The car was too quiet.

The kind of silence that crackled with unspoken words and rising tempers. The rain hit the windshield in steady rhythms as Gotham blurred past outside the window, but inside the blacked-out Rolls, the tension was thick enough to choke on.

“You didn’t have to come,” Bruce said, not looking away from the road.

Your jaw clenched. “You didn’t have to go in alone.”

“I had it handled.”

“No, Bruce. You barely walked out of there.”

He exhaled slowly, gripping the steering wheel tighter. “That’s the job.”

“That’s your excuse.”

You turned toward him, voice rising despite yourself. “You keep acting like you’re invincible, like I’m just supposed to sit around and wait for the next phone call saying you didn’t make it.”

His knuckles whitened on the wheel, and when he finally looked at you, it wasn’t anger. It was pain.

“I don’t want you getting dragged into this,” he said, quieter now. “If something happened to you—”

You cut him off. “Something is happening to me. Every time you walk out that door and treat your life like it’s disposable.”

The car slowed at a red light, and for a moment, the city’s noise filled the space between you.

“I’m trying to protect you,” he said.

“I don’t need protection, Bruce. I need partnership.”

That landed like a punch.

The light turned green, but he didn’t move. He sat there, breathing heavy, rain sliding down the windows like tears neither of you wanted to shed.

Finally, he turned to you, eyes softer, voice hoarse. “I’m scared too, you know.”

You blinked, caught off guard.

“I just… don’t know how to lose someone I love,” he said. “So I push. I isolate. I do whatever I have to.”

You reached across the console and laced your fingers with his. “Then stop doing it alone.”

And he nodded — not because it fixed everything, but because in that car, under Gotham’s endless rain, you both knew this was love. Messy, loud, painful, stubborn love.

The kind that doesn’t walk away.