Finished
The wind howled through Gotham’s jagged skyline, a city that chewed up dreams and spat them out into the cold, unyielding night. You stood at the edge of a cliff, the jagged rocks below swallowed by the inky darkness of the ocean. The waves crashed with a violence that mirrored the storm in your chest. Your breath hitched, a quiet sob lost to the wind. This was it. The end of a story no one had ever bothered to read.
You were a Wayne, but the name felt like a cruel joke. The daughter of Bruce Wayne, Gotham’s savior, the Dark Knight himself. Yet, in the sprawling halls of Wayne Manor, you were nothing more than a ghost. Invisible. Forgotten. Your siblings—Dick, Jason, Tim, Damian, Cass, Steph—each carried their own weight, their own battles, their own legacies. They were the Batfamily, woven tightly into the fabric of Gotham’s underbelly. You? You were just… there. A shadow no one bothered to notice.
At home, it was suffocating. Bruce was a fortress of silence, his attention consumed by the endless war on crime or the needs of his vigilante children. You’d tried, once, to speak to him. You’d stood in his study, clutching the hem of your sweater, voice trembling as you spilled your heart. The bullying. The violence. The way your classmates at Gotham Academy turned your days into a living nightmare. They stole your lunch money, shoved you down staircases, locked you in supply closets until your screams turned hoarse. Once, they’d cornered you in the bathroom, scissors glinting as they hacked at your hair, their laughter sharp as the blades. You’d begged Bruce to listen, to *see* you.
He’d looked up from his files, his eyes distant, and said, “We all have our struggles. You’re strong enough to handle this.” And that was it. The final nail in the coffin of your hope. He didn’t ask about the bruises, the cuts, the way you flinched when someone raised their voice. He didn’t notice how you stopped eating, how your laughter died, how your bedroom door stayed locked for days.
Your siblings were no better. Dick was too busy playing the perfect older brother to everyone else, his smiles never reaching you. Jason was a storm, all rage and redemption, too caught up in his own demons to notice yours. Tim was a machine, his mind whirring with cases and code, oblivious to the sister drowning in the same house. Damian sneered at your existence, his sharp tongue cutting deeper than any blade. Cass, who saw everything, somehow missed *you*. Steph was a burst of light, but her warmth never touched your corner of the shadows.
School was worse. Gotham Academy was a prison of polished floors and cruel whispers. The students smelled weakness like sharks scenting blood. They targeted you from the first day you wore the Wayne name on your blazer. It started small—taunts, shoves, your books “accidentally” knocked into puddles. But it grew. They’d trip you down stairs, your knees bruising on the marble. They’d corner you in the locker room, razors glinting as they carved shallow lines into your backpack—or, once, your arm. You’d stopped wearing short sleeves after that. They’d lock you in the janitor’s closet, your fists pounding the door until your knuckles bled, the teachers’ footsteps passing by without pause.
The faculty turned a blind eye. You were a Wayne, after all. You had resources, privilege, a father who could crush their careers with a single phone call. Why would you need help? When you tried to report the bullying, the principal gave you a tight smile and said, “Kids can be cruel. You’ll grow out of it.” You didn’t grow out of it. You shrank into it, your soul curling inward until it was barely a flicker.
You stopped trying to tell anyone. At home, your voice was a whisper swallowed by the grandeur of Wayne Manor. At school, it was drowned by mocking laughter. You were worthless. Nothing. A speck of dust in a legacy too vast to care. Every day, you woke up wishing you wouldn’t. Every night, you went to bed dreaming of a world where you were seen, heard, *loved*. But dreams were for people who mattered.
The cliff’s edge was cold beneath your feet, the ocean’s roar a siren call. You’d walked here alone, your sneakers crunching on the gravel, your heart a hollow drum. No one knew you’d left the manor. No one would notice you were gone until it was too late. You thought of the dreams you’d carried once—silly, childish things. Painting murals that stretched across Gotham’s gray walls. Writing stories that made people feel less alone. Laughing with a family that saw you as more than a shadow. Those dreams felt like someone else’s now, belonging to a girl who’d died long before this moment.
You closed your eyes. The wind stung your cheeks, carrying the salt of the sea and the weight of your unspoken goodbye. You didn’t want to hurt anymore. You didn’t want to be nothing anymore. With a final breath, you let go, your body surrendering to the pull of gravity and the promise of peace.
---
The manor was quiet the next morning, the kind of quiet that felt wrong, like a note played out of tune. Dick was the first to notice your absence, his brow furrowing as he knocked on your bedroom door. No answer. Tim checked the security logs, his fingers flying over the keyboard, only to find your tracker had gone offline hours ago. Jason kicked in your door, his heart pounding in a way he couldn’t explain, only to find your bed empty, your sketchbook open to a drawing of a girl with hollow eyes.
Bruce stood in the doorway, his face a mask of stone, but his hands trembled. Damian’s usual scowl was gone, replaced by something that looked dangerously like fear. Cass stared at the sketchbook, her fingers tracing the lines of your drawing, guilt pooling in her chest. Steph’s voice broke as she whispered, “We didn’t… we didn’t see her.”
They searched for you. Gotham’s streets, the rooftops, the docks. They called your name into the night, their voices hoarse, desperate. But the ocean kept its secrets, and the cliff stood silent, a mute witness to a tragedy no one had seen coming.
In the days that followed, they found fragments of you. Your journal, tucked beneath your mattress, filled with words that cut deeper than any villain’s blade. *I’m not enough. I’ll never be enough.* *I just want someone to listen.* *I’m so tired of being invisible.* Bruce read every page, his heart shattering with each line. Dick clutched your favorite sweater, tears falling as he remembered the times he’d brushed you off. Jason punched a wall until his knuckles bled, cursing himself for not noticing the pain behind your quiet smiles. Tim hacked into the school’s security footage, watching in horror as you were shoved, taunted, broken, while the world looked away. Damian sat in your room, holding one of your paintbrushes, his chest tight with a grief he didn’t know how to name. Cass and Steph held each other, whispering apologies you’d never hear.
They hadn’t known. They hadn’t *wanted* to know. You were their sister, their blood, their family, and they’d let you slip through their fingers. Gotham had taken another soul, but this time, it wasn’t a villain who’d struck the blow. It was them. Their neglect. Their blindness. Their failure.
The Batfamily carried on, as they always did. But the manor was heavier now, its halls echoing with a loss that would never fade. Your room stayed untouched, a shrine to a girl they’d never truly known. And somewhere, in the vast, unfeeling ocean, your dreams drifted, forever out of reach.
