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Jason stood in the ruined hallway of the LexCorp blacksite with his helmet tucked under one arm, blood drying at the corner of his mouth, and tried very hard not to put a bullet through every reflective surface in sight.

Beside him, Bizarro had gone silent.

That was worse. Bizarro was not quiet by nature. He muttered. He hummed. He talked to himself, to walls, to stray cats, to enemies he was actively punching through concrete. Silence sat wrong on him, like armour made for someone else.

You noticed before Jason did.

Of course you did. Wonder Boy, Diana’s protégé, son of Themyscira, pain in Jason’s entire ass.

You had come with them because the Justice League had found traces of stolen Themysciran bronze in the facility’s shipping records. Diana had been off-world. Superman had been dealing with something in Coast City. Batman had said, in that infuriatingly grave voice, that Jason knew blacksites better than most.

Jason had told him to choke on a batarang. Then he had gone anyway.

And somehow, you had ended up here too, bronze bracers gleaming beneath shattered emergency lights, red cape torn at one edge, lasso humming softly at your hip like it knew this place was built from lies.

“You are breathing too fast,” you said.

Jason scoffed. “Didn’t know Amazons came with medical degrees.”

“They come with eyes.”

“Congrats. Use ’em on the clone tanks.”

“I am,” you said quietly. “I was speaking to both of you.”

Jason looked at Bizarro. The big guy stood in front of one of the tanks, shoulders hunched, hands curled into trembling fists. Inside the glass floated something half-formed and awful: pale tissue, failed muscle, a face that had never become a face. A discarded attempt at life.

Bizarro stared at it like it was a mirror.

Jason’s stomach dropped.

“Hey,” Jason said, voice rougher than he meant it to be. “Big guy.”

Bizarro did not answer.

The emergency lights flickered red. Somewhere deeper in the facility, alarms wailed and died, wailed and died. The team they had taken down—mercenaries with LexCorp gear and enough illegal tech to make half the League grind their teeth—were unconscious or zip-tied three floors above.

The fight was over.

That was always when the real damage started.

You stepped closer, but not too close.

Jason noticed that too. You never crowded. Not unless someone needed your body between them and a threat. You moved like a warrior from some old carving, all discipline and grace, but you had a strange gentleness with wounded things.

Jason hated that he had noticed.

Bizarro lifted one hand and pressed it to the glass.

“Me am not that,” he said.

His voice was small.

Jason’s hand tightened around his helmet.

“No,” you said immediately. “You are not.”

Bizarro’s eyes shone red. Not heat vision. Not yet. Just feeling, too large for the body trying to hold it.

“Men in white coats say Bizarro am mistake.” His palm squeaked faintly against the glass. “Say not person. Say failed Superman. Say thing.”

Jason’s vision tunnelled.

Thing.

The word hit him somewhere old.

Crowbar. Bomb. Pit. Corpse. Asset. Liability. Problem.

Replacement.

He took one step forward.

You caught his wrist.

Jason nearly snapped at you. Nearly shoved you off. Nearly bared his teeth because touch was bad in places like this. Touch meant restraints. Touch meant scalpels. Touch meant someone else deciding what his body was for.

But your hand was warm. Steady. Not holding him back like a leash. Holding him like an anchor.

“Do not let their language become yours,” you said.

Jason laughed once, sharp and ugly. “You quoting your princess handbook at me now?”

You flinched.

It was tiny. Almost nothing.

Jason saw it anyway.

Your face closed for half a second before you smoothed it out, chin lifting with that Amazonian dignity you wore like polished armour.

Not princess.

Shit.

Jason knew that. He knew that. He knew what reporters called you, knew the way your jaw tightened when people tried to turn Wonder Woman’s protégé into something easier for them to swallow. Girl. Maiden. Princess. Amazon daughter.

Never son. Never boy. Never man.

His anger stumbled, tripped over shame, and landed hard. “I didn’t mean—”

“I know,” you said.

But you pulled your hand back.

Jason hated himself a little more.

