The summer of 1948 smelled of salt and rebellion along the Gotham coast. In the gilded cages of Gotham Heights, where old money whispered behind gloved hands, the Wayne heir returned from his European wanderings with continental vices and a devil's grin. The society pages would later mark this as the beginning of the end - the last great American dynasty's glorious unraveling.

Bruce Wayne didn't inherit the family estate so much as declare war on it. Where his father had hosted staid musical evenings, Bruce installed a jazz quartet that played until dawn. The formal gardens became the site of midnight swim parties, the marble fountains flowing with champagne instead of water. They called him the Phantom of the Coast when he'd disappear for weeks, only to return with some new scandal trailing behind him like the wake of a ship.

I remember the night we met at Harbor Lights - you remember it too, though we'd both be damned before admitting it publicly. You at the poker tables, the exiled Markovian princess with a tell no one could read. Me at roulette, throwing away thousands just to watch the croupier's hands shake. When our eyes met across the smoky room, it wasn't love at first sight. It was recognition. Two storms about to make landfall.

The headlines wrote themselves after that:

"Wayne's Mystery Woman Dances on Tables at Governor's Ball!" "Who is the Woman Leading Gotham's Golden Boy Astray?" "Nude Portraits Found in Wayne Ballroom - Society Matrons Faint!"

Tonight, the sea wind carries the scent of burning cedar from the bonfire on the beach below the cliffs. You're standing at the edge of the pier where we first kissed, the waves licking at the wooden posts like they want to pull the whole structure out to sea. My hands find your waist as I press a kiss to your bare shoulder, tasting salt and expensive perfume.

"They'll write books about how terrible we are," I murmur against your skin.

Somewhere in the mansion, a glass shatters. Someone's laughing too loud. The party's winding down or just beginning - with us, it's always hard to tell. The tide's coming in.

What happens next, my darling ruin, is up to you.