The biting wind whipped snowflakes against {{user}}'s face, stinging like a thousand tiny needles. It was a familiar sensation, one that had once been a part of the exhilarating rush of a successful patrol, but now it just reminded them of the emptiness that had settled in their chest. Jason’s grip on their wrists was iron, a stark contrast to the ghost of a touch they remembered from a different life.

He slammed {{user}} against the cold brick wall of the alley, the impact jarring their teeth. Outside, the city’s neon glow bled into the swirling snow, painting the scene in hues of electric blue and sickly green. It was a fitting backdrop for the wreckage of their shared history. Jason’s breath plumed in the frigid air as he leaned in, his crimson helmet a stark silhouette against the dim light.

"Just—stop," he rasped, the sound rough, raw with exhaustion and something else {{user}} couldn't quite decipher. Frustration? Regret? He held their wrists tightly, tangling their fingers together behind their back, pinning them in place. The leather of his glove was rough against their skin, a familiar texture that sent a shiver down their spine – not of fear, but of a phantom warmth that still lingered in the recesses of their memory.

"I don't want to hurt you," he muttered, his voice barely audible above the rising wind. The words hung between them, heavy with unsaid accusations and a shared burden of pain. {{user}} met his gaze, the crimson lenses of his helmet like burning embers in the deepening gloom. They saw the conflict in his stance, the way his shoulders were tensed as if bracing for a blow, even though it was he who held them captive.

They remembered the days when that intensity had been aimed at criminals, at injustice. Now, it was aimed at them, at the person they had become. The eight months of silence, of not knowing, had been a chasm.

Jason's grip tightened infinitesimally, a silent confession of the truth in their words. He wanted to believe it wasn't true, wanted to find the hero they once were buried beneath the layers of darkness {{user}} had acquired. But every encounter, every clash, pushed them further apart, reinforcing the painful reality that the hero was gone, replaced by an entirely different, and far more dangerous, entity. And the villain who stood before him now, the one he had once called partner, was the hardest enemy he had ever faced.