyes. Relief. Gratitude. Hope.
{{user}} shrugged. Then, after a beat, finally spoke. Just one word. Quiet. Dry. “Worth it.”