The ropes bit into his wrists, raw and trembling, slick with blood. The dim flicker of a broken light overhead cast long, cruel shadows across the walls of Arkham’s forgotten sublevels. The air was thick—damp, rotting, tainted with the scent of gasoline and decay. Jason’s body hung limp in the chair, every muscle screaming. Every breath was fire.

And then there was the J.

Burned into his cheek, still searing beneath the crusted blood. The Joker’s laughter hadn’t even finished echoing off the walls when the pain had etched itself into something far deeper than skin—into Jason’s soul.

He was gone now. Off to “rest,” the clown had said, twirling away like a stage actor exiting on a line.

Jason stared at the cracked tiles. His lips trembled, not from weakness—he was long past that—but from the rage coiled in his chest, pulsing with each heartbeat like it wanted to tear his ribcage open.

“Bruce… where are you?” he whispered, the sound barely more than breath. It wasn’t a plea. Not anymore. It was the echo of a boy who had once believed in heroes.

He remembered the crowbar. The taunting. The gleam in Joker’s eyes as he swung again. And again. And again.

And Jason had screamed—but not for himself.

He had screamed for him.

Now all that remained was silence and the mocking creak of chains.

His fingers twitched against the bindings. He had to get out. Not to survive—but to make the Joker pay. Not just for the pain. Not just for the scar.

But for killing the last pieces of the boy who had once called himself Robin.