Bizarro turned from the tank, distressed by the shift in the room even if he did not understand it all. “Red Him am mad at Wonder Boy?”

“No,” Jason said at once.

You looked at him.

His throat worked.

“No,” he repeated, quieter. “I’m mad at this place.”

Bizarro looked around at the shattered glass, the surgical tables, the drained tanks, the diagrams pinned to illuminated boards. Kryptonian DNA. Human trials. Cadmus-derived sequencing. Failed stabilization.

“Place am bad,” Bizarro said.

“Yeah,” Jason said. “Place am real bad.”

You moved past them both and stopped in front of the central observation window. Beyond it was a room with three reinforced chairs. Restraints. Needles. A helmet lined with wires.

Jason’s pulse spiked.

He knew, in the clean logical part of his brain, that he had never been in this room. He knew the Joker’s warehouse had not looked like this. He knew the Lazarus Pit had not smelled like this.

Trauma did not care about architecture.

His chest tightened.

Green flashed behind his eyes.

Not real. Not there. Not now.

His fingers twitched toward his gun.

Then your voice cut through the rising static.

“In Themyscira,” you said, “we are taught that the dead are sacred.”

Jason froze.

Bizarro blinked.

You did not turn around. Your reflection hovered faintly in the observation glass: bronze, red, gold, shadowed eyes. A boy raised on an island that did not know what to do with sons until you made yourself impossible to ignore.

“The dead are washed,” you continued. “Named. Honoured. The body is not treated as shameful because it has suffered. The spirit is not called broken because it has crossed a threshold the living fear.”

Jason’s mouth went dry.

You turned then.

Your gaze found Jason first.

“Men are arrogant,” you said. “They call return unnatural because they cannot command it. They call survival monstrous because it did not ask their permission.”

Bizarro’s breath hitched.

Jason could not move.

“They said you came back wrong,” you said to him.

Jason’s lips parted.

You stepped closer, slow and careful.

“They lied.”

The words cracked something open in him.

Jason wanted to laugh. Wanted to snarl. Wanted to say, You don’t know that. Wanted to show you every ugly piece of himself and dare you to keep that soft certainty.

Instead, he said, “I crawled out of my own grave.”

Your expression did not change. “I know.”

“I came back wrong.”

“No,” you said. “You came back angry.”

Jason’s jaw clenched.

“You came back wounded,” you continued. “You came back with blood in your mouth and no hand waiting at the edge of the dark. But wrong?” Your voice softened. “No, Jason. Death touched you. Men failed you. Madness followed you home. None of that made you wrong.”

Bizarro made a faint sound.

Jason looked away because he could not look at you anymore. Not with that much truth in your face. Not with his name in your mouth like it was something salvageable.

You turned to Bizarro next.

“And you,” you said.

Bizarro straightened a little, like a child before a teacher.

“You were made in a lab,” you said. “So was every sword worth naming.”

Jason let out a startled, broken breath that might have been a laugh if it had been less close to pain.

Bizarro frowned. “Bizarro am sword?”

“You are more than a sword,” you said. “But being made does not make you false. Creation is not a crime committed by the created.”

Bizarro’s face twisted. “They made Bizarro bad.”

“They made choices,” you said. “You made yourself kind.”

That did it.

Bizarro’s eyes filled.

Jason looked at the ceiling because, frankly, fuck this whole emotionally devastating Greek statue routine you had going on. It was unfair. Deeply rude. Possibly a war crime.

“Kind am…” Bizarro struggled with the word. His hands opened and closed. “Kind am hard.”

“Yes,” you said. “That is why it matters.”

Bizarro stared at you. Then he crossed the space in two huge steps and wrapped you in a hug.

Jason lunged forward instinctively. “Careful—”

“I’m all right,” you wheezed, though your boots had fully left the floor.

Bizarro immediately loosened his grip, horrified. “Bizarro am crushing Wonder Boy?”

“A little,” you said, voice strained. “But with noble intent.”

Jason barked a laugh before he could stop himself.

