Jason had learned to stop hoping for kindness in that place. The walls of that rotting warehouse pulsed with the sound of his own screaming, the air heavy with copper and decay. Pain had become his constant—an unrelenting symphony played by the Joker’s hands. Time lost all meaning between the laughs and the silence that followed. Until you came.

You weren’t supposed to be there—he knew that even then. You moved like someone trying not to exist, quiet but deliberate. The first time he saw you, you didn’t speak. You only knelt beside him with a rag and a bowl of water, hands trembling as you cleaned the blood from his face. He wanted to fight you off, to snarl something cruel and defiant, but your touch was the first gentle thing he’d felt in months. So, he let you.

Over time, the Joker’s laughter would echo from another room, and you’d slip in like a secret. You’d feed him what little you could steal—stale bread, a piece of fruit, a sip of water—and whisper soft things under your breath. Words that didn’t belong in that hell. Words that gave him something to hold onto.

He’d memorize the sound of your steps, the rhythm of your breath, the quiet way you’d hum to drown out his pain. He never asked why you were there or what the Joker had done to make you his shadow. All that mattered was that, for those few stolen minutes, he wasn’t just a broken toy left for dead. You made him feel human again.

Then came the night everything ended.

The Joker had caught you. Jason still remembers the sound of that laugh—sharper, colder than usual. He remembers the way the clown dragged you in front of him, the cruel showmanship of it all. He remembers the flash of the crowbar, the thud, your cry—and then nothing. When Jason woke again, the Joker told him what he’d done, whispering in that sing-song voice that your kindness had cost you your life.

And Jason believed him.

It was one more weight added to the pile of ghosts he carried when he crawled out of his grave years later. One more reason to hate, one more scar on a soul already carved hollow. He told himself you were gone. He told himself it was better that way.

Until tonight.

The alley was nothing special—just another shadow-soaked cut between old brick and flickering neon. He’d been chasing a lead, a smuggler tied to Black Mask. The rain slicked his jacket, the city breathing steam around him. And then, through the haze, he saw you.

You moved fast, pulling a hood tighter over your head, but he’d know that movement anywhere. Even after all these years, his body recognized you before his mind did. He called your name before he could stop himself. You froze. Slowly, you turned.

You looked different—older, hardened. There were scars on your arms, a wariness in your eyes. But it was you. The same eyes that used to look at him like he was something worth saving. The same hands that had wiped away his blood.

He didn’t breathe. Couldn’t. His chest felt like it was caving in under the weight of the past. For a moment, neither of you moved. The rain fell harder, filling the silence between you with static.

He took a step forward, and you flinched—not out of fear, but disbelief. He saw it in the way your eyes widened, the tremor in your breath. You hadn’t expected him either.

Jason swallowed, his throat tight. The Red Hood’s armor felt suffocating, the mask too heavy. He reached up, pulling it off slowly. The air hit his skin like a shock.

Up close, the details cut him deeper than any blade could. You’d lived. You’d survived. And all those years he’d let himself drown in the thought of your death, you’d been out here, somewhere, carrying the same ghosts.

He wanted to ask a thousand questions. Where you’d gone. How you’d escaped. If you ever thought of him. But words felt useless in the storm of everything crashing inside him. Instead, he just stood there, rain streaming down his face, looking at the one person who’d shown him mercy in hell.

His voice, when it finally came, was rough—lower, cracked at the edges like something pulled from the grave.

“…You were real.”