#utrh

The world seems to drop out from beneath your feet, a cold, sickening plunge. Every carefully constructed wall of grief, every bitter memory, every rationalization you’ve clung to for years—they all shatter. You see the familiar stubborn set of his jaw, the slight angle of his stance that is pure street fighter, pure Gotham born and raised. But his eyes... those are the worst. The bright, sharp blue has been replaced by a hardened, cynical green fire, blazing with an awful, unquenchable rage.

“Jason,” you whisper, the name catching in your throat like you’ve swallowed broken glass. It is a plea, a question, an affirmation, all twisted into one ragged sound.

A harsh, short laugh—devoid of any humor—breaks the suffocating silence. It’s a sound you haven’t heard in years, yet you recognise the timbre instantly.

“Don’t. Don’t use that voice,” Jason spits, his voice rougher, lower than you remember, edged with an unholy malice. His grip on the gun doesn't waver. “That pathetic, sorrowful little whimper. Save it for the eulogy you all gave me.”

You take the calculated risk, forcing a step forward, your leather skirt blowing slightly in the wind. The movement is meant to be non-threatening, but it cuts the distance between you, making the threat immediate.

“Put the gun down, Jason. Please. We can fix this,” you plea, the 'please' escaping before the tactical of your mind can stop it.

“No, we can’t,” he hisses, stepping back to maintain the precise distance, his training still terrifyingly intact. “It’s too late for fixing. It’s too late for talking. It’s time for you to finally face the consequences of your weakness.”

He raises his free hand, and a small, remote device is visible against the black leather of his glove. He clicks it.

No bullet strikes you, even if you don’t make the move to dodge it. Jason shoots in the night sky above and the sound makes you flinch back.

Hot, salty tears fill the inseams of your eyes, stinging as silent seconds pass by.

You only searched to find him because you couldn’t believe it was real. 

You mourned him. You spent the first night after his funeral at the cemetery so he wouldn’t be alone in a place full of strangers because he’d hate it. You spent sleepless nights clinging onto his bed, wearing that kitsch nirvana shirt he gave you three years before he died because you begged for it. You dropped out of high school. You couldn't eat. You couldn’t even go to the bathroom without physical help. You couldn’t wash. You couldn’t live. 

And now he stands with a gun pointed at you, giving a warning shot into the sky so you won’t get closer like some sick and twisted joke.

“The consequences?” you echo, your voice now ultimately quivering. “Your death destroyed me and you’re talking about consequences?”

“You think you know what I went through,” he finally manages, the words a low, dangerous rumble. “You think you know what it’s like to claw your way out of that pit, only to realize the only thing waiting for you is the knowledge that the man who loved you like a son let your killer live? Don’t you dare pretend your feelings compare to what I lost.”

You spread your hands out to your sides, a gesture of exasperated, reckless surrender. “Go on. Shoot. Give me the final consequence. I died the night we buried you Jason. And now you’re alive. In front of me. I keep thinking that you’ve been alive for all these years and you didn’t come to find me. You think shooting me will hurt? That it’ll make a difference? Shoot me all you want. Make it overkill”

“Don’t you dare,” he whispers, the word catching on a strangled, rough sound that has nothing to do with malice and everything to do with a devastating, twelve-year-old boy's memory. His lips pull back from his teeth, not in a snarl, but a grimace of pure, agonizing refusal. “Don’t you ever tell me to do that.”

The sight of your pain, the unmistakable quivering in your voice, should have been a comfort—proof of your devotion. Instead, it feels like a spike through his own chest, a new wound on top of all the old ones.

In your intercom, Batman is yelling at you. That he’s at the other end of the city and he won’t make it in time. Telling you you should fleet the scene and forbids you from engaging any further with Jason.

Any comm that you have with Batman, with a fluid, decisive motion, you yank it. The small comm piece from your ear is thrown onto the wet ground. It shatters with a pathetic crunch under your heel, the sound loud in the narrow alley, in an attempt to show Jason that you’re not here because of his father..