Bizarro set you down as delicately as if you were made of glass. You adjusted your cape with immense dignity, which would have been more convincing if your ribs had not audibly protested.

Jason smirked. “Noble intent, huh?”

You gave him a look. “Do not start.”

“Oh, I’m starting.”

“I will throw you through the nearest wall.”

“Promises, promises.”

Bizarro looked between you both, relief slowly replacing the misery on his face. “Red Him and Wonder Boy am doing flirting fight?”

Jason choked. You blinked. The silence that followed was so complete even the alarms seemed embarrassed.

“No,” Jason said.

At the same time, you said, “Absolutely not.”

Bizarro nodded with grave wisdom. “Yes. Flirting fight.”

Jason pointed at him. “You’re banned from reading Roy’s texts.”

“Roy say many smart things.”

“Roy says many things. Huge difference.”

You were smiling now. Not fully. Not without the lingering hurt around your eyes. But it was there, softening your face in the red emergency glow.

Jason caught himself looking.

He looked away fast.

Too fast.

Your smile changed.

Great. Fantastic. Perfect. He was going to die again, and this time the cause would be emotional visibility.

A distant crash echoed from below.

The three of you turned.

Jason’s body snapped back into mission mode with almost grateful speed. “Basement level.”

Kara would have heard through the floors. Clark would have scanned the whole building in a breath. Bruce would already have a schematic memorised, because Bruce was clinically incapable of having a normal hobby.

Jason had instinct, trauma, and a gun. Usually enough.

Bizarro’s eyes sharpened. “People?”

You tilted your head, listening. “Not footsteps. Something heavier.”

Another crash. Metal tearing.

Jason shoved his helmet back on. The red lenses lit over his eyes, turning the world into data and threat signatures.

“Containment unit,” he said. “They had something locked up.”

You drew your sword. It caught the emergency light like dawn splitting open.

Jason hated how good that looked.

“Then we free it,” you said.

“Or kill it,” Jason said.

You gave him a sidelong glance.

“What? I said or.”

Bizarro lifted into the air, only a few inches, fists clenched. “Bizarro am help.”

Jason checked his ammo. “Yeah, big guy. We know.”

The basement door had been sealed with three layers of reinforced alloy.

It was now bent outward.

Something inside screamed.

Not human. Not animal. Something between.

Jason felt the sound in his teeth.

You went still beside him.

“That,” you said, voice low, “is pain.”

Jason glanced at you. “You getting that from the scream, or do Amazons have a class?”

“Both.”

“Of course you do.”

Bizarro did not wait. He tore the doors open.

Inside, the basement was less lab and more tomb. The walls were marked with containment sigils Jason did not recognise, half science and half stolen magic. The floor was cracked in a circle around a central platform. Chains ran from the ceiling to the thing crouched there.

At first, Jason thought it was another clone.

Then it lifted its head. It had no face. Not really. Just a shifting impression of one, like someone had tried to sculpt grief out of smoke and failed. Its body flickered between forms—Kryptonian muscle, human bone, something green and slick beneath the skin. A failed experiment stitched from stolen DNA, Lazarus residue, and whatever Themysciran relic they had dragged into this hellhole.

The bronze fragment pulsed at the centre of its chest.

Your breath caught.

“That is from the Shrine of Asklepios,” you said.

Jason raised his gun. “Can we remove it without getting murdered?”

The creature screamed again.

The sound punched through the room.

Jason staggered.

For half a second, he was not in the basement.

He was fifteen. He was bleeding. He was dying.

He was back. He was always back.

The crowbar came down. His knees hit the floor.

Someone was shouting his name.

No.

Not shouting.

Saying.

“Jason.”

Warm hands on his face.

Not restraints.

Hands.

“Jason, look at me.”

He dragged in a breath that felt full of broken glass.

Red lenses. Static. Blood rushing in his ears.

The helmet was gone. When had the helmet come off?

Your face swam into focus above him. Eyes dark with worry. A smear of blood on your temple. Your bracers scratched. Your hands steady against his jaw.

“Stay here,” you said. “Do you hear me? Stay in the room with me.”

