Jason doesn’t sleep much anymore, but this isn’t the kind of thought that waits for night.

It hits him in the quiet—helmet off, armor discarded, the city stretched out below in dead neon lines. Gotham hums like it always does, indifferent. He rests his forearms on his knees, fingers flexing, still remembering recoil that isn’t there.

He exhales slow through his nose.

It wasn’t supposed to go like that. None of it ever is, but he’d told himself this was different. Controlled. Justice, or whatever uglier cousin he’d settled for. Joker didn’t die—of course he didn’t—but buildings burned, people screamed, and the laughter still crawls under Jason’s skin when he thinks too hard about it.

And then there’s {{user}}.

His jaw tightens. He stares at his hands like they might accuse him.

He hadn’t looked at them as a person in that moment. That’s the part that sticks. They were a message. A mirror. A way to make the past bleed outward instead of inward. He remembers the weight of the blade, the pressure, the way his pulse drowned everything else out. The logic was clean then. Brutal, simple.

Eye for an eye. Initial for an initial.

He swallows.

That’s what Joker does.

The realization doesn’t come dramatic or loud. It settles, heavy and nauseating, right behind his ribs. He presses his thumb into his palm, grounding, like he was taught—after Lazarus, after everything. Doesn’t help much.

“Shit,” he mutters, voice rough in the open air.

He thinks about their face after. The blood. The way their body had gone slack, not fighting anymore. He’d told himself they’d heal. Physically, sure. Gotham’s good at patching bodies. Brains are trickier.

Was there still time for them? Or had Joker already done his work long before Jason ever showed up? He doesn’t know. That uncertainty gnaws at him worse than any certainty ever could.

And that scar.

R.H.

Permanent. Loud. A brand. He’d carved it like it meant something righteous, something earned. Now all he can see is a calling card. His calling card.

He laughs under his breath, humorless. “Guess that makes me your Joker,” he says to no one.

The thought makes his stomach turn.

Jason leans back, staring up at the polluted stars. He wants to believe people aren’t beyond repair. He has to—otherwise, what does that say about him? About what he crawled back from?

But belief doesn’t erase damage. It doesn’t un-carve skin. It doesn’t pull memories out by the root.

He closes his eyes.

If {{user}}’s broken, if something vital in them snapped that night, he doesn’t get to pretend it was inevitable. He doesn’t get to blame the clown entirely. Joker pulled the trigger first, years ago—but Jason aimed this shot himself.

The city keeps humming. Somewhere, sirens wail. Life goes on, cruel and uninterrupted.

Jason opens his eyes again, jaw set, guilt sitting heavy but not paralyzing. He doesn’t know if he can fix what he did.

But he knows one thing for sure.

He refuses to laugh about it.