You walk towards Jason, until the exposed skin of your chest touches the barrel of his gun.

It doesn’t make a difference if he kills you. You die a thousand times at the thought of him being alive and away from you. Your heart stings at the lost years, the ones spent without him, moving on with your life just enough, taking one step forward each day and three steps back when you’d visit the manor and automatically greet him only for him to not be there anymore.

You die again today, as Gotham rain washes over you –both of you– and he’s not a mirage that your mind created.

Jason pulls the gun back sharply, the click of the safety catching echoing loudly in the sudden, silent air. The cold fury has replaced the raw pain, settling into something far more dangerous. He raises his free hand again, the remote device flashing under the single streetlamp.

“This isn’t about killing you, the Joker is the only one who should be dead.”

The rain, which had been a soft drizzle, suddenly intensifies, sluicing down your face and plastering your hair to your temples. It washes over both of you, a sudden, cold baptism for this terrible reunion.

“Good,” you state, your voice cutting through the downpour, devoid of the earlier plea or quiver. You take the final, reckless step, closing the infinitesimal distance between you until the silver chest piece of your costume brushes against the fabric of his leather jacket.

You reach out, not for his weapon, but for his gloved wrist that holds the gun. You grab it, your grip surprisingly steady, and deliberately press the cold, hard steel barrel flush against the vulnerable skin of your neck again, right over your jugular vein.

“You want consequences? You want to hurt Bruce? Then do it,” you challenge him, the rain mingling with the salty sheen of your core shattering frustration. Your heart is an erratic drumbeat in your chest, but you don't care. “I am the one who spent her nights at the cemetery so you wouldn’t be alone in there. I am the one who couldn’t breathe without you. If you want to walk away, Jason, you will have to kill me first. Because I’m not into losing you again. Not to death, or to a silent resurrection that leaves me mourning in vain.”

Your fingers tighten on his wrist, a painful, desperate anchor. You’re not fighting him; you’re clinging to him. The desperate, possessive need in your eyes is clear, a direct mirror of the devastation his death caused you.

He bites his tongue instead of asking you why you didn’t kill the Joker. He stares at you, his face a mask of shock and unholy conflict. The gun is pressed against you by your own hand, his finger inches from the trigger, and he is paralyzed. His eyes sting at the notion of your words – staying at his grave at night so he wouldn’t be alone– and his skin crawls.

He shouldn’t cry. He can’t cry. He can’t– 

His knuckles, white against the dark leather of his glove, finally relax. He pulls the gun back, not in a fast, threatening jerk, but slowly, reluctantly, as if severing a painful connection. The sudden cold where the metal had been on your neck is jarring.

You wish you hated him. You wish you could hate him. That there was worse in you than just love.

The ache that engulfs the entirety of your heart at the sight of him is as real as it gets. Gone is the boy you once called your best friend, replaced now with a man too tall, too muscular, whose voice is not the one you knew.

Or perhaps, you’ve completely shattered your soul tonight at the realization that you can’t even remember how his voice used to sound. But none of it matters. All that exists is the agonizing truth in his broken voice and the realization that his new life, his new identity, is built on the same shattering grief that ruined yours.

With a choked gasp that sounds like a sob but is laced with desperate resolve, you launch yourself forward, crossing the final step he’s created between you.

"No," you bite out, the word muffled against the damp fabric of his armor.

You throw your arms around him, bypassing the weapon and the mask entirely. Your arms lock tight around his neck, pulling him down, pressing your rain-soaked cheek against the hard, unyielding curve of his shoulder pad. It is a reckless, full-contact embrace—a physical, undeniable claim.

He hadn't anticipated this. He had prepared for a fight, for an argument, for tears, for a defiant lecture. He hadn't prepared for the crushing, familiar weight of your love, the scent of your rain-soaked hair, or the utterly desperate strength in your grip. He hadn’t even thought he’d come to notice the way the time you spent apart has taken its toll on you. 