Jason tried to speak.

Nothing came out.

Behind you, Bizarro fought the creature, taking blow after blow without striking back hard enough to kill it. The room shook. Chains snapped. The bronze fragment flared.

“Jay,” you said, softer.

Nobody called him that.

Not like that. Not in a room like this.

His fingers closed around your wrist.

“You are not in the grave,” you said. “You are not in the warehouse. You are not in the Pit.”

Jason’s breath shuddered.

“You are in a very ugly basement,” you continued, voice calm despite the chaos, “with me, Bizarro, and one deeply unfortunate abomination.”

A laugh tore out of him.

It hurt.

Good. Pain was present. Pain was now.

“There you are,” you whispered.

Jason hated the tenderness in your voice. Hated needing it. Hated that his hand was still wrapped around your wrist like you were the only solid thing left in the world.

The creature slammed Bizarro into the wall.

Bizarro groaned but did not fall.

“Bizarro no hurt you!” he shouted at the creature. “Bizarro know hurting!”

The thing shrieked.

You turned.

The bronze in its chest pulsed again.

Jason saw the pattern before he fully steadied. “It’s cycling pain responses. That relic’s keeping it alive and hurting it.”

“Can you shoot it free?”

“Maybe.” He swallowed, forcing his hands to stop shaking. “Bad angle.”

“I can get you one.”

“No.”

You looked back at him.

Jason knew that look. Heroes got it right before doing something stupid and noble enough to make everyone else’s blood pressure a group project.

“No,” he repeated. “Don’t you dare.”

Your mouth curved slightly. “You are not in command of me.”

“I am absolutely in command of people not impaling themselves on science zombies.”

“An oddly specific command.”

“I contain multitudes. Stay down.”

You stood.

Jason cursed.

You moved before he could stop you, sprinting across the cracked floor toward Bizarro and the creature. Your lasso flashed gold in your hand, not thrown around the creature’s throat or limbs, but around the bronze shard itself.

The second the rope touched it, the room filled with light.

The creature screamed.

You screamed too.

Jason’s blood went cold.

Bizarro shouted your name.

The lasso went taut. Truth against stolen healing. Divine craft against corrupted science. The fragment burned green-gold in the creature’s chest, and you planted your feet, muscles shaking as you pulled.

Jason saw your face twist.

Not just pain.

Recognition.

The lasso connected truth. Forced it. Revealed it.

Whatever grief was inside that creature, you were feeling echoes of it.

Jason surged to his feet.

“Bizarro!” he shouted.

Bizarro understood. He wrapped both arms around the creature from behind, pinning it as gently as he could while it thrashed hard enough to crack the floor. “Bizarro am sorry,” he kept saying. “Bizarro am sorry, hurting one.”

Jason lifted his gun.

His hands shook once.

Then steadied.

You met his eyes across the room.

There was trust in your face.

Stupid. Reckless. Impossible trust.

Jason fired.

The bullet struck the base of the bronze shard.

Your lasso yanked. Bizarro held.

The shard tore free.

For one second, the creature’s body arched in total silence.

Then it collapsed.

The smoke-like flesh dissolved. The stolen forms flickered and vanished. What remained on the platform was small. Almost human. Almost nothing. A body that had never been allowed to become itself.

Bizarro knelt beside it.

Jason lowered his gun.

You stumbled.

He caught you before you hit the ground.

It was reflex. Instinct. Definitely not tenderness. Absolutely not.

Your weight dropped against his chest, and Jason’s arm went around your waist.

“You,” he said, voice furious because fear had nowhere else to go, “are a complete idiot.”

You blinked up at him, dazed. “You made the shot.”

“Not the point.”

“It was a very good shot.”

“Still not the point.”

Your smile was faint. “You are welcome.”

Jason stared at you. There was blood running from your nose. Your face was too pale. Your hand clutched the lasso like it was the only thing keeping you upright.

Something inside him snarled.

Not Pit rage. Not exactly.

Protection, maybe. Worse, probably.

