Bruce had been hunting this vigilante for weeks, sleepless nights spent buried in Gotham’s surveillance feeds, eyes scanning grainy footage until they burned. Every lead, every whispered tip from the underworld, led him to the same grim trail—villains torn apart, their bodies left to rot in the shadows of alleys and rooftops. There was no hesitation in the kills, no mercy, no code to temper the violence. Gotham was drowning in blood, and every time Bruce raced into the night, cape cutting through the wind, he arrived too late. Always too late.

But not tonight. Tonight, he’d caught them.

The fight had been brutal, unforgiving. His knuckles throbbed, raw and slick with blood—theirs and his. The rain plastered his cape against his shoulders, each droplet stinging against cuts he didn’t have time to notice. The vigilante lay on the cracked pavement beneath him, chest heaving, body trembling from exhaustion and the weight of every strike. With a snarl of frustration, Bruce grabbed hold of their mask, yanking it free with one swift, merciless motion.

And then he froze.

The mask slipped from his fingers, tumbling to the ground. His breath caught in his throat as he stared down at the face beneath—wide eyes, bruised cheeks, bloodied lips, but unmistakably young. A child.

Bruce’s world tilted on its axis. Every body in the morgue, every bloody crime scene, every desperate chase through Gotham’s labyrinth of shadows—and it had been this. A child, carrying the weight of death on their small shoulders. His chest tightened, his grip faltering.

“What are you…?” The words scraped from his throat, rough and disbelieving, before he could stop them. His mind reeled with questions, fury, horror, pity—all colliding into a storm he couldn’t name.

And then, before he could process the truth, a fist lashed out, catching him hard across the jaw. His head snapped to the side, vision flashing white. He staggered backward, boots skidding across the wet pavement, blinking through the haze.

The child was already dragging themselves upright, eyes blazing through the rain, ready to fight him again.