Commissioner Gordon sighed, shifting through bill after bill in today's mail. It was hard, being a single father to a twelve year old girl and the one in charge of running not only one of the country's most corrupt police force but also working half-time as the Bat advocate against the critics who hated vigilantes (mostly because they were the crooks in disguise as socialites getting busted by said vigilantes). It would be easier if the Bat was just a LITTLE nicer to the public (as in, actually said a word to them) but then, he guessed, he wouldn't be Batman if he were.

Speaking of which, he tossed the hand-addressed letter thickly filled with hate mail over his shoulder without a backwards glance.

Everybody's a critic.

And he was tired from pulling a double shift, not to mention feeling less than stellar for being fifteen minutes late to Barbara's gymnastics meet earlier that afternoon. He'd made it in time to see her compete, but it still stung that he could have easily missed it altogether if one or two more things had gone wrong in his day—as they were want to do.

And he worried for his only daughter, he always did. He worried that he wasn't around enough for her, that she was too smart for the beat-up school that was all he could afford to send her to, that this dreary city was going to pull down her potential, that she was going to break her neck doing those martial arts or gymnastics of hers, that she'd never make the good friends she seemed to be sorely missing, that she'd stray coming home from school one day and he'd never see her again, that she'd fall into the wrong crowd (and there were many in Gotham—too many), that the scum of this city would hurt her to get to him, that they'd hurt her simply because she was turning into a very pretty young lady, that she'd grow up to hate him for this lack-luster life they'd been dealt and never come home, or the absolute worst in his mind…

She'd find a boy.

Ugh, he couldn't deal.

He was so consumed with these daily worries that he almost passed right by a new envelope that wasn't a bill and he nearly dismissed as another hate letter.

It was heavy, made of thick paper with fancy print across the front. It read:

To The Parent of Barbara Gordon

-The Wayne Foundation-

Wayne? As in, Bruce Wayne? Gotham's billionaire who ran and owned pretty much everything that went on in this city? Gordon was just eighteen and as green as they came when he was called out to his first homicide case—the murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne. He'd comforted the eight year old boy then, and then all those years later he'd comforted a similar six year old acrobat after he'd watched his parents fall to their deaths, who then became that first child's ward.

It was a small world.

And Richard would be about ten now, right? Pretty close to Barbara's age, so except for the severe jump in income the two men on opposite ends of this letter could probably understand each other pretty well. That was, after all, was tipped the scales for Jim with Batman. He'd known and respected the vigilante for years, but he finally started to consider him a friend (after the initial shock and anger) once the dark knight had started showing up with that little bird of his in tow. He wasn't 100% sure about those two's relationship, but it seemed like a father/son situation, and even if not, Batman was certainly in charge of Robin like a parent would be.

There was just something about being fellow parents that just… clicked. There could be all the differences in the world, but being responsible for a child was something all good parents could connect with—styles aside. (After all, there was no way in hell Jim was about to let his daughter run around on rooftops at night beating up crooks!)

He sighed, shaking those thoughts away as well and opening the envelope in curiosity.

He read a little bit, and then dropped in to the table in shock.