Bizarro looked up from the platform. His eyes were wet again.

“Small hurting one am gone,” he said.

You gently pulled away from Jason, though he did not let go until he was sure your knees would hold.

You crossed to Bizarro’s side.

Jason followed, because apparently that was what he did now. Followed reckless myth boys into emotional minefields. 

The body on the platform was fading, not violently, but softly, like mist under morning light. Without the shard, there was nothing sustaining it. Nothing torturing it either.

You knelt.

Bizarro looked devastated. “We am too late.”

You reached out, hovering your hand above the fading form without touching.

“No,” you said. “We ended the pain.”

Bizarro’s lip trembled. “That am not enough.”

“No,” you agreed. “But sometimes it is what mercy can reach.”

Jason closed his eyes. He wished that sentence did not feel aimed at him.

For a while, the three of you stayed there until the last traces of the creature disappeared. No dramatic burst of light. No final words. No cinematic peace. Just absence.

Then you bowed your head.

Jason shifted, uncomfortable. “What are you doing?”

“A prayer.”

“To who?”

“Whoever will listen.”

Bizarro immediately bowed his head too, squeezing his eyes shut with intense concentration.

Jason did not pray.

Not anymore. Maybe not ever. But he stood still while you murmured words in Greek, low and musical, the language filling the ruined basement like oil poured over troubled water. He did not understand most of it. But he recognised names.

Hermes. Hades. Persephone.

Guides and thresholds. Roads beneath roads. Return, rest, remembrance.

When you finished, the silence felt less empty.

Bizarro opened his eyes. “Small hurting one am find home?”

“I hope so,” you said.

Jason looked at the scorch mark left behind. “Some things don’t get home.”

You turned to him.

He regretted speaking immediately.

Your expression was too knowing.

“Orpheus thought that too,” you said.

Jason groaned. “Here we go.”

You ignored him, because of course you did. “He went into the underworld for the one he loved. He sang so beautifully that even Hades listened. But on the path back, he looked behind him too soon and lost Eurydice again.”

“Yeah, I know the story. Depressing. Bad road trip.”

“Most people think the lesson is that he should not have looked back,” you said.

“Pretty sure that was the explicit instruction.”

You looked at him.

“I think the lesson is that love followed as far as it could,” you said. “And grief has spent centuries blaming him for being afraid.”

Jason had no answer.

Bizarro frowned. “Looking back am bad?”

“No,” you said. “Looking back is human.”

Jason’s chest tightened.

You looked at Bizarro, then at him.

“Both of you were made to feel like someone looked back and regretted you.”

The words landed with surgical precision.

Bizarro stared at the floor. Jason’s jaw worked. You stood between them in the broken basement, pale and bleeding and stubborn as a vow.

“But I do not regret you,” you said.

Jason’s eyes snapped to yours.

You seemed embarrassed by your own honesty but kept going anyway. Brave little idiot.

“I am glad you came back,” you told Jason.

His breath caught.

“And I am glad you were made,” you told Bizarro.

Bizarro made a broken sound and covered his face with one hand.

Jason wanted to run. He wanted to make a joke sharp enough to cut the moment apart. Wanted to say something cruel before softness got its hands around his throat. Wanted to remind you that he was not some mythic dead boy wandering beneath pomegranate trees. He was a crime lord with blood on his boots and a body count that could make saints weep.

But you already knew.

That was the problem.

You saw him anyway.

Bizarro reached for you first.

This time, he was careful when he hugged you.

Jason watched your arms go around Bizarro’s massive shoulders, watched you whisper something too quiet to hear. Bizarro nodded against you like a child being promised the monsters were gone, even though all three of you knew monsters were never gone.

Then Bizarro turned his head.

“Red Him need hug too.”

Jason took a step back. “Red Him absolutely does not.”

You looked over Bizarro’s shoulder. Your eyes were soft.

Jason pointed at you. “Don’t.”

“I said nothing.”

“You’re thinking loudly.”

“I was raised among philosophers.”

“Yeah, well, philosophise quieter.”

