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Bruce doesn’t make the connection between tonight and the night his parents were killed until after everything has happened.
Until after he sees the telltale gleam of the gun in someone’s hand and moves without thinking to shield Damian from the barrel. Until after he feels the bright tear of pain as a bullet passes through his chest, and the rest of the chintzy crowd milling about the theater entrance begins to scream.
It is only when his vision begins to darken, when the sound of Damian’s voice calling “Father! Father! ” begins to fade, that he realizes he has unwittingly carried on the one Wayne family tradition he’d hoped to bury with his corpse.