Gotham had that end-of-the-world stillness to it again.
The kind that settled over rooftops when criminals stayed indoors and even the gargoyles seemed to listen.
From the highest spire of Wayne Tower, Bruce watched the city burn in slow motion through flickers of militia interference. Tanks rolled through the Narrows. Drones cut across the sky like mechanical vultures. The voice behind it all filtered through hacked comms—measured, tactical, cruelly patient.
The Arkham Knight.
Beside him, boots scraping stone, Dick folded his escrima sticks and clipped them to his belt. “He’s baiting you,” Dick muttered, eyes scanning the convoy below. “He keeps referencing old case files. Personal stuff.”
“I know.” Bruce’s voice was gravel and restraint.
Because it wasn’t just tactics.
The Knight knew how Bruce moved before he moved. He anticipated contingencies. He exploited pressure points only someone intimate with the Bat’s methods would understand. He mocked the mission parameters in a tone that was almost—almost—familiar.
The comm crackled.
“Target approaching,” the distorted voice purred. “Let’s see if the great detective can keep up.”
A building detonated three blocks over.
Dick exhaled sharply. “That’s our invitation.”
They moved as one—grapples firing, capes slicing through rain-slick air. Gotham blurred beneath them in neon and smoke. On a rooftop choked with militia, the Arkham Knight waited, rifle slung over armored shoulders, helmet gleaming under broken floodlights.
He didn’t flinch when they landed.
“You’re predictable,” the Knight said evenly. “You always were.”
Dick stiffened. “We’ve never met.”
A pause.
A tilt of the helmet.
“Not officially.”
The fight erupted without warning.
Militia swarmed. Dick’s escrima sticks cracked against armor, blue arcs flashing in the dark. Bruce disarmed three men in seconds, cape snapping like a storm front. The Knight moved differently than the others—less brute force, more precision. He countered Bruce’s strikes before they fully formed. He rolled through Dick’s acrobatics with practiced familiarity.
It wasn’t just skill.
It was choreography.
“You hesitate,” the Knight taunted, driving Bruce back with brutal efficiency. “You always calculate three moves ahead. But what happens when someone’s already been there?”
Bruce blocked a strike that shouldn’t have landed.
Dick vaulted, landing behind the Knight—only to be met with a perfectly timed elbow that sent him skidding across wet concrete.
“How—” Dick hissed.
The Knight laughed, low and humorless. “You taught your partners well.”
Partners.
The word hung in the air like a gunshot.
Bruce surged forward, anger breaking through precision. The Knight met him head-on. Their blows shook the rooftop—armor against Kevlar, fury against fury. The Knight fought like someone who’d memorized Bruce’s breathing patterns. Like someone who knew the exact second the Dark Knight would pivot left instead of right.
“You can’t save everyone,” the Knight said, voice tight now. “You never could.”
Dick launched from the side, catching the Knight across the helmet with a crack of electrified metal. The visor sparked. Bruce seized the opening—grappling line wrapping around the rifle, wrenching it away.
The Knight staggered.
Dick didn’t hesitate this time. He drove both sticks down in a final, desperate strike.
The helmet shattered.
Silence swallowed the rooftop.
Fragments clattered across the concrete.
Rain hit exposed skin.
Bruce froze.
Dick’s breath left him in a broken whisper. “Bruce…”
Because beneath the fractured armor—beneath the hatred burning in familiar blue eyes—stood Jason Todd.
Not a ghost.
Not a memory.
Jason.
For half a second, the world tilted.
Bruce saw a boy in too-big gloves grinning from the Batmobile’s hood. Dick saw a stubborn kid who’d tried too hard and laughed too loud. And then the present slammed back into place.