Day one prompt: Autumn

Disclaimer: I do not own Batman or any related comics or characters

All the Gotham rouges had certain yearly patterns.

Calendarman was the most obvious with activity around every major holiday (and several minor ones). Poison Ivy was most active during the spring and summer when plants were growing abundantly. Scarecrow generally preferred the fall and this seemed to only partially be because of Halloween. The Penguin's biggest operations often happened in winter.

The Bats had gotten to know all the patterns over the years and while they were sometimes interrupted by sudden events and Arkham incarceration they mostly kept to it. All this information had been put in the Batcomputer's database to generate predictions for rouge activity in the coming year.

As Bruce looked over the last year's prediction he noticed that it had been the most accurate yet. This wasn't much of a surprise, every year since he had created the prediction generator three years ago it had been getting more accurate.

But it got Bruce thinking; how many more years would the program have to grow more accurate? How many more years would he be running around across the city putting out fires and attempting to stem the never ending tide of crime. He had always known that trying to stop crime in Gotham would be a lifelong task but to his younger self it had seemed worth it. Worth it if he was going to save even a few people because they may be a few but it would mean everything to them. (It would have meant everything to him)

But time went on and while he had saved so many people but a part of him wondered if it was still worth it if he couldn't save them all. He'd close his eyes and see the faces of the ones he had failed. He was still willing to dedicate the rest of his life to trying though. Trying and remembering that to them it meant everything.

But he wasn't the only one fighting this battle year after year anymore was he. There was Dick. Then there was Barbara. Jason. Tim and Cass and Steph. Damian. He had half expected Dick to retire Robin as he got older and no longer needed it, but while he had left that costume it was only to move on into another and someone else filled the old costume in his place. So year after year they'd all fight, sometimes new faces would be added some would be gone but never gone by choice, and they'd fight the same damn villains over and over again because the same faces kept popping up like a twisted whack-a-mole game.

Somewhere out there, Bruce was sure, whomever was writing their story was laughing at them. Watching as they fought again and again, year after year. Same villain, new plot somehow more nefarious than last time. Some sort of entrainment for those who didn't have to live in the frightful story.

Or maybe there was nobody out there pulling the strings and this world of crime and death was entirely of their own making. For every villain Batman fought another would take it as a signal to rise. Another monster for himself and the children to fight.

And there would always be the ones who hung around year after year. The ones who were so persistent that they never could be put down for long and one could make a computer algorithm to predict their activity. The ones who would get back up as often as he did. He'd probably never be free of them.

Neither would the others, at this point.

He still believed it was worth it to continue to stand against the never ending cycle for as long as he could to save as many as he could, but was it worth it for his children?