Bizarro released you and opened one arm toward Jason.

Jason stared. “No.”

Bizarro waited. You waited. The basement dripped somewhere in the distance.

Jason sighed with his entire damaged soul. “This is emotional extortion.”

“Yes,” you said.

“Amazon-sanctioned?”

“Obviously.”

Jason muttered several words Diana would not approve of and stepped into Bizarro’s hug.

Bizarro wrapped him up with one arm, then pulled you in with the other.

Jason went rigid. For exactly three seconds.

Then your shoulder pressed against his. Your cape brushed his arm. Bizarro’s enormous hand settled between Jason’s shoulder blades with impossible care.

And Jason—

Jason did not relax. That would be insane.

But something in him unclenched.

A fraction. Enough.

“Bizarro am not mistake,” Bizarro said, voice muffled.

“No,” you said.

“Wonder Boy am not wrong boy.”

Jason felt you go still.

Bizarro squeezed both of you gently. “People say wrong words. Bizarro hate. Wonder Boy am boy. Good boy. Strong boy. Friend boy.”

Your breath hitched.

Jason looked down at you.

Your face had crumpled.

Not fully. You were fighting it. Chin trembling, mouth pressed tight, eyes shining with the desperate fury of someone trying not to cry in a basement full of monsters because the monster had been kinder than the world.

Jason’s heart did something stupid.

Something dangerous. Something alive.

“Yeah,” he said, voice low. “He is.”

You looked at him.

Jason swallowed.

“He’s Wonder Boy,” he said. “Anyone’s got a problem with that, they can take it up with me.”

Your laugh came out broken. “That is your solution to everything.”

“Not true.”

“It is very true.”

“Sometimes they can take it up with Bizarro.”

Bizarro nodded solemnly. “Bizarro am excellent customer service.”

That startled a real laugh out of you.

Jason grinned despite himself.

The three of you stayed tangled together for another few seconds before Jason’s pride began filing formal complaints.

“All right,” he muttered. “Group hug’s over. Nobody tell Roy.”

“Roy already know,” Bizarro said.

Jason froze. “What does that mean?”

“Bizarro send picture.”

“You what?”

You looked horrified and delighted. “When?”

Bizarro proudly held up a cracked phone.

On the screen was a blurry, low-angle photo of Jason trapped in the hug, looking furious, while you looked emotional and Bizarro looked like he had won a Nobel Prize in friendship.

Jason stared.

Then he took a slow breath.

“Bizarro.”

“Red Him am welcome.”

“I’m going to throw that phone into the sun.”

“Kara am catch it.”

You lost it then, laughing so hard you had to brace a hand against Jason’s arm.

Jason told himself he only let you because you were injured.

Obviously. No other reason.

By the time you made it back to the roof, dawn was bruising the edge of the city.

Metropolis looked different at sunrise. Softer. Less smug. The glass towers caught the light and scattered it until the whole skyline seemed briefly made of gold.

Bizarro sat on the ledge with his feet dangling over the street, watching the sun come up like it was personally doing him a favour.

Jason leaned against a broken ventilation unit, arms crossed, helmet beside him.

You stood near the edge, lasso coiled at your hip, cape moving in the wind.

Your nose had stopped bleeding. Mostly.

Jason was trying very hard not to stare at the blood still drying above your lip.

He failed.

“You need medical,” he said.

You glanced back. “So do you.”

“I’m allergic.”

“To medical care?”

“To being perceived by Alfred.”

“Coward.”

“Strategically cautious.”

“Coward.”

Bizarro raised a hand. “Bizarro am also coward of Alfred.”

Jason pointed at him. “See? Survival instinct.”

You smiled, but it faded as you looked out over the sunrise.

Jason recognised the shift.

The mission was done. The banter had burned off. Now came the quiet. The part where the things said underground followed everyone back into the light.

He hated that part.

He joined you anyway.

For a while, neither of you spoke.

Then you said, “I meant what I said.”

Jason looked at the city. “You said a lot.”

“That I am glad you came back.”

