The sterile, chemical scent of rubbing alcohol and heavy-duty floor cleaner was the first thing that broke through the fog. Then came the steady, rhythmic beep of a heart monitor.

When your vision finally cleared, you weren't in your compy bedroom, or a cozy safehouse. You were staring up at the tiles of a fluorescent-lit hospital ceiling. The light was harsh, casting a sickly hue over everything. A thick IV line was taped to the back of your right hand, pumping cold fluids into your veins. There was no tank, no zip-ties, and no Joker.

But he was there.

"Don't - don't move. Please."

The voice didn't come from a mechanical speaker filter. It was rough and sandpapered by exhaustion and crying, shaking with a desperate panic that made your heart beat frantically faster.

Your head snapped to the right, your neck stiff and aching. Your left shoulder was bound in an orthopedic immobilizer and pinned down with surgical pins.

Jason wasn't sitting in the uncomfortable vinyl armchair provided for hospital guests. He was on the floor, curled up against the bedside cabinet. He looked entirely unraveled. He had discarded the blood-splattered Red Hood armor. He had changed into clean clothes, he was dressed in a pair of gray sweatpants and a plain black t-shirt. His eyes were so bloodshot and swollen they looked bruised, and a poorly stitched cut ran along his jawline.

The moment you made eye contact, a massive wave of pure panic crashed over you. Suddenly, the hospital room didn't feel safe; it felt like a trap. All you could see was the image of him standing over the Joker's men and the sound of bones snapping.

You tried to push yourself to the opposite side of the mattress, your right hand desperately reaching out to the safety rail, but the movement shattered your collarbone, and a loud sob tore from your throat.

"Hey, hey - look at me, I'm not moving! I'm staying right here," Jason's voice cracked into a high, desperate tone as he panicked. He pushed his back against the hospital wall, shrinking his massive frame as much as humanly possible. He held his bare, trembling hands out. "You're going to rip the stitches out of your collarbone. I'm right here. I won't touch you. I swear it, I won't step a single inch closer. Just don't move your shoulder."

Tears immediately started spilling over your eyelashes and running down your cheeks.

"Get out." You whispered, "Get out of here. Call the police."

A devestated sob ripped out of Jason's chest at the words you spat. He buried his face into his trembling hands. "They're outside,' He wept, his voice muffled. "The police... They think you were caught in a crossfire between rival crews in Crime alley. I fixed the paperwork. You're listed under a fake name so nobody can track you here. No villains. No capes. You're safe from them. I swear on my life, you're safe."

"Safe? Just like I was supposed to be in my apartement before I was kidnapped?" You let out a weak, hysterical laugh. "You looked me in the eyes for months, Jason. You ate at my table. You slept in my bed. You let me talk about my day, about the books, about how much I love... how much I loved you"

"No... please don't say that- Don't say you don't-"

"And you knew! You knew what you were. You knew who was hunting you."

"I thought I had a handle on it," He begged, his eyes holding a desperate craving for a scrap of mercy. He began to drag himself forward across the floor, crawling on his knees, dragging his heavy boots behind him until he was at the foot of your hospital bed. He grabbed the metal frame so hard his knuckles turned white.

"I swear to you, I kept my operations entirely away from your district. I never took the secondary phones to your place. I never checked the drop-points within three miles of you. I thought if I kept the blood off my clothes before I walked through your door, It wouldn't touch you."

"But it did," you choked out, your right hand gripping the hospital sheet so tightly your knuckles turned white. "The Joker knew me, Jason. He knew my address. He laughed at me because I thought you were just a nice guy who worked random jobs… He made me feel like an idiot before he broke my bones."

"I am an idiot," he sobbed, slamming his forehead against the metal footboard of your bed, his large frame trembling. "I was so starved for something I wasn't meant to have. I haven't felt like a real person since I was a kid, and when I was with you, everything was better. I was selfish. I dragged you down into the gutter with me because I was too weak to stay away from you."

He slowly raised his head, his eyes burning with rage as he stared at your left shoulder.

"I'll kill him," Jason whispered, a flash of the raging Red Hood bleeding into his voice before he caught himself and softened his tone,not wanting to scare you further. "No, no – I mean... I'll handle it. I'll give it up. Whatever you want. I'll leave the territory to the gangs, I'll pack a bag, and I'll leave Gotham tonight. I'll go across the country. I'll never pick up a gun again. Just please... don't look at me like I'm… like I'm him."

You wanted to feel the soft, comforting love you had for him forty-eight hours ago. But when you look at him, all you could see was Red Hood's massive silhouette, reminding you of the double life he hid from you.

