Gotham was quiet in a way it rarely allowed itself to be.

Not silent—never that—but softened. The rain tapped gently against the tall nursery windows of Wayne Manor, and the city lights blinked distantly beyond the glass like patient stars. Inside, the world was smaller. Warmer.

Bruce Wayne sat cross-legged on the thick nursery rug, dress shirt sleeves rolled to his elbows, tie abandoned somewhere behind him. In front of him was a precarious tower of brightly colored building blocks—red, blue, yellow, stacked with intense concentration.

Across from him, Damian Wayne squinted at the structure as though it were the most important architectural endeavor in Gotham.

“Papa,” Damian said carefully, each syllable deliberate, “too tall.”

Bruce’s mouth twitched. “You think so?”

Damian nodded with dramatic seriousness. His curls were soft and dark against his forehead, his long lashes almost unfairly delicate for a child who carried the bloodline of both the Wayne family and the al Ghuls. There was no sharpness in him. No cold precision. Just wide green eyes and a stubborn determination to place the next block exactly right.

He reached forward, tongue poking slightly from the corner of his mouth, and set a crooked blue block near the top.

The tower wobbled.

Damian gasped.

Bruce steadied it with one large hand. “We build carefully,” he reminded gently.

“Care…full,” Damian echoed, proud.

He had been behind when Bruce first brought him home—quieter than most children his age, hesitant with his words, easily overwhelmed by too much noise. But here, in the nursery painted soft gray with constellations across the ceiling, there were no raised voices. No training rooms. No shadows shaped like weapons.

Just blocks. And patience.

The tower fell anyway.

Damian blinked at the scattered pieces, and Bruce braced himself for tears.

Instead, Damian broke into delighted giggles.

“‘Gain!” he demanded, clapping his hands.

Bruce huffed out a quiet laugh. “Again.”

They rebuilt. And this time, when the tower stood just long enough to be admired, Damian leaned heavily against Bruce’s chest, small body warm and suddenly limp with exhaustion.

“Tired?” Bruce murmured.

Damian nodded against him. “Papa carry.”

Bruce didn’t hesitate. He lifted him easily, pressing a kiss into the child’s dark hair as he crossed the nursery to the small bed tucked beneath painted stars.

“Sleep now,” Bruce said softly as he tucked the blanket around him. “I’ll be right downstairs.”

Damian’s fingers caught the edge of Bruce’s sleeve.

“Papa stay?”

Bruce stayed until Damian’s breathing evened out.

The knock came less than twenty minutes later.

Bruce knew who it would be before Alfred even opened the door.

Talia al Ghul stood framed in the entryway like a memory Gotham itself had tried to forget—elegant, poised, eyes sharp as cut glass. She had not changed.

“You made a promise you could not keep,” she said calmly.

Bruce’s expression hardened. “You’re not welcome here.”

Her gaze flicked past him, toward the stairs. “He is my son.”

“He’s a child,” Bruce replied evenly. “And he’s staying one.”

The air between them felt like a drawn blade.

“You deny him his birthright,” Talia said softly.

“I’m giving him something better.”