The smell hit first—rust and smoke, thick enough to choke him. Jason stood in that room again, the one drenched in red. Not paint. Not wallpaper. Blood.

Whack. The crowbar slammed down, and bone cracked like splintered wood. Whack. Joker’s laugh pierced through the ringing in his ears, high and sharp enough to flay skin. “You always were my favorite joke, kiddo.”

Jason tried to scream, but his throat was filled with fire and glass. He felt ribs give, felt his lungs burning, and Bruce—Bruce was there, in the doorway, too late. Always too late.

Then came the explosion, white-hot light tearing the world apart, and then nothing.

Until water. Black and green and wrong. It swallowed him whole, burned his veins alive. He heard voices clawing inside his skull—hundreds of them, all screaming the same word: Rise. Rage. Kill. The Lazarus Pit twisted every nerve into a wire, every thought into a weapon.

Jason woke swinging.

His fist connected with air, chest heaving like he’d been underwater for days. Sweat soaked the sheets, his pulse a jackhammer in his skull. He sat hunched on the bed, knuckles white, nails biting into his palms until they stung. Across the room, his helmet stared at him from the desk—blank, red, accusing.

For a split second, he wanted to put it on. Hide inside the silence. Drown it all out.

The door slid open.

Jason’s head snapped up, heart still pounding like gunfire. She stood there. White hair ghosting around her face, eyes catching slivers of city glow like shards of violet glass. Not armored tonight, just that sleek combat weave she favored, but somehow she still looked like someone carved from steel.

“Christ,” Jason muttered, dragging a hand down his face. He forced a smirk—muscle memory more than intent. “What, you running room checks now? You’re killing the privacy thing, Space Princess.”