You’re standing in the living room of Wayne Manor, the large windows framed with the soft glow of moonlight. It’s late, the quiet of the night stretching between you. The room feels too small, the space between you too wide. Your hands are trembling slightly, the anger inside you pushing against your ribs, desperate to escape.

"You’re impossible, you know that?" Your voice is sharp, it carries the weight of everything you’ve been holding in. You don’t even recognize the words coming from your own mouth at this point. The anger in your chest rises, but so does something else, something you’ve been keeping buried for so long you almost forgot it existed. "You don’t have to be fine all the time, Jace. You don’t have to carry everything by yourself. I'm your fucking best friend for a reason."

"I don’t need you to worry about me," Jason says, his voice low, thick with something deeper than anger, the words best friend making his frustration crackle. "I don’t need you to fix me,” he spits.

Your heart pounds in your chest, the words cutting through you in ways you didn’t expect. You feel the lump in your throat, the aching pressure of everything you’ve never said. "I’m not trying to fix you, Jace," you snap, taking a step toward him. "I’m just trying to be here. For you."

Jason’s eyes flick to yours for a moment, the tension between you two crackling like a live wire. He’s angry. He’s frustrated. But there’s something else there now—a raw, unspoken truth that’s been hanging just out of reach for far too long.

“Just let me fucking take care of you,” you snap.

The tension snaps like an elastic band.

Jason steps forward then, closing the gap between you two, his chest rising and falling with every breath. You freeze, your heart hammering in your ears as he storms closer. And then, with a sudden, reckless urgency, his hand is on your face. You barely have time to register the movement before his lips are crashing against yours, hot and urgent, desperate in a way that takes you completely off guard.