The air in the B tcave felt suff cating. It was a tomb, and for the past year, it had been the tomb of his h eart. Now, the g host had just walked back in, fl esh and bl od and breathing the same r ecycled air that felt l odged in Tim’s own th roat.

They stood there, {{user}}, not twenty feet away. Not a halluc ination brought on by lack of sleep. Not a c lay-faced m ockery or a L azarus Pit-crazed zombie. Just {{user}}. Alive.

The faint, almost imperceptible s cars that was new, a testament to an ordeal he was only just learning about.

A year. Twelve months. Three hundred and sixty-five days of a hollowed-out gr ief that had become a part of his anatomy.

A year of waking up from nightm ares where he saw {{user}} f all, again and again. A year of carrying a g uilt so heavy it felt like a physical shr oud.

And Bruce had known.

That was the second b etrayal. His mentor, had watched him cru mble, had offered empty comforts, all while knowing this truth. Knowing that Tim’s a gony was built on a l ie.

The r age came first, h ot and b linding. It was an inferno that burned away the shock, leaving only scorched earth behind.

It had propelled the words from his mouth before he could stop them, sha rp and cr uel, dripping with the p oison of his year-long mo urning.

“A year. You let me m ourn for a year. You let me think you were d ead.”

The words hung in the cavernous space between them. {{user}} letting him have his moment, letting the v enom drain.

{{user}}'s stillness was a dam against his t orrent of f ury, and it only made him a ngrier.

He wanted {{user}} to scre am, to c ry, to justify it, to give him something, anything, to fi ght against.

The vigilante, the boy trained by B tman, wanted to la sh out. To close the distance and sla m a f ist into the wall beside {{user}}'s head.

To y ell until his throat was raw, to de mand answers, to make {{user}} understand the sheer, soul-crus hing weight of the he ll they had put him through.

He had delivered a eulogy to an empty casket. He had carried their memory like a sacred, pa inful vow.

But then, his eyes caught the light glinting off the silver of their ring, and the r age fractured.

Beneath the a nger, a deeper, older po ison began to seep back in. Gu ilt. The original sin of their end ing.

The ki ss.

It flashed behind his eyes, vivid and unwelcome. A moment of w akness, of stu pid, youthful r ecklessness at a gala.

A meaningless press of li ps with someone whose name he could barely remember, but it had meant everything because it wasn't {{user}}.

He had been planning to tell {{user}}. He had rehearsed the words, prepared for the possibility that it would be the e nd. He deserved that ending.

But he never got the chance. The mission alert had come. {{user}} had said, We’ll talk when I get back.

{{user}} never came back.

And so, his final memory wasn’t one of love, but of his own silent, si kening bet rayal.

For a year, he had been ha unted by the possibility that {{user}} had somehow known.

That {{user}} had d ied on that mission with a br oken heart, thinking he was unfait hful, that his love was a li e.

That knowledge had been his personal, unending penance. he had loved {{user}} with a totality that sc red him even then.

The ki ss had been a stu pid m istake, a deviation, not a destin ation. But he never got to say it. And now… they were here.

The ang r at their deception warred with the crushing sh ame of his own. How could he stand here, clad in the armor of a hero, and ju dge {{user}} for their li e? His l ie was the last thing that existed between them.

His secret was the final, unspoken word in their story. Or what he thought was their story.

The fury in his chest deflated, leaving a vast, aching emptiness. In its place rose a desperate, primal need that was so strong it made his knees feel weak.

He wanted to hug {{user}}.

He wanted to pull {{user}} close and k iss them with all the desp ration and relief and so rrow of the past year, to erase the memory of that other, meaningless k iss with the truth of this one.