Gone are your teenage puffy cheeks. You’re taller, slightly- a woman now, who has fully grown into her body. It’s so strange, it hurts.

The difference in your body—the height, the defined angles that replaced the softness of adolescence—is a jarring, agonizing record of the time he lost. He remembers every tiny mark on your face that is now dull, every soft curve of your cheek, and the sudden realization that his death forced you to grow up, to become this woman without him, feels like a betrayal of the cruelest kind.

"Get off me!" he snarls, the sound hollow and automatic, lacking any real force. His hands instinctively rise, not to shove you away, but to hover uselessly, unable to grasp the weapon he just dropped, unable to push away the only thing that had ever truly mattered to him.

"Jason," you whisper fiercely into his ear, tightening your hold until your muscles ache. The years of sorrow and longing are distilled into this single, frantic gesture. "You can't let me mourn the memory of a ghost when you're right here. Please."

It hurts. It hurts too much. It hurts so fucking much to know your embrace is a move that’s involuntary and unreciprocated to the deepest core, that your body moves on its own and refuses to let go. Your heartbeat is a loud pulse in your ears and your eyes still sting when you sniffle to keep your tears at bay. One hot salty droplet runs down your face, tickles your chin before another one copies it and before you realise it, you’re sobbing.

A pathetic little crying session that you thought you could control, like you’ve done before has now turned you into a sobbing mess. One in which your mouth stays open and your breathing is facing the lamp in your throat like the absolute obstacle. Your chest burns like you’ve been pierced by a sword right in the middle of it.

But Jason understands.

Your tight, trembling grip around his neck, the desperate pulse pounding against his ear, snaps the last weathering thread of his composure. The rage he’d nurtured for years, the focused hatred for the Joker and Bruce, suddenly redirects itself—not at you, but at the sheer, overwhelming pain of this moment.

A sound tears from his throat; it’s not a snarl or a sob, but a deep, guttural cry of pure anguish, muffled against your hair and the storming rain. It is the sound of the twelve-year-old boy, trapped inside the kevlar-armored man, finally breaking down.

His arms abandon their uncertain posture and wrap around you with crushing, savage force. He lifts you slightly off the ground, holding you so tightly you can barely draw a breath, mimicking the desperation of your own hold.

"I know," he rasps, the voice raw and thick, stripped of its menace, sounding younger and more devastated than you’ve ever heard it. "I know, I know, I know. I shouldn't have..."

The scent of the rain, the cheap city grit, and you—that familiar, devastating scent that belongs only to you—floods his senses, ripping the control from him. The polished, cold shell of the Red Hood cracks, exposing the raw, wounded core of the boy wonder who died.

Your hands instinctively move, leaving his neck to grasp the edges of the shoulder pads of his jacket, bunching the fabric in your fists, pulling him closer to ground you both in the agonizing, beautiful reality of this moment.

For a long moment, Jason doesn’t move. His breath shudders against your temple, uneven, almost disbelieving. Then his hands find your back—hesitant at first, then sure—pressing you closer until your ribs ache from it. You can feel his heartbeat, fast and erratic, like it’s fighting to make up for lost years.

"I didn't let you go," you whisper, the words an affirmation not a plea. "I never let you go. And I'm not going to now. I don't care about the guns. I don't care about the mask. I don't care about Bruce. All I care about is that you are here."

Jason holds you tighter at that, a sharp breath tearing through him. For a second, it feels like he might actually stay.

But then when he reminds himself why he’s here—he pulls back first. The move is abrupt, as if the contact scorched him. You feel the absence instantly, the cold rush of air between your bodies. His gloved hands linger midair for a heartbeat before they fall uselessly to his sides. The gun lies forgotten in a shallow puddle at his boots.

He doesn’t look at you right away. Just stares at the rain-slick asphalt, jaw tight, chest heaving like he’s run miles instead of standing still. When he finally does lift his gaze, there’s something almost worse than anger in his eyes—understanding.