"I don't care what you do with your guns, Jason," you said, your voice lacking of the warmth he was desperately begging for. "And I don't want your promises. You don't get to play the hero who runs away to save me when you're the reason I ended up here in the first place."

"What... what do you want me to do?" He whispered, his hands falling limp to his sides.

"You're going to stay in Gotham. And you're going to pay for this hospital. You're going to use whatever dirty, blood-soaked money you have to pay for the physical therapy I'm going to need. You're going to pay for a new apartment, a safer one."

Jason nodded frantically. "Yes. Yes, absolutely. Anything. Every cent I have, it's yours. I'll set up a blind trust. You'll never have to worry about a medical bill or rent for the rest of your life. I promise you-"

"And then," You interrupted, your right hand sliding down to rest flat against the matress, far away from where he could reach. "You are going to disappear from my life."

The words caused a physical reaction in him. Jason froze, his chest heaving as if the air had been violently sucked out of the room. He reached a hand out, desperately craving a touch, anything to keep him grounded.

"No," he whispered, a pathetic, begging sound. "Please. Don't do that. Let me stay. Let me sit in the hall. I won't come into the room. I'll just sit outside the door and make sure nobody touches you. Let me do that much. Please."

"No," you said, looking him dead in the eyes, refusing to soften under his tears. "Every time I look at your face, I hear the Joker laughing. Every time I hear your voice, I feel the water going into my lungs. You aren't my protector, Jason. You are the reason I'm hurt and in this bed."

Jason let out a muffled, ugly sound of agony. He didn't try to argue anymore. He didn't use his strength or his power to demand your forgiveness. He was destroyed by the realization that he had permanently ruined the only good thing he had ever touched.

You turned your head away from him, staring hard outside the window. Eventually, you heard the shuffling of his heavy boots against the floor. He didn't say another word. He just dragged himself up, keeping his head bowed low, and slipped out of the room quietly.

For four months, Jason obeyed your orders. Physically, at least.

The anonymous trust was set up within forty-eight hours. The hospital bills vanished, paid in full by a ghost corporation. A private physical therapist was hired, paid triple her normal rate to come directly to the new, highly secured high-raise apartment Jason had purchased for you in one of the few clean, well-lit districts of upper Gotham.

Jason kept his word. He stayed out of your sight. He didn't call. He didn't text. He didn't show up at your window.

But he didn't disappear entirely. You weren't stupid. You knew the two security guards in the lobby didn't look like standard high-raise concierges. You knew the local grocer didn't suddently decide to offer complimentary delivery service that explicitly included the tea you liked and the exact brand dark chocolate you used to eat when you were stressed.

He was keeping his promise to say away - physically, but he was ghosting around the perimeter of your life. And you hated it. You hated that even in his absence, the weight of Red Hood was still dictating the boundaries of your safety.

The first true shift happened on a freezing Tuesday evening in late October.

The physical therapy session had been brutal. The therapist had pushed the scar tissue in your left shoulder to its absolute limit, leaving you shaking from the pain, and extrememly exhausted. Your right hand was trembling so hard you could barely move your fingers to retrieve your keys from your purse.

As you pulled them out, your grip failed. The heavy keys clattered loudly against the floor of the hallway. A low, frustrated sob escaped your throat. You leaned your forehad against your apartment door, trying to breathe through the pain.

Your eyes snapped open as you heard the heavy steel stairwell door pushed open, and every muscle in your body went completely rigid, the terror of the warehouse coming back to life in your chest.

Jason stood near the stairwell door, ten feet away. He looked different than he had in the hospital, but he still didn't look like the old Jason from the library. He was wearing his leather jacket, but not the crimson helmet. It was clipped to his belt, and his face was completely bare. He looked exhausted, like he had been living on caffeine and adrenaline.

"Don't scream. It's just me," His voice a breathless whisper. He immediately slammed his own back against the hallway wall, raising his hands, palms open and empty to show he wasn't a threat. "I wasn't coming to your door. I was just checking the stairwell. The precinct radio said a crew from the East Side was moving weapons through the blocks nearby. I just... I had to make sure the floor was clear. I'm leaving now."

Just then, his eyes caught the keys lying on the floor. Jason sank down onto one knee. He reached out picking up the keys, extending his arm, offering them while still keeping his hand as far from your personal space as possible.

You looked at the keys in his hand. Then you looked at his face.

The breakdown from the hospital floor was gone. He had accepted he was a monster in your eyes. He had accepted you would never forguve him, but was still stubbornly choosing to keep watch in the dark because he simply didn't know how to exist anywhere else.

