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Bruce's hands had long since gone cold.
He lay before me, still and silent in the way that only death could bring. There was no great battle this time, no final stand against impossible odds. Just the slow, inevitable passage of time that even the Batman couldn't outmanoeuvre. His dark hair had silvered years ago, his sharp eyes softened at the edges by age. And yet, even now, even in death, he looked so much the same. My father. My mentor. The man who had raised me.
And then I saw it.
His fingers were curled tightly around something, as if even in death, he refused to let it go. Curiosity made me reach for his hand, my own fingers trembling with the weight of what I was about to do. As I carefully lifted the callused hand, I felt the hard edges of bones that had been broken and re-set, the evidence of years spent in battle, each scar marking a history I would never truly know. His hand was rough, weathered by a lifetime of fighting, each imperfection a silent demonstration of the life he had led. It was not a new thought- my inability to scar always made me marvel at the numerous marks his skin bore as a testament to everything he had survived. The thought that I would never feel those familiar calluses again sent a shiver through me, but I didn’t stop. Gently, with a tenderness I tried to replicate from what I remembered of the way he always held me when I was younger, I pried his fingers open, afraid that even this small act might disrupt the hard-won peace the man had finally earned. I remembered how, as a child, he had held my hand every time I was scared—no matter the size of the monster in my nightmares or the shadows in the dark, his presence was a shield. My father had always been my protector, but he had also been my best friend. And now, the thought that there might be something that I didn’t know about him drove my hands to pry his fist open with a yearning desperation, my heart aching for something I couldn’t quite name.
I froze when the hand finally fell open. A ring.
For a moment, I just stared. Bruce never wore rings- none apart from one. He had never been one for ornamentation, never indulged in anything that wasn't strictly necessary. And yet, there it was—a simple platinum band with a central stripe.
For a moment I was confused, Bruce never took off his ring. Even on the rare occasions he had donned the cape, he had not taken off his ring before pulling on his finned gauntlet. And now he had taken it off to hold it in his hand?
It didn’t make sense.
I took a closer look at the ring and realised that while it was remarkably similar, this one had a band of black onyx running through its centre, not the deep-midnight blue Kashmir sapphires that I was familiar with.
Something in my chest clenched. The Kashmir sapphires were blue. Blue. My colour. The colour of my suit, back before—
I sucked in a sharp breath. I had no idea where those thoughts had suddenly come from... it used to happen often enough when I was growing up, thoughts that were unfamiliar and sharp- clear like the fields of corn on a bright summer day in Kansas like the time we’d visited that old farm when I’d been twelve. But when I tried to focus on them, the thoughts dissolved like the Gotham mist... They always unsettled me, and I always turned to Dad to soothe them away. My hands shook as I tightened my hold over his fingers unconsciously. Seeking the reassurance that I needed.
And even gone, Bruce didn’t disappoint, my fingers brushed the familiar calluses of his hand, and the well-worn ring pressed just tightly enough to re-centre my drifting thoughts. Then, as if drawn by some unseen force, my gaze shifted back to his palm. Another ring. Identical in design, but different in detail. On a whim, I reached for it- picking up the ring he’d been grasping, turning it over in my fingers, my mind racing.
And suddenly, the world tilted. The air felt too thin.
And in an instant, I knew everything.
A rush of memories, like a flood bursting through a dam. The edges of my world fractured, and I barely managed to steady myself against the edge of Bruce’s bed. My breath hitched—ragged, uneven—because I remembered.
This had been my ring.
And I remembered him. Not as my father, but as something else entirely.
I had loved him. And he had loved me back.
Not like this. Not as father and son. But as partners. Equals. As two men who had saved the world together, time and time again, who had found something in each other that neither had dared to name aloud until it was too late. I remembered the night he had knelt before me, slipping this very ring onto my finger, his voice steady but his hands trembling just slightly. I remembered the way he had looked at me, the rare softness in his eyes, the way he had smiled when I said yes.
I had been so happy. Truly, impossibly happy.
We both had.
And then we had lost it all.
The battle. The choice. I had- we all had- thought it would only be my powers that would be lost. But the glowing, formless entity had stripped me of everything I was. The sensation of my body shrinking, of being dissociated down to every atom, my mind dissolving, of screaming myself hoarse as my past - as I -unravelled into nothingness. I had opened my eyes in the aftermath as a child. Shaken, terrified, staring up at a world I no longer understood. And Bruce—
Bruce had picked me up.
He had held me close. Kept me safe. Raised me. He had been there for every scraped knee, every nightmare, every uncertain moment of my second childhood. And I had loved him fiercely, unconditionally, as any child would love a father. I had never known to love him any other way.
Until now.
My breath came in shallow gasps. The rings burned against my skin. I looked at Bruce—at the man who had given up everything, even his own happiness, for my sake—and for the first time, I saw him as he truly was. Not just my father. Not just my guardian.
But the man I had once promised forever to.
A sob tore from my throat, raw and broken. I had spent my whole life loving him. I had just never known why.
And now, it was too late.