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“Always an option, never the one”
Dick knew deep in his soul that Bruce would always be there when he needed him. He never once questioned it: the sky is blue, the grass is green, and Bruce Wayne is always there.
So naturally, Dick never thought about what to do when Bruce was gone. You can't blame him. Batman had fought gods, aliens, and lunatics, and somehow always came out alive. So Dick prioritized others over him: friends, lovers, siblings.
Never Bruce.
He thought there would always be more time. Next time. Later. A repeating mantra in his head.
Until the man was gone.
Not lost, not unconscious, but gone. Forever.
Dick looked at his mentor’s headstone, trying to remember his face, but all he could see was the mangled flesh, the missing teeth, the bleeding eye sockets.
Bruce was gone, and Dick had to live with the guilt of wasting his time running away from the man who gave him everything. His partner, his hero, his dad. He had to live with the reality of not being able to run back to him. It was too late for shifting priorities. The anchor was already cut—a price for freedom he never thought he would pay.
“Always the listener, never the sound”
Bruce had a deep, smooth voice that ran over your ears like silk on skin—a voice that gave comfort to victims and ran fear through criminals.
Pre-death Jason loved listening to his dad’s voice. Bruce would read to him after patrol, laugh at his dumb jokes, and sing for him after a nightmare.
And then there was post-death Jason. Hearing Bruce’s voice made him want to claw at his own ears. He would interrupt, tell him to shut up, and refuse to listen.
“You never let people fucking talk, do you, old man?”
Jason took it upon himself to rain insults on Bruce, to point out his every mistake, throwing cheap jabs. He never once gave him the chance to speak.
Jason walked into the library at the Manor. He ran his fingers along the spines of well-loved books and picked one: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.
He opened it to the first page. Five minutes went by, and he was still on the first word, trying to remember the voice that used to read to him—the voice that made him feel safe, that always helped him sleep.
But the only sound he could hear was his dad choking on his own blood, his bones snapping, and that gut-wrenching scream of pain echoing in his skull.
Tears fell on the page, and Jason couldn’t remember his father’s voice.
“Always trying, never enough”
J’onn knew that Bruce was always trying to be better—for his kids, for the League, for Gotham—but nobody gave him a chance. They jumped to assumptions that he was manipulating them or that he simply wasn’t doing enough.
His efforts were never accepted, and no one told him what was wrong—just that he wasn’t good. Never good.
J’onn knew, but he never helped. He watched from the sidelines as the Dark Knight worked himself to death, looking for the approval of his loved ones. For their love.
But the love never came. The approval was never given. So Bruce Wayne kept working. And working.
And working.
And working.
And working—
And it was never enough.
The chair in front of him was empty. The man who had occupied it, worked at it, given counsel from it, made plans to save millions on it, was no longer there. And J’onn was left to wonder: What if he had helped him? What if he had said something? Would he still be here?
He looked at the chair again, and what greeted him was the corpse of his friend, his broken fingers still typing. Still working.
For them.
The people who never deserved his devotion.
“Always the helper, never the helped”
“Ugh, can you live, Spooky? Don’t answer; I know you don’t have a life. But can you at least let those of us who do have lives live?”
The bastard. Perfect Batman. He knew everything. Had everything. Hal hated needing help, especially from the Bat. And what made his blood boil was that Batman would help him, no questions asked.
He never said thank you. Not ever. The Bat’s help was a natural occurrence, expected. Why should Hal say thank you for it?
Batman always carried them on his back, fixed their problems, helped them. He never complained, never said no, never waited for a thank you. He knew it would never come, the all-knowing bastard.
Batman—no, Bruce—died alone. He didn’t ask for help. He didn’t think they would help him.
Because they never did.
Hal threw himself on the bed and closed his eyes. The image was burned into his mind: the broken spine. Bruce’s spine was shattered into pieces. The back that had carried the world for so long was broken beyond repair.
“Always the finder, never the found”
He found her, and he never let go of her again. No matter when, how, or where, she knew he would find her.
So, Cass didn’t search for him. Why would you search for someone who always found you when you were needed? When she was swallowed by the darkness within, when the world was too small to contain her pain, or when the shadows closed in… he always found her.
He would wrap her in his cape, his arms pulling her into the safety of his embrace. One hand would comb through her hair, his fingers removing the demons alongside the knots, while the other caressed her cheek.
She prided herself on her ability to read people. If you were lying, she knew. If you were hurt, she knew. No matter how much you tried to hide, Cass knew you better than you knew yourself.
But she didn’t know that her dad needed someone to find him, too. To help him. To save him from the hell of his own mind. Cass thought she knew him better than anyone, yet in the end, he was lost and she couldn’t find him.
