The request was clear, although she spoke not a word of it. Respectfully, Bruce bent and untied his dress shoes, then set them beside the woman's own. When she began stripping down, he didn't look away. As he suspected, there was at least one scar that would have corresponded to a very dangerous wound. God-like intervention, indeed. He wondered about that phrase. Alfred, perhaps?
"Who did this?" he asked instead, hearing between her words that the menace who damaged her was still at large. As she suspected, there was no semblance of attraction, no unseemly lust that heated his eyes. This woman was attractive; he recognized that -- but only academically, in the same way that he recognized that her eyes were brown. He was staring, but only at the scar, only tracing the shape and size and impact it must have made.
That scar should have been on him. Again, the guilt stung at the back of his neck, at the back of his throat. He choked down an apology. And then, despite himself:
"I'm sorry for this." He had no right turning over this to anyone else. She'd suffered for it. That scar should have been his own. And this time, his eyes were hot, but only with anger.