"You're an idiot, Todd," you whispered, your voice shaking with a mix of anger and sheer exhaustion.

Jason flinched, a bitter twist appearing at the corner of his lips. "Yeah. That's a verified fact at this point."

"Did you tell the grocer to bring those boxes?" you asked, keeping your distance.

He swallowed hard, his adam's apple moving tightly in his throat. He wouldn't look you in the eye for more than a second, his gaze dropped to the floor. "The chocolate? Yeah. I… I knew you had a bad session scheduled for today. I knew you were going to be in a lot of pain. I thought… I didn't think you'd know it was me."

"The grocer doesn't know I only eat that stuff when I want to cry." You said, the coldness in your voice disappearing just a fraction.

Jason let out a sharp breath that sounded like a choked sob. He didn't move from his knee. He stayed down, completely submissive, waiting for whatever sentence you were going to hand down.

"I don't forgive you," You said, making sure your voice was firm and unyielding. You needed him to understand that the damage was permanent. "My shoulder still hurts when I lift it. I still can't sleep without a light on because the dark looks like the inside of that tank. You dragged the worst part of this city right into my life, and a few months of paying rent doesn't fix that."

"I know," he said softly, his head bowing until his dark hair fell over his eyes. "I don't expect it to. I don't deserve it. If..." He hesitated,"If you want me to fire the guards, if you want me to stop checking the floors... just say the word. I'll take my hands off everything. I'll let you go."

You stared at him, even if the memory of Red Hood was warred with the sight of the man kneeling in front of you, even if you didn't want him back in your life, even if you couldn't handle the lies, or the violence, or the danger; you don't want to live in absolute fear of him either.

You took two slow steps forward and you extended your right hand, your palm flat and open.

Jason carefully leaned forward, stretching his arm out to drop the keys into your hand, ensuring his skin didn't brush against yours by even a fraction of a millimeter.

"Keep the guards," you murmured, looking down at the keys before looking back at his face. "And if you're going to keep buying the chocolate and the tea... you can leave them on the doormat yourself. You don't have to pay the concierge to do it."

Jason’s eyes widened with a sudden spark of hope. He nodded slowly, his chest heaving as he fought down another wave of emotion.

"On the doormat," he repeated, his voice thick and raw. "Just the mat. I won't knock."

"Okay." You whispered.

As you opened the door to your apartment and went inside, Jason was still on one knee, his hands resting on his thighs, watching you with a quiet look. He knew he didn't deserve to step inside.

You were still angry, and you were still hurt. But as you set your keys on the counter, the heavy panic in your chest finally started to ease.

You tried moving your hands to rub the burning sensation from your eyes, but your arms wouldn't budge. Sharp pain flared in your wrists. You were sitting on a cold, damp rusted metal chair, your arms pinned roughly behind. You can feel the thick, industrial zip-ties dug directly into your skin, cutting off the circulation until your fingers felt numb.

The space around you was massive. An abandoned warehouse swallowed by dark shadows. The only light in the entire building came from a single, harsh halogen spotlight positioned directly above your head. It beamed down with blinding intensity, trapping you inside a circle of light while the rest of the world remained pitch black.

You tried to take a deep breath to call out, to scream for help, to ask for Jason, but your lungs felt heavy, still reeling from whatever had been on that cloth in your kitchen.

"Oh, would you look at that," A voice rasped from the darkness just beyond the harsh ring of light. It was a high and theatrical sound that made the hairs on your arms stand up instantly. "The audience is awake! And right on time for opening night."

Slow footsteps clicked against the cold concrete, getting closer to where you were tied up. Your heart violently hammered against your ribs, a frantic thudding that echoed in your ears as a figure stepped into the light. He was exactly as the news broadcast had described him. He wore a tailor-made purple suit, a garish green silk tie, and a flower pinned to his lapel. His face, however, is what made your breath get stuck in your throat. His skin was painted a bleached white, contrasted by bruised circles around his manic eyes and a jagged red grin carved so wide across his face it looked like an open wound.

The Joker.

In his right hand, he swung a heavy, full-sized iron crowbar. The metal rang out with a sickening clang each time the tip tapped against the concrete floor.

"You know, Jaybird must think you're soft," The Joker spoke, his voice dropping into a whisper as he leaned down. The sharp scent of cheap hair dye and chemical cosmetics filled your senses. He reached out, tapping the cold, jagged tip of the crowbar right beneath your chin, forcing your head up until you were staring directly into the madness of his eyes. "He really thought keeping you tucked away in Crime alley would hide you. But I love a good sequel, don't you? I think you're going to break beautifully."