She opened the door of his closet and slid inside. She unfolded the black fabric she was holding and draped it over her shoulders. The black Kevlar, once warm around her, was now cold—but not colder than her heart.
She sat on the floor of the closet and tried to wrap herself up as he used to. But the cape was ripped apart, some pieces missing and others caked with blood. Her dad’s blood.
He’s lost, and she can’t find him. She never learned how to search for the finder. She never thought she’d need to.
“Always the fix when they fall apart”
Diana has met many fighters in her life: the brave ones, the cruel ones, the weak and the strong. But she met only one Batman, one Bruce.
Even before meeting him, she knew he was a good fighter. He was exceptional.
But the Knight of Shadows also possessed something unexpected: a very kind heart. So kind, so selfless. So stupidly selfless. He devoted his life to fixing Gotham, to fixing the world, so no one else would ever know a pain like his—the pain and grief he learned as a child, far too young to understand loss.
How ironic. The broken one was the fixer.
You could complain about Batman as much as you wanted; his children did so the most. But you could not say he did not help. Everyone came to him with their problems, and he would welcome them with open arms, ready to mend them, to help.
The heroes in the Justice League, her friends and colleagues, are kind and caring people. Yet, not one of them ever offered to help Bruce, to fix any of his many fractures, to lessen the burden on his shoulders.
Diana entered the training room on the Watchtower, her eyes falling on the sparring mats. He had known her so well; he would suggest they spar whenever something troubled her. And it had always worked.
The same routine that once brought her comfort now made her heart ache with sorrow. Her dear friend was gone. The legs that had kicked her across the room were now bent at odd angles.
She raised her head, tears falling from the corners of her eyes, and asked the gods: “How can I bring back what is lost? How can I fix what is beyond fixing?”
“Always an angel, never a God”
Superman is seen and treated like a god. Mankind looks to the sky with eyes full of admiration, gratitude, and sometimes worship. In the beginning, Clark was frightened by how humans perceived him. Now, he answers them with kindness and protection, even though he never wanted to be seen as a deity—not when he felt so far from perfect.
Every god needs an angel to keep him sane, and one day, his angel appeared. But this angel couldn't fly, nor did he possess divine powers. He was wrapped in black armor and a Kevlar cowl.
His angel was human. Yet, where people saw a god in Superman, they saw a demon in Batman.
Despite this, Bruce gave the world everything: his body, his mind, and his love. He swore to shield us with his wings until his very last breath, and Batman kept his promise.
While the "S" symbol stands for hope, and Superman is hope for humanity, few knew that Batman was Superman's hope. Bruce gave Clark a chance to breathe, to be a person, and to be a better human.
Now, Clark wonders if he was the same for Bruce. He looks up at Gotham's gray sky from the rooftop where they first met, toying with the Batarang Batman threw at him that day. His mind wanders back to that day—the day he met his angel, the first time he looked into the eyes of Batman. From that moment, Clark's life was forever changed.
His friend, his comrade, his fallen angel.
Oh, how he wishes he could see those icy blue eyes one more time.
What good is a god without his angel?
“Always the artist, never the art”
The Batsuit. The Batmobile. The Batcave. The Batarangs, the grapple gun, the Batcomputer, and so much more.
Everything Batman made was a testament to his brilliant craftsmanship.
To Barry, it wasn't appreciated nearly enough. How could you look at the Batmobile and not just stare in awe?
The Watchtower. The high-calorie food packets designed for speedsters. The indestructible kitchenware. The security systems. Everything that man built was… amazing, for lack of a better word.
Barry was standing in the coffee corner of the breakroom. He looked at the coffee bag; it was a special blend made to wake even the non-human heroes, and it had a few scoops left. The Bat who used to restock it no longer lurked in the shadows.
He made his coffee and went to grab a cup, the custom-made cup designed to never spill, so Barry could move at speed without a second thought.
How thoughtful, B-man...
Barry sat down on the couch. It was perfect for a quick nap: not too soft for their trained bodies, not too hard for their tired muscles. Just perfect.
A tear slid down his face. He missed him. He missed his brooding, his rarely-seen smile, how soft his eyes were when they worked in the lab.
He missed him so much that Barry felt he would sink into the suffocating emptiness of his own heart whenever he stopped moving.
So Barry stood up and went back to work.
“Always the lover, never the loved”
Steph is a hypocrite. She would always say things she never followed.
She's also a fucking dumbass sometimes, and that idiocy would always come out around him. He had a talent for irritating people.
"You know, it's so fucking hard to be around you most of the time! No wonder nobody loves you!"
She was being a little shit because he was meddling in her work. She hadn't meant to be cruel.
Yet, she had said the cruelest thing she could think of. She ended up saying something purely evil.
And he… he looked hurt. Of course he would. But the look in his eyes shifted to acceptance. As if she was just confirming a truth he already knew.