“You shouldn’t have come,” he says, quieter now, voice rough like gravel dragged across steel. “You don’t belong in this part of the story.”

You want to answer, but the words choke, they twirl into a sob. You only manage a whisper “And what story is that?”

“The one where I stopped being someone worth saving.”

Lightning flashes—brief, white, merciless—and you catch a glimpse of the scar running just under his jawline. 

“I tried to come back the right way,” he mutters, rubbing a hand across his mouth. “Thought maybe Bruce…Dick… maybe you… would understand what needed to be done. But you all just—” he cuts off, laughter cracking into a choked sound. “You moved on.”

“That’s not fair,” you say. “We buried you, Jason. We grieved you.”

He meets your eyes again, and for a heartbeat, you see the boy who used to fix bikes in the manor’s garage and complain about Bruce’s curfews. Then it’s gone, replaced by the man who crawled out of his own grave.

“Yeah,” he says softly. “You grieved. Bruce kept his trophies. Dick kept pretending everything was fine. And I…” he gestures vaguely, the motion sharp, empty. “I came back and found Gotham exactly the same. Joker still murdering innocents. Crime Alley still stinking of blood. And me—what was I supposed to do? Come home?”

You take a slow step forward, hands trembling but steady enough to reach toward him again. “You could’ve,” you whisper. “You still can. Bruce cares about you. We could–”

Jason shakes his head. “No. I made my peace with who I am.” His voice cracks on the word peace. “I’m the thing Gotham needs when Batman can’t cross the line. I’m the thing he’s too scared to be.”

You can see it—how badly he wants to believe that, how the justification barely holds against the storm inside him. 

“Then why are you shaking?” you sniffle.

He freezes. A muscle jumps in his cheek, then his shoulders tense like a scared, cornered animal.

“I’m not,” he growls, but it’s a lie. The gun stays on the ground. His hand doesn’t move for it.

You step closer again, close enough to touch the edge of his jacket, and say, softer now, “Because if this was really peace, Jason… you wouldn’t still care.”

The words land like a hit he didn’t see coming. He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t speak—but the silence between you roars louder than the rain.

The world narrows to the hiss of the storm and the erratic pulse of his chest against yours. Your grip on his jacket loosens slightly, and Jason exhales sharply, a slow, shuddering sound that speaks of anger and loss and oblivion, all spilling out at once injected in your steaming tears.

Finally, he steps back, just enough to create space, but close enough that the warmth lingers. You both stand there, drenched, soaked in the aftermath of what just happened, neither ready to leave nor fully capable of speaking.

Without a word, he gestures toward the rusted fire escape at the side of the alley. Something about the quiet promise of shelter calls to him, and you follow.

The two of you end up beneath the fire escape, despite it being one of those places in Gotham that still smells like brick dust and gasoline. The rain’s calming to a thin drizzle, enough to keep the city hissing.

Jason leans against the brick wall, water dripping from his hair onto the soaked leather of his jacket. He pulls out a battered pack of cigarettes and fumbles for a lighter. A few clicks later, he mutters, “Great. Wet as hell.”

You arch an eyebrow. “You still smoke?”

He shrugs, a ghost of a smirk tugging at his lips. “Don’t judge. Some habits die slower than people.”

He fishes a match from his pocket. Striking it, the tiny flame sputters against the drizzle, painting his face in a fleeting, warm glow. He takes a long drag, exhaling smoke through his nose like he’s trying to smoke out a memory that won’t leave him.

You reach for the pack and even though Jason looks at you with a crooked eyebrow, he doesn’t ask you anything about it. You pause for a moment, giving him space to speak if he wants to, readying yourself to tell him you started smoking when he died, then pluck a cigarette from the pack. The filter’s a little crushed, not that it matters.

Your own lighter is useless in the rain, no matter how much you fumble with it.

