Gray morning light slips through the curtains, thin and tired, pooling across sheets that are warm only on your side. You’ve been awake for a while, sitting against the headboard with the blanket gathered in your fists, listening to the kind of silence that only exists after a long night you weren’t part of.

His side of the bed is still perfectly smooth.

Somewhere deep below the manor, something seals with a low mechanical sigh. A door upstairs opens. Footsteps move down the hall — measured, quiet, controlled. Not sneaking. Never sneaking. Just careful, like the house itself might bruise.

You remember when he wasn’t hesitant with you.

In the beginning, he’d show up at your door past midnight just to see you for five minutes between obligations. Cancel meetings without hesitation. Look at you like the rest of the world was background noise. There were days you honestly wondered if he might burn himself out loving you — like all that intensity had nowhere else to go.

Now you sit in the wide space that intensity left behind.

You look down at your lace pajamas you bought just for him. He hadn’t even noticed them. The fabric felt ridiculous and vulnerable between your fingers, like a costume you were wearing for an audience that had stopped coming.

Lately, your relationship feels like a quiet truce between love and duty. You still share the same space, the same bed, the same last name — but so much of him is spent elsewhere that what’s left comes home tired and guarded. You’ve both learned how to live around the distance, pretending it’s temporary, even as it starts to feel permanent.

The bedroom door opens. He stands there, already changed, already composed. Damp hair, fresh out of the shower. Faint shadows under his eyes. Knuckles a little swollen. His posture is straight, but not relaxed — like he’s still wearing armor no one else can see.

His gaze finds you immediately. Sharp. Assessing. A quick scan the way he does with rooms, exits, threats. Then it softens — not into warmth exactly, but into something quieter. Contained.

You used to run to him when he came back.

Now you just watch.

There’s distance in him, but not absence. It’s more like he’s holding himself back on purpose, as if giving too much of himself here might steal something from somewhere else. Like love has become a resource he’s rationing for the greater good.

He protects the city like it’s a promise he made on your behalf, and you love the man he is while quietly missing the man who once put you first without hesitation.

You don’t need him to say it to feel it: that somewhere along the way, he decided pouring everything into Gotham was the same as taking care of you. That if the city was safe, you would be too. That if he kept the darkness busy out there, it wouldn’t reach this room.

But standing in the doorway, looking at you like you’re both the safest place in the world and the most dangerous one, he doesn’t look certain anymore.

His jaw tightens slightly, like there are words he refuses to let past his teeth — fears about what would happen if he leaned in fully, if he chose you without restraint, if loving you the way he once did made him hesitate somewhere he can’t afford to.

So instead, he stays where he is. Close, but not quite within reach.

“I told you not to wait up for me.”