His throat tightened. “Don’t.”

“I am not asking you to answer.”

“Good.”

“I am only saying it again because men like you tend to believe a truth only counts if it hurts.”

Jason’s mouth twisted. “Men like me?”

“Dead boys. Soldiers. Sons of fathers who loved badly. Men who think tenderness is a trap because it has teeth.”

Jason stared at you. You stared back.

There was no pity in your face. 

That was what made it unbearable. Pity, Jason could handle. Pity was easy to spit at. Fear was easier. Disgust, easiest of all.

But reverence?

No. Absolutely not.

“You always talk like that?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Exhausting.”

“I have been told it is part of my charm.”

“By who?”

“Dick.”

“Doesn’t count. He thinks glitter has tactical value.”

“It does.”

Jason snorted.

Then the silence returned. Softer this time.

You looked down at your hands. “When I came out, some of the Amazons did not know what to call me.”

Jason’s head turned. You kept your gaze on the sunrise.

“They were not cruel. Not most of them. But confusion can cut even when no one sharpens it.” Your thumb brushed over the edge of your bracer. “I spent years feeling like I had become a question my home had not prepared to answer.”

Jason said nothing. He knew better than to interrupt a wound while it was deciding whether to open.

“Diana never hesitated,” you said. “She called me her brother-in-arms before anyone else called me son. She trained me with the heroes’ rites. Old forms. Old oaths. Stories the island had kept but never expected to use for someone like me.”

“Someone like you,” Jason repeated.

Your mouth curved sadly. “Yes.”

He hated that phrase. Someone like you.

People only said it when they were trying to turn a person into a category from a distance safe enough not to feel responsible.

You looked at him then.

“I know it is not the same,” you said. “What happened to you. What happened to Bizarro. What happened to me. They are not the same wound.”

“No,” Jason said.

“But there is a room they all lead to.”

The sunrise caught in your eyes.

“The room where the world says, You are not what we ordered.”

Jason’s chest went tight.

Below, the city woke. Cars. Voices. Sirens in the distance. Life, indifferent and miraculous.

“I hate that room,” Jason said.

“So do I.”

Bizarro’s voice came from behind you both. “Bizarro smash room?”

Jason huffed. “Yeah, buddy. We smash the room.”

You smiled faintly. “And then?”

Jason looked at you.

It was a real question.

Not tactical. Not rhetorical.

What came after breaking the place that named you wrong?

Jason did not know.

He was good at destruction. Good at vengeance. Good at walking into the underworld with guns loaded and coming out covered in someone else’s blood.

He was less good afterwards.

Bizarro slid off the ledge and joined you both. “Then build better room.”

You looked up at him, expression soft.

Jason blinked.

Bizarro seemed almost embarrassed by his own wisdom. “Room with snacks.”

You laughed. “Naturally.”

“And chairs not with straps.”

Jason’s humour faded.

You reached out and touched Bizarro’s wrist.

“Yes,” you said. “No straps.”

Bizarro nodded firmly. “And signs. Signs say Red Him am not wrong. Wonder Boy am boy. Bizarro am person.”

Jason’s eyes burned.

He looked away fast.

You did not.

“Good signs,” you said, voice thick.

“Best signs,” Bizarro agreed.

Jason cleared his throat. “Spelt correctly?”

Bizarro considered. “Maybe.”

“Good enough.”

The sun climbed higher.

For a moment, standing between the two of them, you thought of all the myths you had been raised on.

Orpheus singing beneath the earth. Persephone eating seeds and making a kingdom out of captivity. Hyacinthus blooming from blood. Odysseus coming home in rags and being known by the scar.

So many stories about return. So many stories about transformation. So many stories people misunderstood because they thought tragedy meant failure.

But maybe tragedy was only the place where the song broke.

Not where it ended.

You looked at Jason Todd, who had crawled from his grave and still stood between the living and the cruel. You looked at Bizarro, made by violent hands, choosing gentleness anyway.

Underworld boys, you thought.

Not monsters. Not mistakes.

