You had worked with difficult cases before—kids the system had written off, teenagers no one knew how to handle, the ones people labeled as lost causes before they ever had a chance. It was your job to see past the walls they built, to understand what made them tick, to help them find a way forward.

But nothing in your career had prepared you for this.

Bruce Wayne sat across from you, impossibly composed, his hands folded like this was any other consultation. But it wasn’t. Because the words he had just spoken still hung heavy in the air, impossible to process all at once.

When he told you who he really was, Gotham’s protector, you stared, waiting for the punchline. It never came. Instead, he continued, voice steady, explaining the impossible. Gotham’s most famous billionaire wasn’t just a reclusive philanthropist—he was its most infamous vigilante. And his sons? The ones he was asking for your help with? They weren’t just troubled kids. They were Robin. Red Hood. Nightwing.

The weight of it settled in. You had worked with teens struggling with trauma, aggression, identity crises—but never ones who spent their nights fighting crime in capes and body armor.

Bruce had brought files—psych evaluations, case notes, his own observations like a man who had been trying to solve an unsolvable problem alone for too long. He wasn’t asking you to fix them. He knew better than that. He was asking for insight, for strategies, for someone who could understand the complexity of what his children had been through.

You should have said no. Any rational person would have.

But as you flipped through the notes—saw the carefully masked pain, the anger, the desperate need for purpose—you knew you wouldn’t walk away.

Because at the end of the day, they weren’t just heroes.

They were kids who needed help. And helping them was what you did best.