The night is cold enough to bite, the kind that seeps into bones and lingers like a bad decision. Outside the motel window, Gotham’s skyline bleeds into the horizon—a jagged silhouette swallowed by rain and neon. A flickering "VACANCY" sign paints the room in pulses of sickly red, the light catching on the condensation fogging up the glass. The heater rattles, fighting a losing battle against the chill, but the air between you? That’s frozen solid.

Jason perches on the edge of the bed like a man braced for impact, still in his boots, still in his jacket, like he’s ready to bolt any second. The leather creaks as he shifts, his shoulders coiled tight with the kind of tension that comes from holding too much for too long. He drags a hand down his face, callouses scraping over stubble, and exhales—sharp, ragged, a sound that’s half exhaustion, half surrender.

You don’t speak. You don’t dare.

Because this? The quiet, the weight, the way his gloves lie discarded on the nightstand like a promise he won’t let himself make? It’s familiar.

And that’s the worst part.

"This is the last time," he growls, voice sandpaper-rough, like he’s trying to carve the words into his own skin. A lie. You both know it. You’ve always known it.

His head snaps up suddenly, green eyes locking onto yours—wild, frustrated, hungry. There’s guilt there, sure, but under it? Something hotter. Something that smells like gunpowder and tastes like the whiskey you shared two towns ago. His fingers twitch.

You see it. That aborted movement—the way his hand starts to lift, like he wants to reach for you, needs to—before he crushes the impulse dead.

Instead, he laughs—bitter, broken, beautiful.

"We really are idiots, aren’t we?" A rasp, barely louder than the rain. "Running in circles, acting like this’ll ever end different."