You pulled away from the metal tool, your teeth chattering from sheer terror and the cold spreading through the warehouse. Your mind was racing, desperate and completely confused. Why was the joker here? Why did he care about Jason? Jason was just a civilian. He worked odd jobs. None of what's happening made sense.

"He'll find you," You choked out, your voice sounding small against the vastness of the empty room. "Jason will call the police. The Bat… Batman will find you."

The joker froze for a fraction of a second, the manic grin vanished, replaced by a terrifyingly vacant expression. Then, he threw his head back and laughed. It was a ridiculously loud sound that echoed off the walls of the warehouse, bouncing back at you until you could almost feel your ears ring.

"The police? The Batman?!" He sprung around his heel, swinging the crowbar through the air like a conductor's baton. "Oh, that's priceless! She doesn't know! Oh, the little bird kept his prettier feathers completely hidden! She thinks he's just a regular citizen!"

He leaned down into your face, his grin stretching so wide it looked ready to tear around the corners.

"Oh, my dear, your precious Jason isn't going to call the cops. He is the cop, the judge and the executioner around here! He'll tear this city apart because he thinks he's a big, scary crime lord now! He thinks he has something to lose. But the look on his face when he realizes he's just a few minutes too late… again? Oh that's comedy gold!"

Your head spun. Crime lord? Big and scary? None of it made sense. You thought of Jason holding a worn copy of his favorite book, his thumb gently brushing your hair out of your face, his soft voice as he told you not to worry about him. It didn't track. It couldn't be.

"But a story needs structure," The Joker murmured, his face suddenly dropping into a chillingly, serious expression. He dragged the heavy crowbar across the concrete. "And Jaybird forgot his roots. He forgot where he came from. He forgot the feeling of the iron. So, I think it's only fair that you help him remember. If you lived what he lived… Well, then you two will have something to talk about over tea, won't you?

Then, he raised the crowbar, but you didn't look away. You couldn't.

The first blow didn't hit your face - The Joker was careful enough for that, he wanted Jason to still be able to recognize you. But it shattered your left shoulder. A sickening crack echoed through the space, followed immediately by a blinding explosion of agony that tore a horrified scream from your throat. The chair tilted, crashing sideways onto the floor, pinning your broken shoulder beneath your weight.

"One!" The Joker shouted gleefully, standing over you. "A bit sloppy on the delivery, but excellent vocal projection from the audience!"

You lay on the freezing concrete that's pressing against your cheek, sobbing, as you felt everything spinning. Every breath you took felt like inhaling smoke. Your shoulder was on fire, a slow, painful burning that made it impossible to move. Through the haze of pain, you heard him dragging the iron again. You braced yourself, closing your eyes, accepting that you're about to experience the same wave of grinding agony a second time, waiting for the impact that would end it all.

But the blows didn't come. Instead, a heavy, mechanical hum groaned through the darkness, interrupting what might've been your last moment.

"Oh, look at that!" We're ahead of schedule!" The Joker clapped his hands. "Time for the intermission!"

His rough, gloved hands grabbed the frame of your chair, dragging you across the concrete. You groaned, the painful sensation in your shoulder flaring until your vision went entirely dark for a few seconds. When they cleared, you weren't under the spotlight anymore.

You were looking at a massive, vertical glass tank, about eight feet tall, filled to the brim with murky harbor water. A metal grate hung open at the top, connected to a heavy pulley system.

The boy wonder always had a flare for the dramatic,"  The Joker sighed dramatically, gesturing to the tank. "Last time, he went out in a blaze of glory, literally! A beautiful, roaring fire. Boom! But for you, my dear? Let's see how his little anchor handles the deep end. From fire to water... oh, I just love a good theme!" 

Before you could understand what he was talking about, before you could even scream, the henchmen lifted the chair - and you with it, slicing the zip-ties on your legs just enough to shove you vertically into the glass cage. The metal grate shut over your head and a padlock clicked into place.

Water rushed over your face, but your instincts took over. You tried to kick frantically against the bottom of the tank, but the movement sent a jolting spike of agony through your shattered shoulder. You couldn't swim since your wrists were still tied behind you, you could only flail, your head breaking the surface for a fraction of a second to gasp a mouthful of air before sinking back down. 

Everything looked blurry through the thick glass. You could see the Joker standing there, holding a stopwatch, his painted red smile stretched into a silent caricature of amusement.

Jason, your mind screamed into the water, a desperate, silent plea. Jason, please.