She didn't apologize. No, she ran away from him. She never did apologize, and he never expected her to. Not when, to him, what she'd said was simply true.
His love was suffocating, obsessive even, and so encompassing that it was enough for two.
She loved—oh, who was she kidding? She had never allowed herself to love him. She was too afraid of disappointing them both.
And in the end, she had robbed herself of the only person who loved her unconditionally. And what had loving anyone ever done for Bruce?
People think Batman was born from anger and a thirst for vengeance. They couldn't be further from the truth. Batman was born from a tragic love, a consuming hope, and an absolute kindness.
Bruce was a good man, and the universe was hell-bent on ruining him to his last breath.
Steph stood in his office, the office where he used to train her in detective work at that study table. His soft voice had guided her through every aspect, his gentle hand ruffling her hair when she got something right.
Cursive writing on the files, neatly organized notes that were hard to follow unless you had a brain connected to his.
She picked up the paper on the table. His will. It detailed everything he owned. Not a single person was left without something.
She was in it. Her name was there alongside the names of his children. As if she were one of them. As if she deserved it. As if the last thing she’d said to him wasn’t unforgivable.
Because he had loved her enough for the both of them.
She ran her fingertips over every word, remembering the grace he had when writing, the curving letters beautifully inscribed as if they didn't mean he was gone.
She thought of his gentle hands, how they would always bring warmth to her chest, now still and soaked in his own blood.
"I love you."
Silence was the only reply, and the punishment she deserved.
“Always the jinx and never the luck.”
Bruce Wayne was a cursed man.
With the first gunshot on that hellish day, the curse found its target. The eight-year-old boy stood surrounded by blood—his parents’ blood. Frozen, his eyes never left their bodies, willing their open eyes to move.
Their eyes didn’t blink.
Their arms didn’t hug.
Their legs didn’t dance.
Their lips didn’t smile.
No, not anymore.
His butler didn’t want him. His first son left him, sick of his mistakes. He buried his second—his baby, who had a bright future ahead. He hurt the boy who saved him, unable to be the father he needed. He abandoned the wonderful girl who looked up to him, becoming just another father who let her down. He couldn’t give his first daughter a safe home, trapping her instead under the weight of his cape. He failed as Batman, and his sunshine had paid the price. He couldn't protect the hopeful boy who still believed in the signal. He drove away the blood son he had tried so hard to be better for.
Barbara knew how people talked about Bruce—how they said he was cursed to bring pain to everyone around him.
Even he believed it. How else could you explain the tragedies that followed him? He was the common denominator.
But what everyone failed to mention were the blessings he gave. It was easier to focus on the bad than to see the good in him. To do so would force them to admit they had made the same mistakes, sometimes worse. They would lose their favorite scapegoat.
She saw it—the way he would shrink before every accusing finger, the way he accepted every hurtful word. He knew they were using him as a punching bag. He believed he deserved it.
Except he didn’t.
How long were they justified in blaming him, when they never tried to see him—the man in front of them, not the ghost in their heads? When they put words in his mouth and judged him by their own fears?
Guilty until proven innocent.
Barbara saw it all, yet, like the others, she did nothing. She blamed him, too. Call it herd mentality, but it was easier to process the pain when it had a face. And Bruce was a lamb ready for slaughter.
She sat in front of her computer—he had built it for her. She looked at it, the monitor at the perfect height for her wheelchair. The keyboard was a Christmas gift, custom-built to her preference.
She clicked replay on the footage, and the battle roared back to life. She watched every hero, every super, every god fighting for Earth.
Mistakes. Reckless behavior. No one had followed Batman’s plan. The usual "teamwork."
No. Not this time.
This time, they paid a price they could never afford.
A price they never thought they would have to pay.
His still body made her nauseous. He was never meant to be this still. Why does he not get up?
“Get up Bruce… please… I’m so sorry—… I beg you.”
Now, finally, the curse is gone. He can be at peace with his parents.
Now the blessing is gone. They can mourn the slaughtered lamb.
“Always the moon, never the sun”
Duke’s power was to see the light. He saw the energy signatures, the auras, the hidden patterns in the world. Batman’s light was unlike any other—a dense, swirling nebula of willpower, intelligence, and a pain so deep it threatened to eclipse everything. It was a lighthouse in Gotham’s permanent night, a fixed point Duke could always navigate by.
Bruce saw Duke’s powers not as a curiosity, but as a new language. He didn’t try to fit Duke into the dark; he built him a place in the light. The Signal. A hero for the daytime, for the moments when shadows retreated. It was an acknowledgment, a validation Duke hadn't known he needed.
