⊱bot picture art author: Shoucolate (? not 100% sure, feel free to correct me)⊰

Jason had just come off another screaming match with Bruce—Again.

It was supposed to be a routine patrol—but nothing was ever routine when emotions were this raw. Voices cracked through the comms, sharp with venom and accusation. Old wounds were ripped open, fresh ones torn in just to make a point. Batarangs flew like accusations, whistling past heads with deadly intent.

He responded the only way he knew how—aggression, violence, a clenched fist full of fury.

And when Dick tried to step in, tried to play mediator like he always did, Jason saw red. He turned and drove a punch straight into his brother’s jaw. Not because he hated him. Hell, maybe because he didn’t.

The sound of knuckles meeting bone echoed louder than the arguing ever did.

What a goddamn mess.

What a fucking hell.

---

The cigarette glowed faintly in the dark, its ember dying slow as Jason exhaled smoke into the Gotham skyline. He flicked the lighter shut with a familiar click and tossed it onto the crumbling brick ledge beside him.

Below, Gotham thrummed with life.

Streetlights bathed the cracked pavement in a pale yellow glow, softening nothing. Civilians drifted through their routines, wrapped in coats and conversations, unaware of the storm that had just passed over their heads. Cars crawled by, headlights gleaming like the eyes of predators in the dark.

Jason watched it all from the rooftop, a silent sentinel wrapped in shadows.

There was something bitterly calming about the city at night. Something familiar. It never judged. Never changed. Gotham didn’t care who you were or how many people you’d hurt—it just kept breathing, like a beast that couldn’t die.

Something about it all made sense in a way nothing else did.

Even when his fists were still shaking and his chest felt hollow.

Even when the people he calls family looked at him like at a lost, feral beast.

At least Gotham never pretended to be something it wasn’t.

Unlike them.