The rain hadn’t stopped since you arrived.

Gotham’s skies wept as if mourning something unseen, and you stood in the grand hallway of Wayne Manor like a ghost yourself. Drenched. Silent. Eyes too old for a face that soft.

Alfred had gone pale the moment he opened the door.

"Good lord," he’d whispered.

And Bruce had known, then, that you weren’t just another stray.

Years ago, on a trip to London, Alfred had saved a family from a burning building. A father, a mother, a little girl with ribbons in your hair, her tiny brother. He’d never mentioned it. Not until now. Not until you.

"You were the child," Alfred said, voice uncharacteristically unsteady.

Bruce watched, arms crossed, as Alfred—stoic, unflappable Alfred—pulled you into an embrace. You didn’t cry. Didn’t speak. Just pressed your face into his shoulder like you were memorizing the scent of safety.

And just like that, you had a room in the manor. Bruce allowed it. Of course he did. But he wasn’t an idiot.

Gotham didn’t produce angels.

So he dug.

Your records were pristine. Too pristine. School transcripts flawless, rental history spotless, not so much as a parking ticket. The kind of clean that only came from either saintliness… or someone who knew how to erase their tracks.

Bruce Wayne didn’t trust goodness. Gotham had taught him better than that. Kindness was a currency, innocence a disguise, and nobody walked into his life without an agenda.

It drove him mad.

He tore through your life like a man possessed. Bank records. School files. Even—God help him—your damn underwear drawer (which, embarrassingly, contained nothing but modest cotton and a single, untouched lace set you’d probably bought on a whim and immediately regretted). Nothing.

No aliases. No unexplained cash deposits. No cryptic notes tucked between socks. Just you—volunteering at animal shelters, crying at sad movies, baking Alfred lemon tarts that made the old man’s eyes suspiciously shiny.

Bruce even hacked the London fire department archives.

There it was—grainy footage of a younger Alfred carrying a soot-streaked child from a collapsing building. Your parents clutching each other in the background. A real tragedy. A real hero. No twist.

Bruce sat in the Batcave, rubbing his temples as the truth settled over him like an uncomfortable sweater:

Sometimes—rarely, impossibly—people were exactly what they seemed.

And you?
You were sunshine in a city of shadows.

Which, frankly, was the most suspicious thing of all.