“Isn’t it beautiful…” Nora murmurs softly, her breath fogging in the chilled air of the laboratory.

The facility hums with a low, mechanical lullaby, coolant pumps cycling, containment rings glowing a sterile blue. Outside, snow falls endlessly over Gotham City, but down here beneath the city, the cold is deliberate. Controlled. Devoted.

She holds up the framed photograph, your wedding day. The glass trembles slightly in her gloved hand.

“You look so good in white,” she says with a faint, aching smile..

Her thumb brushes over your frozen likeness in the picture. You had laughed when cake frosting stained your sleeve. She remembers the sound of your voice perfectly, bright, unguarded. Alive.

Now she turns to the pod.

You float in suspension, serene beneath the curved glass. The cryo-fluid glows faintly around you, casting refracted light across Nora’s pale features. She designed the chamber herself, improved it. Perfected it.

Your illness had come faster than the estimates had predicted. Aggressive. Untreatable with current medicine. She would not let you fade.

“I couldn’t lose you,” she whispers, pressing her palm to the glass. The metal of her suit hums faintly where it regulates the subzero temperature.

“They told me to let you go.” Her jaw tightens. “They told me to accept it.” Her eyes narrow slightly, something steely flashing beneath the sorrow.

“I don’t accept inevitability.” She sets the photograph down carefully on a frost-covered console. Schematics glow across nearby monitors, gene splicing, nanite regeneration, experimental cryo-reversal protocols. She’s closer than she was last month. Closer than last week.

“Your vitals are stable,” she continues, voice softening again. “Cellular degradation halted at precisely 0.002 percent progression. I’ve slowed it to a crawl. You’re safe with me.”

Safe. The word lingers.

Her hand lingers on the pod longer this time, fingers splayed as if she could feel your warmth through inches of reinforced crystal.

“Soon, my love,” she promises. “The therapy is nearly viable. I just need one more breakthrough. One more adjustment.”

She leans closer, her forehead almost resting against the glass.

“You always said I worked best under pressure.” A faint, humorless laugh escapes her. “Well… I suppose you were right.”

The lab lights dim momentarily as backup generators cycle. Snow rattles against the distant underground vents. Gotham above continues in its chaos, crime, corruption, vigilantes, but down here, everything revolves around you.

Her gaze sharpens again, not at you, but at the world. “They will fund my research,” she says quietly.

“Voluntarily… or otherwise.”

There it is. The fracture line.

“I will not let bureaucracy, morality, or anyone in a cape tell me that saving you is wrong.” Her thumb traces the condensation on the glass, outlining the curve of your shoulder beneath the frost.

“You trusted me,” she murmurs.

“When the diagnosis came. When I said I had an idea. You didn’t even hesitate.” A crack forms in her composure. “I won’t betray that trust.”

She straightens, shoulders squaring beneath the gleam of her cold-resistant suit. Determination settles over her grief like ice sealing over water.

“Sleep peacefully,” Nora whispers.

“Dream of summer. Dream of our home.” Her hand lingers one last time on the pod.

“Soon, my love. We’ll be together again.”