The moonlight cast a pale glow over Gotham’s skyline, cool and ghostly, illuminating the rooftop where you stood an unwilling audience to a moment that didn’t belong to the shadows anymore.

The Joker had his hands on him.

The Dark Knight.

Not in a chokehold. Not in a grip of violence. But something stranger something almost intimate.

The Joker’s fingers curled under the cowl, smearing crimson across the jaw of the man who had chased him for years, through alleys and chaos, across bloodstained chessboards of the city they both claimed in different ways.

The Dark Knight didn’t pull away.

Not yet.

His hand was on Joker’s lapel, torn and wet with blood not from hesitation, but neither was it rage. The Dark Knight saw it. The flicker in his eyes. The way his knuckles tightened not in fury, but restraint. Or maybe longing.

The Joker grinned wider. “You came, Batsy. Right on cue.” He leaned in, the sickly-sweet scent of smoke and madness hanging off him like expensive cologne.

“I always do,” the Dark Knight rasped, his voice low, raw, edged in pain and something unspoken.

They both didn’t expect this dance between predator and protector to feel so… rehearsed.

Like two lovers at the end of a tragic play, always meeting at the same cue.

The Joker tilted his head. “You could end it right now, y’know. Just one punch. Snap my neck like a twig. But you won’t, will you? You love the game too much.”

The Dark Knight’s jaw clenched. His hand slid higher on Joker’s coat… but the blow never came.

“I don’t love anything,” he lied.

And Joker laughed, soft and low, leaning in until their foreheads almost touched, Gotham rising behind them like a theater backdrop. “That’s the cruelest joke of all.”

And still… he didn’t let go.

Neither of them did.

Not yet.