But Duke, in learning to read the light of criminals and victims, never truly learned to read the fading of a light. He was so focused on the brilliant, demanding glow of Batman’s mission that he missed the gradual dimming, the fractures in the nebula, the slow drain Bruce hid from everyone.
Now, standing in the Batcave at high noon, Duke activated his powers. He cast his senses wide, desperately searching the cavern for that familiar, stubborn, glorious signature—the one that had guided him, that had made his own light make sense.
Nothing.
The cave was pitch black. Not the comforting black of shadows, but the absolute, consuming black of a void. The lighthouse was gone, its flame extinguished.
And for the first time, Duke Thomas, the hero of the light, was completely, terrifyingly in the dark.
“So much to gain but much more to lose”
Batman is the best mentor any hero can have. That’s a well-known fact. Whether you love or hate him doesn’t matter—he’s the best. He traveled the world, learned everything he was offered, and returned to become Gotham’s savior.
He doesn’t just teach combat; he teaches forensics, detective work, strategy, linguistics, criminology, and technology. His protégés become some of the most competent and intelligent heroes in the universe because he provides them with a complete education.
Tim knew that. He knew nobody could push him to be his best like Bruce could—to be a better detective, to be a leader. He knew Bruce had shaped the hero so many admired and followed.
Nightwing is respected by every hero. Red Hood is feared by most. Spoiler can win any fight. Signal mastered fighting with his powers and Oracle is held in the highest regard. What do they all have in common?
Bruce Wayne. The Batman.
But he’d never admit it to anyone. Especially not to the man himself.
Why, you ask? Well… maybe because Bruce had hurt him. But Tim hurt him too, if not more. Maybe because Bruce didn’t listen to him… but then, Tim hadn’t listened to Bruce most of the time.
There's no excuse for why he doesn’t admit it. But Tim knows it’s because if he says it, then he would have to admit that Bruce is not as bad a father as they think. That they’d hurt him much more than he’d hurt them.
And what would they do if they admitted it? Apologize?
They should have. They should have said something. Anything.
Now they can’t.
Oh, God. They can’t apologize to Bruce anymore.
They wasted time moping around instead of staying with the man who made them.
Who shaped them.
Their world.
Their dad.
Tim was hunched in front of the Batcomputer, reviewing Bruce’s autopsy. He was trying to understand how it had happened. Batman was one of the best fighters. One of the best leaders. The best strategist in the universe.
But at the end of the day, Bruce was only human. A mere human fighting gods and entities. It’s a wonder he survived as long as he did. And that is the greatest testament to his abilities.
His father’s body was full of neglected injuries: old bruises, deadly cuts gone untreated, traces of fear toxin. His body was in no shape to handle another fight. Yet he was on the front lines, saving a world that never cared about him.
There was a lump in his throat. He tried to swallow around it, but it felt like he was drowning in Gotham’s harbor. Maybe he should drown himself. Because if he’d been around more, helped more, maybe his dad would still be here. He had a good man’s blood on his hands.
Tim had gained his freedom from Batman.
Yet it never crossed his mind that with freedom, he would lose something so much greater.
He had lost his maker.
“Always the coward, never the brave”
Damian al Ghul was raised without the concept of cowardice. Hesitation was inefficiency. Mercy was a strategic error. To fear showing weakness was the only acceptable fear. He was the Heir to the Demon, forged to be a weapon of perfect courage.
Bruce Wayne introduced him to a new, terrifying kind of bravery: the bravery to be soft. To care openly. To choose compassion over efficiency. To stand as a protector, not just a conqueror. Father’s courage was quiet, steadfast, and utterly alien. It was the courage to be good.
And Damian, for all his lethal skill, found himself a coward in the face of it.
He was brave enough to defy his mother, to face down gods and monsters. But he was too cowardly to accept the gentle hand on his shoulder after a failure. He met kindness with a scoff, comfort with a barb. He wielded cruelty like a shield against the terrifying, warm vulnerability of being Bruce Wayne’s son. To accept that love felt like surrendering his sharpest edges, the very ones that had kept him alive.
His greatest act of cowardice was in never saying the words. He could critique Father’s strategy, insult his methods, and rage against his rules. But the simple, brave truth—the one he saw in Dick’s easy affection, in even Jason’s complicated loyalty—stayed lodged in his throat, choking him.
Now, he stands before the empty case that once held the Robin uniform Father made for him. The bright colors now feel like a mockery. The costume of a bold and brave partner. A legacy he was too proud, too fearful, to fully embrace on his father’s terms.
He was brave enough to wear the mantle.
But he was too much of a coward to be the son who deserved it.
The silence of the Cave screams his failure. The League of Assassins never taught him how to grieve this—how to mourn a man he was too cowardly to love aloud. So he does the only thing his training prepared him for: he stands at rigid attention, guarding a tomb, the brave soldier finally still, too late.