The gunfire started instantly. The joker's men didn't even have time to yell a warning before a series of deafening, rapid fire cracks echoed off the metal doors. Bodies hit the floor one after the other, but your eyes couldn't focus through the thick glass of the tank.

Your lungs were completely flat. The freezing harbor water was suffocating you as your body slowly gave up the fight. Your head drifted downward, your hair floating around your face, and your hands were uselessly pinned behind your back by the metal frame of the chair.

Through the murky, gray depth, you saw a massive silhouette cut through the remaining guards, but as he reached the foot of the platform, Joker stepped directly into his path, the iron crowbar was raised high, his face held an expression of pure manic glee.

"Jaybird! You're just in time for the final curtain!"

An armored hand intercepted the iron bar mid-swing, wrenching the tool out of the Joker's grip, he threw it across the room and slammed the clown violently into a steel pillar. Red Hood's massive hand crushed his windpipe, pinning him off the floor.

"I will paint this room with your blood." His voice growled, so full of rage.

The Joker choked out a rattling laugh, pointing a trembling, white-gloved hand toward the glass cage behind them. "Then.. she… drowns…"

Red Hood froze, looking back through the glass. Your movement had stopped completely. Your body was floating, and your eyes were closed. If he stayed to finish what he's doing, you would die. If he left to break the glass, the devil would run.

It wasn't a choice. It was never a choice.

He struck the thick glass once, and a second time, and a third time. With a deafening roar, the front of the tank shattered into a million pieces. The Red Hood didn't care about the flying shards. He threw himself forward, his massive frame sliding across the wet concrete, catching your limp body before you could slam into the hard ground.

He immediately tore the industrial zip-ties from your wrists with a single, desperate pull. And as your system felt the sudden absence of pressure, and the freezing air slamming into your face, a cough tore through your chest. You rolled onto your side, vomiting cold water, your lungs burning like fire as they begged for more oxygen.

However, the moment you tried to shift your weight, a spike of pain shot from your left shoulder straight through your body. You curled into a tight ball on the wet floor as you let out a weak, choked whimper.

"I've got you," A voice buzzed over you.

You forced your eyes open, blinking away the tears mixed with the dirty water. Standing over you wasn't Jason. It was a terrifying figure dressed in tactical gear, his suit splattered with fresh blood, wearing the unmistakable crimson mask. 

The Red Hood.

A wave of pure panic crashed over your brain. Your mind, entirely fractured by the assault you had just survived, didn't recognize Red hood as a savior. It saw another predator. It saw the butcher of Crime alley.

As those large, blood-stained hands reached down to pull you against his chest, every instinct in your body screamed for you to run.

"No! No, stay away…" You cried, dragging your body backwards across the concrete, completely ignoring the screaming agony in your shoulder. You were hyperventilating , you couldn't breathe. All you could see was the blood on his chest, and that blank red mask.

He stopped, his frame went completely rigid. 

For a moment, the only sound in the empty warehouse was your shallow wheezing. The helmet tilted downward, staring at your trembling, scared form. You were shrinking away from him the exact same way people shrank away from the monsters of Gotham.

Slowly, he raised his hands to the base of his jaw, and with a pressurized hiss, he lifted the crimson helmet off his head leaving it to clatter to the floor. Beneath it was a pale face. His dark hair was plastered to his forehead. His eyes were wide, filled with a heartbreaking mixture of guilt and terror.

It was Jason.

"Sweetheart," He whispered, his real voice cracking. It was the soft voice from the library. The voice that argued over Jane Austen. "It's me. It's just me. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"He's an insufferable, self-righteous bore," you muttered, not quite realizing you'd spoken aloud until the spine of the book creaked all of a sudden.

The man lowered the book just enough for his sharp intense blue gaze to lock onto yours. "Pardon?"

"Edmund Bertram," You said, gesturing vaguely with your pen. "He spends three-quarters of the novel insisting he knows what's morally best for everyone around him while falling headfirst for someone who repeatedly proves she doesn't share his values. Then he spends so long chasing Mary Crawford that he nearly overlooks the person who's understood him all along. He's Austen's most frustrating hero."

"He's not a saint," the man said, finally looking up. His eyes were startlingly blue, too intense for a place that smelled this much like old paper. "He's a man trying to become one in a house where everyone else mistakes status for character. Fanny's the only person who sees the difference from the beginning. Edmund's just stubborn enough to believe Mary Crawford might."

"He tries to dictate her conscience," You shot back. "He's a hypocrite."

