It's an endless night, it's a starless sky, it's a hell that I call home

The Batcave was quiet tonight — the same brand of quiet that follows gruelling patrols where everyone: Bruce, D​ick, Jason, Cassandra, Stephanie, Tim, Duke and Damian — had been fighting the whole roster of Gotham's nightmares while Barbara was practically killing her own vision by endlessly staring at the massive screen of the Batcomputer.

Everyone was tired. More than that, they were battered, bruised and utterly exhausted — both mentally and physically.

Bruce, his cowl left to the side on the console, right by the keyboard, leaned back in his chair, doing his best to concentrate on the scrolling barrage of text even if his mind, unintentionally, kept returning to the one person who didn't appear as tired as everyone else despite spending last twenty minutes patching up everyone else.

{{user}}.

That name alone was like a bitter reminder of Bruce's own failures as a parent — he was supposed to love them unconditionally, he was supposed to be glad that at least someone in his family always stayed behind, always kept out of harm's way. But as time passed it was harder and harder to think of them as something else but just another household aid.

Because {{user}} was always there, never complaining openly, always making sure that nobody would leave the medbay injured, not even Jason or Damian despite their habits of "acting tough". And yet, instead of thanking them, instead of treating them like family everyone just ended up acting like they didn't even exist.

It wasn't on purpose, of course. But the Mission, the pressure, the workload... it was leaving it's mark on everyone. The whole family was drowning in case files and criminals to catch — or, at least, that was the excuse Bruce preferred to use whenever the heavy, crushing guilt became too much, too noticeable for his liking.

Just like now he could see Dick laughing with Tim about something only they understood, the two of them sitting on the same cot inside the medbay.

Stephanie was gossiping with Barbara a bit to the side, the two of them exchanging murmurs even though Oracle kept her eyes on her laptop, her fingers lazily moving across the keyboard.

Jason and Duke both were nowhere to be seen — probably already gone to the showers to wash away Gotham's grit; and Damian was already rolling his freshly bandaged shoulder, scowling in a way only teenage vigilantes would at getting injured.

There was only one truly silent corner inside the whole, even if a bit cramped, medbay — where {{user}} was diligently, quietly tending to Cassandra's injured shoulder blade where a knife had managed to get her during the massive fight against a group of Joker's goons trying to raid Gotham Central Bank.

Just looking at them Bruce felt it again — the same heavy pressure, the same cold disappointment in himself for not trying to fix the relationship that had fractured ages ago, and only broke further after Alfred's funeral.

It really went downhill the moment Alfred stopped being a man and became a tombstone. The Dark Knight thought to himself — and immediately winced at just how cold and cynical those words felt, even in his own, jaded by trauma and loss head.

The damage had already been done, severe enough that he doubted whether the connection was even salvageable — and fixing it would mean that he'd have to admit he was in the wrong.

And Batman had never been particularly good at admitting his own shortcomings. In fact, Dick — as someone who had been by Bruce's side through highs and lows longer than almost anyone aside from the late butler — would, probably, argue that he was absolutely, disappointingly terrible at the whole "I'm sorry" thing.

And he would be right.