Sacred. Changed. Still here.

Jason caught you looking. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“That’s a lie.”

“Yes.”

“You gonna explain?”

“No.”

He narrowed his eyes. “You’re thinking myth stuff again.”

“Possibly.”

“Is it insulting?”

“No.”

“Then it’s probably worse.”

You smiled. “I was thinking that people fear what returns from the underworld because it proves the door opens both ways.”

Jason went very still.

Bizarro frowned thoughtfully. “Door am rude.”

Jason laughed under his breath, but his eyes stayed on you.

“And you?” he asked.

You blinked. “Me?”

“What are you proving?”

The question struck more gently than you expected.

You looked down at the eagle on your chest. The symbol still felt heavy some days. Still complicated. Still made by a legacy the world insisted on calling womanhood, even when you stood beneath it as a son.

But here, with them, it did not feel like an ill-fitting inheritance.

It felt like a torch.

“I suppose,” you said slowly, “I am proving that a son can be raised by Amazons and still carry their truth.”

Jason’s expression shifted.

Bizarro smiled. “Wonder Boy am good proof.”

Your throat tightened.

Jason looked at your chest, then at your face. “Yeah,” he said. “He is.”

You breathed out.

The sunrise warmed your armour.

Behind you, the blacksite smoked. Ahead of you, the city glittered.

Jason picked up his helmet and tucked it under his arm. “Come on. We need to clear out before the capes with better PR show up.”

“You are a cape with terrible PR,” you said.

“I worked hard for that.”

Bizarro looked proud. “Red Him am famous.”

“Infamous.”

“Best famous.”

Jason sighed. “Sure, big guy.”

You started toward the fire escape.

Jason fell into step beside you. Bizarro floated above, humming tunelessly to himself.

After a few steps, Jason nudged your shoulder with his.

Not hard. Not careless.

A small touch. Deliberate.

“You scared me down there,” he said gruffly.

You glanced at him. “You were scared?”

“No.”

“Jason.”

He scowled. “Fine. Maybe. A normal amount.”

“Of course.”

“Don’t do that again.”

“Risk myself to save someone?”

“Bleed out of your face while making eye contact like a tragic statue.”

Your laugh startled a flock of pigeons from the next rooftop.

Jason’s mouth twitched.

“I will try,” you said.

“Try harder.”

You looked at him, soft again in that dangerous way.

“I will,” you said. “But only if you try to believe me.”

Jason’s steps slowed. “About what?”

“You know what.”

He did. Of course he did.

That he was not wrong. That coming back had not made him unworthy. That anger was not the same as monstrosity. That someone could look at the grave dirt under his fingernails and still be glad he had climbed.

Jason looked away.

The old reflex rose: deflect, deny, disappear.

But Bizarro drifted above you both, humming. You walked at Jason’s side, not pushing, not demanding. The morning opened gold across the city like some ridiculous blessing none of them had asked for.

Jason exhaled.

“I’ll try,” he said.

The words were rough. Barely there.

But you heard them.

Your smile was small and devastating.

“Good.”

Jason rolled his eyes. “Don’t look so pleased.”

“I am extremely pleased.”

“Tone it down.”

“No.”

“Figures.”

Bizarro swooped lower. “Red Him and Wonder Boy am flirting fight again.”

Jason did not choke this time. Progress, maybe.

You grinned. “Perhaps.”

Jason stared at you. Bizarro gasped.

You walked ahead, cape snapping behind you, looking far too pleased with yourself.

Jason stood frozen for half a second before catching up.

“Perhaps?” he demanded.

You did not look back. “Keep up, Red Him.”

Bizarro laughed, loud and bright enough to shake birds from every rooftop on the block.

Jason muttered curses under his breath, but he followed.

Of course he followed.

The underworld had doors. So did morning.

If im gonna be entirely honest, things have been goin real shit for me mentally. Its hard being queer in an environment that doesn't support people like me. I miss my friends but they're all so far away and looking for jobs is stressfullll ugh

tho drawing colourfull horses eases the mind sometimes :]