"He's a man trying to find a moral compass in a house full of people who think money replaces a soul." He growled, his voice low enough to make the shelves seem quieter. "Mary isn't evil. She's charming enough that he convinces himself her values will eventually match the woman he wants her to be. That's the tragedy. He keeps believing in the version of her that never actually existed."

You stared at him, unbelieving. "You make him sound tragic."

"He is."

"He's still insufferable."

One corner of his mouth twitched. "Those aren't mutually exclusive.” The silence stretched between you. Then he added, almost as an afterthought, "Besides, you don't have to like someone to understand why they became who they are." He just gave you a boring look that suggested he found your entire existence slightly inconvenient, tucked the book under his massive arm, and walked out without another word.

You hated him instantly. You thought he was arrogant and entirely wrong about nineteenth-century literature.

You also suspected,with no small amount of annoyance, that he would be back next Thursday.

The second time it happened, it was over Persuasion.

He was sitting at your table. He didn't ask, he just dropped a heavy duffel bag on the floor and pulled out a notebook that looked like he owned it for years.

"Captain Wentworth is a coward." You said, setting down your coffee with a click.

He didn't even look up from his notes. "Wentworth spent eight years believing the woman he loved chose everyone else's opinion over him. He has every right to be angry."

"He wrote her a letter because he couldn't face her!"

"He wrote her a letter because he'd spent years convincing himself he'd stopped loving her," the man barked, finally looking up. "Then he heard her say one sentence and realized he'd been lying to himself the whole time. What exactly was he supposed to say after that?" The anger in his eyes was defensive, a thick wall he threw up because the book hit something raw inside him. "You think it's easy coming back from the sea to find the person who gave up on you still sitting in the same room, looking like nothing changed?"

You blinked, the heat of the argument dying in your throat as you caught the small, white scar crossing his right eyebrow. "I... no. I suppose it isn't."

If he was surprised by your compliance, he didn't show. He simply cleared his throat, his broad shoulders dropping a bit. "Jason," he muttered, reaching out a hand that was twice the size of yours, the knuckles dark with old bruising, probably the same ones you saw the first time you met him.

That was the day the war turned into a treaty. Thursdays became an unwritten rule. You learned that Jason read with the intensity of a man trying to diffuse a bomb. He studied sentences like clues, looking for some hidden logic to a world that clearly hadn't given him any. You learned he liked his coffee black with no sugar, that he always sat with his back to the wall, and that he held a strangely beautiful, poetic mind hidden beneath the layers of Crime alley leather.

The transition from the library to the diner across the street was seamless.

It happened on a rainy day Thursday when the library's radiator finally gave out, forcing the staff to close the north wing for emergency construction. Jason hadn't asked if you wanted to go, he had simply muttered "Coffee's terrible across the street, but it's dry." 

It wasn't officially a date. You told yourself that three times as you watched the neon sign of the diner buzz against the fog. But sitting in an old vinyl booth, you realized the silence between you had shifted, it wasn't uncomfortable. It was the kind that allowed you to look for the magical spark every time his blue eyes met yours over the rim of the ceramic mug. You felt it in the electric jolt that traveled up your arm whenever your fingers accidentally brushed while passing a book back and forth.

You stared at each other, coffee mugs and books forgotten. The air smelled of leather soaked rain and burnt hazelnut, a mix that made your head spin just enough to make you brave, to have the courage to do what your mind was telling you. 

You slowly leaned forward, sliding your hand across the table to his side. Jason didn't flinch, but you caught the exact moment his shoulders shifted beneath his wet leather jacket as he cut down the remaining distance separating you, to nothing. He leaned in, his massive frame completely blocking out the rest of the noisy diner until his face was merely inches from yours.

His eyes drifted down, his intense gaze locked onto your lips for a second. Your breath hitched as his large, bruised hand slid across the table. His knuckles brushing against your wrist, his touch was incredibly gentle that it made your pulse spike beneath his skin. 

You leaned into his touch, head tilting instinctively as you felt his hot breath on your lips the closer you got to him. It was all too much, even the scent of his black coffee against your skin made your heart beat in a disparate rhythm against your ribs as you waited for the heavy impact of his mouth against yours-

The violent sound of a stray brick shattering through the diner's side window from a street fight down the block tore through the air like a gunshot. 

The soft, gentle man that was about to kiss you vanished, getting replaced by the hyper vigilant protector of Crime alley. His grip mocked securely onto the collar of your jacket, effortlessly pulling you out of the booth and down, protecting you from any harm.

'Stay down.' He hissed as his eyes scanned the foggy sidewalk through the hole in the broken glass.

