People think Batman's propensity for over planning is a result of dedicated training and a controlling personality due to Trauma, and I don't think they're wrong per se, I just think we ascribe the wrong trauma.
You're eight years old. You're an orphan. You live in a giant house which only felt like home in a tiny fractional portion of it. There are hallways and rooms you have never seen, have never heard mentioned, have no idea exist.
You inherited the house. You inherited the money. You're the scion, the last living memory of two incredibly influential people, people who were The Face of the City.
You have to go to parties. You used to go with your parents, but they're gone now and there's no one to pull you close when one of the older men gets too close, when a sharp smiling women eyes you like meat, when daughters and sons and babies are pushed at you, eyes and teeth and jewelry all sparkling with cold avarice.
You're shy. You're uncomfortable. You want your mom or your dad to come save you, to sweep you away to dance badly but laugh loudly, to tuck you close and remind you that you belong to you and not anyone else.
You get taller, and smarter. You learn the patterns, the niceties, how to deflect, how to escape. You figure out how to control the interaction because the music is grating and the bodies are too close and everyone is talk talk talking at you, wanting money, wanting time, wanting your name (for marriage or business proposals, it doesn't matter, they all blend together).
You learn how to hide better. You can be standing in the center of the room, seemingly at ease, while inside you're clawing at the walls and howling, trying to escape. You loathe these events, the posturing, the competitiveness, all of it grates at you.
You didn't know how to play the game, no one told you the rules. But you learned. Through every mocking laugh, every faux pas, every blunder, you learned.
You're twenty five. The people still look at you with hunger, a piece of meat wrapped in gold foil, but you know how to play now. They keep asking, keep pushing, but you brush them off like dust.
You have plans within plans, how to steer every conversation, how to slip out of any trap (verbal or physical). You've usurped the ringmaster and no one even knows.
They can't get close enough anymore: to pinch you, to comment how pretty you've grown, how you look like your father with your mother's features. They keep trying, scrabbling at the walls you've built, but you smile and laugh and slip away, leaving nothing for them to grip.
They're no less dangerous, but now you've got claws and teeth and sparkling jewelry too.
