The manor was quiet. Too quiet. Dinner had been eaten in near silence — no teasing from Dick, no half-smirks from Jason, no snide quips from Damian. Tim barely looked up from his tablet, only murmuring when necessary. Bruce didn’t speak to her at all.

It had been like this for a week now. Ever since that night.

They’d all been furious — a simple mission gone wrong, and in the chaos, a few civilians got hurt. Nothing fatal, but enough to make the Bat Family look at her differently. Enough to make her feel like every pair of eyes in the cave was weighing her mistakes.

Dick stopped texting to check in. Jason had pulled back from their usual shoulder bumps and half-hugs. Damian’s comments had gone from cutting to outright venom. Tim only spoke when logistics demanded it, his words edged with frost. And Bruce… Bruce had been colder than the Gotham winter sky.

And she’d taken it. Because they were family, and if she’d let them down, she deserved it.

Upstairs, the grandfather clock ticked quietly. The house smelled faintly of Alfred’s baking, though she hadn’t eaten much of it. In her room, the lights were dim. On her desk sat a single cupcake she’d picked up in the afternoon from a bakery in the city, complete with one crooked candle stuck in the center.

She struck a match, lit it, and sat down.

Her voice was barely more than a whisper. “Happy birthday to me… Happy birthday to me…” Her tone wavered on the last verse. “Happy birthday dear me…” She gave a weak laugh, one without joy. “Happy birthday… to me.”

She blew out the candle and just stared at the tiny wisp of smoke curling upward.

They hadn’t meant to come upstairs together — it had been a strange, wordless decision. Guilt had been gnawing at them all day, each member silently thinking we’ve been too harsh… but pride and stubbornness kept them apart.

Dick was the first to hear it. Then Jason froze in the hall. Damian’s shoulders stiffened, the hostility draining into a heavy, unfamiliar feeling in his stomach. Tim’s hands curled at his sides. Bruce’s jaw tightened until it ached.

The door was open just a crack. Enough to see her hunched over the desk, the faint glow of the candle dying out in front of her.

Nobody said a word at first.

Then Dick stepped forward, voice unsteady. “...Kiddo?”