You sat frozen, your heart beating so fast it could come right out of your body. You looked up at Jason, watching his eyes track the danger outside. He didn't look like the gentle man who had just been holding your face, the man who had almost kissed you; he looked completely different. He was entirely focused on the street while your lips still tingled from how close he had been.

You really did hate him. Because as you sat on the floor watching him protect you, you realized you were hopelessly, completely in love with him. And it terrified you.

The transition from the diner to his place, his safehouse, happened on a night where the rain was coming down so hard the streets looked like lakes.

He had held an umbrella over you the entire walk to his home, his own left shoulder soaking wet by the time you reached the door. And when you tried to point it out, he'dd just looked down at you, his thumb brushing a drop of water from your cheek with a gentleness that didn't belong to a man his size.

"Don't worry about me, sweetheart," he whispered. "It's only some water."

Six months later, you were living in the space between his ribs. You were a civilian, living a small life that involved checking expiration dates on milk, paying electric bills and working a shift at the local pharmacy. 

Jason was something else. You didn't ask about the numerous guns in the duffel bags, or why every apology he never spoke arrived folded into the way he tucked the blankets around you before dawn. You didn't ask why he sometimes smelled like burnt rubber when he crawled into bed at four in the morning.

You just loved him. You loved the way his large body grew completely still when you rested your head on his chest, as if he were afraid that breathing too hard might disturb you. You loved the way he memorised your routine, how he'd leave a fresh box of your favorite tea on the counter before he disappeared for thirty-six hours, or how he'd double-lock the deadbolts from the outside with a small click.

"You're too soft for this city." He'd told you one night, his face buried in the crook of your neck, his fingers tangled in your hair. He was shaking slightly; the aftermath of some hidden violence he wouldn't name. And you hoped that one day, when he's ready, he'd answer all your unasked questions.

"I have you." You whispered, pressing a kiss to his head that lasted long enough that he let out a sigh of relaxation. "You won't let anything bad happen to me."

All he'd done in response was tighten his grip until it almost hurt, holding you like a man drowning, using your warm body as his only anchor.

Usually, when you came home from a late shift, the small space smelled like the scented candle you used the night before, or the coffee that was left forgotten on the counter, or the faint, metallic scent of Janson's leather jacket.

However, tonight, the apartment smelled like nothing. That was the first mistake.

Tonight, the door was unlatched. It didn't look broken. It was just swinging open by three inches, which was weird because Jason always made sure to lock the door whenever he left.

"Jason?" You called out, your voice dropping into the quiet space like a stone into a well.

No response.

You pushed the door open. Everything in the living room was exactly as you left it; the copy of Frankenstein still sitting on the coffee table with your bookmark on page ninety-four. Only the kitchen was different.

The counter had been completely clean, only a single object sat at the center.

It was a small, plastic flower; a forget-me-not, painted a neon green, that was tied to a rusted iron crowbar with a piece of dirty twine. 

Your breath caught in your throat, and a sudden cold terror seized your chest before you could ever understand why. With a trembling hand, you picked up the small card tucked beneath the iron tool.

Written in a smeared, purple ink, the handwriting was large and entirely erratic:

Playing the hero again, Jaybird? You couldn't even save yourself! I’ve got your little thing now. I wonder how many hits she can take before she breaks just like you did? Let's see if she has a better bounce! Time for our favorite family game! HA HA HA —J 

He knew it was a sick habit. A twisted ritual. He liked to look at the stone that read Jason Peter Todd. It reminded him of who he used to be before the coffin, before the dirt, before the green madness broke him and put him back together into something unrecognizable. Nobody expects anything from a dead body, and he liked the quiet of it.

But as he walked across the tree line of weeping willows, he froze. His hand instinctively reached out to the holster at his thigh, his posture locking into a defensive stance.

Someone was there.

Through the lenses of his helmet, he could see a silhouette huddled on the damp grass, curled tightly against the base of the headstone. Their shoulders were shivering, trembling beneath a dark coat, their knees pulled to their chest.

Jason stepped back into the shadow of a massive tree, adjusting the setting on his helmet, zooming in.

It was you.

The air left his lungs in a sudden, painful rush. His heart slammed against his rib, a frantic thumping that made the wound on his side throb. You. Of all the people in Gotham, you were the last person he expected to see here. You were the civilian friend he met at a library downtown back when he was a scrawny Robin, the one person who didn't know about the capes, the masks or the billionaire adoptive father. To you, he had just been Jason. Jay. The boy with the ink stained fingers who quoted poetry and stole half your fries.

