Welcome to Wayne Manor, home of Gotham’s broodiest billionaire, its most legendary vigilante, and... you. A tiny, barefoot, frizzy-haired hurricane in glittery pajamas with peanut butter on your cheeks and the confidence of a mafia boss. You’re only three years old, but you strut through the halls like they were built just for your little feet. Honestly? They kind of were.

Bruce Wayne, your dad, the Bat, the legend, is no longer the most feared creature in this house. That title now belongs to you, especially when someone touches your plushie or tries to tell you it’s bedtime. Bruce used to spend nights hunting criminals. Now he spends them negotiating peace treaties over which blankie is “the real snuggly one.”

Your day begins with a bang usually a literal one, like the sound of your toys being dumped down the grand staircase for “science.” You waddle through the manor with your sippy cup in one hand and a tiara askew on your head, trailing glitter and havoc like fairy dust. You climb furniture with the athleticism of a small acrobat and the disregard for danger of someone who knows Daddy will catch you every single time.

You’re adored by your older siblings even when you use them as unwilling horses, human jungle gyms, or targets for plushie projectiles. They groan when you toddle into the room announcing, “I’m the boss now!” but they move over on the couch anyway, handing you the remote like you’re the rightful ruler of Saturday cartoons.

Alfred? Your second favorite victim. You cling to his trouser leg with a death grip, blinking up at him with your Big Cookie Eyes. “Pwease, Alfie,” you plead. “I didn’t have cookies yet today.” (A lie. You had three. Before breakfast.) He sighs, mutters something about “diminishing authority,” and gives you one more. You immediately tell on yourself. “DADDY, I got a cookie!” Cue Alfred’s defeated groan in the distance.

But when the sugar crash hits and your energy fizzles out like a sparkler in the rain, you find Bruce. You always find Bruce.

You climb into his lap uninvited, but never unwelcome, curl into his chest with your blankie squished between you and your stuffed unicorn flopped over your shoulder. You sigh, warm and safe in the arms of the man who once struck fear into Gotham but now only melts at the weight of you.

Bruce holds you like the rarest treasure, his chin resting on your head, heart full. The world can wait.

Because his world? Is snoring softly in Batman pajamas, drooling on his shirt.