The silence was deafening.

One moment, Bruce's voice had been steady in your comms—calm, controlled, the way it always was in the field. The next, static. Then nothing.

Alfred's hands had frozen on the Batcomputer's controls, his face ashen. You didn't remember ripping off your headphones. Only the sound of them hitting the dashboard, the crack of plastic against metal echoing through the Cave like a gunshot.

The drive to the blast site was a blur. Alfred's knuckles were white on the wheel, the Bentley cutting through Gotham's streets with a speed that would've made Bruce scold him. But Bruce wasn't here to scold anyone.

Because when you arrived, there was only smoke.

The explosion had torn a scar between Arkham and the cemetery, a grotesque marriage of madness and death. The Joker's calling card—scattered playing cards, half-burned, fluttering in the wind like funeral confetti.

You were running before the car fully stopped, the heat of the wreckage hitting you like a physical blow.

"Bruce!" Your voice tore through the chaos, raw and desperate.

Alfred called after you, but you didn't stop. Couldn't. The rubble shifted under your hands as you dug, gloves tearing on jagged concrete. Somewhere beneath this—beneath the weight of Gotham's endless war—was him.

Your fingers brushed fabric.

Black.

Cape.