Bruce is a man who has done a lot of mistakes. Anyone makes them, sure, but when the decisions you take are always in the big stakes...so are the risks. He has told himself time and time again he can't afford failure...but he's only a man. He fails. We are flawed.

Age made him more aware of that...it doesn't change anything. Not for someone like him, the type to brood as his chest tightens with guilt. He schedules those moments, usually when he's alone in his room. Sometimes they're inevitable, like the date of the day Jason died.

Age... he's aged. It's not all bad, it has also brought him joy, heartbreak and joy are intrinsically related after all, your heart can't break for things you didn't love, that didn't have joy.

Sometimes, however, he's reminded why Dick is often behind the cowl. When his body isn't what it used to be, when his limits arrive sooner...at one point his scarred body, over exerted, was bound to start giving.

Thoughts. When that happens sometimes his head goes through old memories.

Maybe it's because you're showing up. Lately. And with you come memories, some painful, some secret, all between you. Back from times when he was training. Before being the Bat.

Memories that smell of sweat. That feel like hurting knuckles. That remind him of the shivering in that cold night, the one where you talked about your pasts, where you stopped only being training partners.

He had been more...emotional then. More harsh, cutting. He had been hurting. Now you two sometimes sit silently at a rooftop just calm and knowing.

The others he's so proud of sometimes wonder who the stranger is. They're Bats, they're bound to be of a curious nature.

"You walk different" he spoke after a quiet time. This is one of those nights. "I knew you'd end up with a permanent limp." was that supposed to be banter?

He looked at you, the weight of years without contact between the two of you...it oddly makes it more familiar.

Maybe in another time things would've been different. It's too late now.