He watched, completely paralyzed, as you reached out and laid a trembling hand against the cold granite headstone.

You didn't bring flowers. You knew he hated them, said they smelled like funerals. Instead, you brought two items on the grass. A cheap, worn out copy of The picture of Dorian Gray, its spine creased from multiple readings, and a crinkled candy bar; the specific, sugary brand he used to shoplift from the store when he was a kid.

Jason's throat went dry. The helmet suddenly felt suffocatingly hot. You remembered.

"Hey, Jay," You whispered. Your voice felt strange to you, like it wasn't yours. It was cracked with a raw, agonizing grief that cut through the silence of the cemetery like a blade. "Happy birthday. Or... Whatever today is. I lost track."

Jason closed his eyes inside his helmet. It was his birthday. He'd completely forgotten.

"I bought the book you didn't get to finish," You continued, a pathetic little laugh escaped your lips. "The library was going to charge me a late fee anyway, so... I figured you could keep it." You patted the paperback. "I still haven't finished the last chapter. I keep waiting for you to tell me how it ends."

You stared at Jason's full name written across the granite until you vision became blurry, and tears started to drop on your cheeks.

"Everyone else moved on," You murmured, your voice dropping into something so heavy with loneliness and grief it made Jason want to tear his armor off just so he could breathe. "Bruce Wayne bought a new building downtown in your name. The news called you a 'tragic loss' for a week and then moved on to the next headline. But they didn't know you. They didn't know how you used to get so mad when people bent the pages of books. They didn't know how you laughed at bad jokes."

You pulled your knees tighter to your chest, burying your face in your sleeves. "I miss you so much, Jay. It's been years, and I still don't know how to move on. I still look for you in every crowd. And I still expect to see you sitting on my fire escape reading my favorite book, wearing your favorite leather jacket that got soaking wet from the rain." You smiled in a failed attempt to mask the sadness in your voice. "A part of me died in that explosion with you. And I don't think I'm ever getting it back."

Jason stood in the shadows, listening to you mourn the boy whose living body is currently closer to you than you could ever imagine. He listened to you mourn the boy he used to be.

Every instinct in his body screamed at him to step forward. He wanted to walk over to you, rip his helmet off, dropp to his knees in the mud and wrap his arms around you. He wanted to tell you that he wasn't gone. That he was right here. That he remebered the fire escape, and your favorite book, and the way you used to smile when he read out loud to you.

However, his feet felt so heavy, like they were buried deep in cement. He looked at the bruised knuckles of his hands, stained with the blood of the criminals he'd beaten half to death an hour ago. He looked at the guns strapped to his thighs. And he certainly didn't forget about the heavy metallic helmet reflecting the graveyard fog.

The green sparks of the Lazarus Pit flickered across his mind, brutally reminding him of what he became. He wasn't the boy who read Jane Austen and Oscar Wilde in the library anymore. That Jason had died at the hands of Joker. What crawled back from the grave was a weapon. A killer. A wraith consumed by vengeance. He was Red Hood.

If he stepped out now, if he showed you this terrifying version of himself, he wouldn't be saving you from the grief that's killing you. He would be destroying the one pure, beautiful memory you had left. He would turn the grief into horror, forcing you to realize that the sweet boy you loved had been turned into a monster.

The realization shattered something deep inside his chest, a pain that's far worse than any crowbar or bomb. He had to let you keep crying in front of an empty grave, because the reality of his survival would kill you.

After twenty minutes, he was still standing there perfectly still, acting as a silent guard while you wept. He anchored himself to the sound of your breathing, letting your voice wash over him, memorizing the rythm of it. And for a few minutes, surrounded by death, he felt alive just because he was near you.

When the rain began to fall harder, you stood up slowly, your limbs stiff from the cold. You leaned down pressing your hand at the top of the headstone one last time.

"Goodbye, Jason," You wispered. "I love you."

Jason waited until you disappeared into the mist, until the sound of your footsteps completely faded away. He waited until he was absolutely certain you were outside the cemetery gates.

Only then did Red Hood step out of the shadows. He walked over to his grave, his boots sinking into the mud where you had just been standing. And as he dropped to his knees, the cold mud soaked through his pants, but he didn't care. He just reached out with a trembling hand and picked up the book you left for him. When he flipped it open, he saw your neat familiar handwriting, your name.

Jason, for the first time that night, pulled off his red helmet, letting the rain soak his dark hair, plastering it to his forehead.

He pressed the damp book against his chest, closing his teary eyes tight.

"I'm sorry," He choked out, his voice breaking. "I'm so sorry."