When Bruce trained himself on the journey to become Batwoman, he traveled all over the world, learning the skills of countless people.
He discovered that across different cultures, humanity held similar views about the heart, treating it as the place where emotions were stored.
Whenever people spoke of how sincere an emotion was, they would always clutch their chests and say it came "from the heart."
From a certain perspective, there was indeed some scientific basis for that.
When emotions such as happiness, pleasure, or nervousness erupted, the heart needed to supply more blood to the brain, so noticeably that people could feel their own heartbeats.
Fear was the same.
When facing a gun, people always liked to cover their chests rather than equally fatal weak points such as their throats or nerves.
Just like that night in the alley, when that man pulled out a gun, Bruce remembered his father's hand shielding his small chest, like an extra rib filling the gap before it.
The gun fired. Bruce thought he had been hit, so his heart stopped.
But it stopped for only an instant. After the gunshot, his father's hand was gone.
Bruce's heart began beating faster. Fear beneath the bat wings captured him, and the world became different from that moment on.
He felt that his entire life had drained away in that instant when his heart stopped.
"Master Bruce, he's dead."
Alfred was dressed like a doctor. Joker had already been placed on the Final Machine. The computer-controlled mechanical arms alone were not enough, so at Bruce's insistence, Alfred had no choice but to put on a sterile surgical gown and try to snatch Joker back from death.
"No, he can hold on. He has Dionysium. He won't die."
Batwoman shut himself away in the darkness nearby