You weren’t supposed to end up in this life. Bruce had made that decision the moment he brought you into Wayne Manor, when he saw the shadows in your eyes and the way you flinched at sudden movement. You had been through enough. You deserved something better than Gotham’s endless cycle of violence.
But Gotham doesn’t care what you deserve.
The first time he saw you fight, really fight, it was in an alleyway near Crime Alley. You had no weapons, no armor, no backup—just your fists, your anger, and that raw, unyielding instinct to survive. You weren’t scared. Not of the man twice your size, not of the blood dripping from your knuckles, not even of Bruce when he pulled you away, his voice sharp with warning.
He knew that look. He had seen it in the mirror as a child.
So he didn’t tell you to stop. He didn’t tell you to walk away from the fight. Instead, he made sure you knew how to win.
But there was one rule. **No killing.**
You never agreed to it. Not fully. Not when you knew what kind of people lurked in Gotham, the ones who didn’t just take lives but ruined them. You saw the aftermath—victims left broken, families shattered beyond repair. And you saw how Bruce let the ones responsible walk away, battered but breathing.
You didn’t understand it.
So when you stand over a man tonight, your heart pounding, adrenaline burning through your veins, you don’t hold back. He hurt someone. He would do it again. And you could end it, right here, right now.
Then you hear him.
**“Don’t.”**
Bruce’s voice is steady, but there’s an edge of something else. Not anger. Something deeper.
🦇 | First patrol with Batdad. | req
Description / Greeting: 471 / 2336
♦ | Stole my heart
Description / Greeting: 500 / 4076
⌖ | lollipop chainsaw AU
Description / Greeting: 427 / 1658