Jason glances at you, a flicker of frustration passing over his face, and you shrug, wet hair plastered to your forehead. He grins faintly, tilting his cigarette toward you. “Come ’ere. Light yours at the end of mine.”

You hesitate for a heartbeat, then hold your cigarette to the end of his. The tiny flame licks yours alive, and your fingers brush—brief, accidental, but electric. The shared warmth in the cold drizzle, the way your hands meet over the glow, feels intimate in a way neither of you says aloud.

You inhale when your faces have a safe distance again, the smoke sharp and metallic, the flame reflecting in both your eyes for a suspended moment that somehow makes the years apart feel smaller, if only for a second.

You take another slow drag, letting the smoke curl lazily around your damp hair. “I can’t believe you still smoke this shitty brand,” you mutter.

Jason shrugs, one shoulder rising under the wet leather. “You think I’d let something as reliable as these go? They last longer than most people I know.”

You laugh softly, the sound almost foreign in the quiet of the alley. “I guess that makes sense. Some things never change, huh?”

“Yeah,” he says, exhaling a plume of smoke. His eyes flick to yours, catching the reflection of the streetlights on wet concrete. “Some things don’t. Others… you try to, but they break anyway.”

You nod, understanding the weight in his tone. “I get that.”

He glances around the rooftop, the rain slowing to a drizzle, and smirks faintly. “Still can’t believe you came running the second you found out I was alive. Reckless, even for you.”

“Not like I had much choice,” you reply, teasing just enough to mask the ache in your chest.

He studies you for a long moment, and you realize the calm in his expression is fragile, like there’s something he’s holding back. Then, without warning, you add casually, almost to yourself, “Dick’s gonna freak out if he smells this on me.”

Jason freezes mid-drag, the cigarette hanging loosely between his fingers. His green eyes snap to yours, sharp and incredulous.

“You—what did you just say?” His voice is low, dangerous, but there’s an edge to it that isn’t just anger —it’s disbelief, a raw wound laid bare.

You shrug, trying to keep your tone casual, though your pulse spikes under the scrutiny.

Jason’s head tilts, just slightly. “Dick?”

You hum, eyes fixed on the glow at the end of your cigarette. “Yeah. He’s—uh—he’s my boyfriend now. We’ve been together for a year and something.”

The pause that follows feels longer than it should. Jason doesn’t move, but you can feel the temperature shift, the air tightening.

Neither of you talk for a tick of the clock. Just breathe and smoke, the world narrowed down to the rhythm of inhale, exhale, heartbeat.

Then, Jason laughs once, short and ugly almost strangled. “Huh. Should’ve guessed.”

You glance over. His jaw’s tight, the cigarette burning down between his fingers untouched.

“It’s not like that,” you say, but the protest sounds weak even to you.

He blows out a stream of smoke, sharp and humorless. “It’s exactly like that. Wonder girl and the golden boy. Perfect symmetry for the perfect family.”

“Jason—”

He cuts you off with a shake of his head. “Don’t. You don’t have to explain. I died, and life went on. I get it.”

You open your mouth, close it again. The rain ticks against metal. The smell of smoke sticks to both your clothes.

Finally, you murmur, “It wasn’t about replacing you.”

Jason doesn’t look at you, just stares out at the city lights bleeding through the fog. “No,” he says, voice gone rough. “It was about surviving me.”

He flicks the cigarette away, the ember dying as it hits the wet concrete. “Guess I can’t even be mad at that.”

But he is. You can feel it pulsing under his calm — the old hurt wearing a new mask.

He stays turned away for a long beat, staring at the rooftops like the city might offer him an excuse. When he finally looks back, his expression’s flat, too calm to be real.

“So tell me,” he says, voice low. “Does he know?”

You frown. “Know what?”

“About this,” he gestures vaguely between you, “about tonight. That you came running the second you heard I was alive.”

You take a slow drag, let the smoke curl past your lips before you answer. “He knows enough. That I needed to see you.”

Jason huffs out a laugh — no warmth in it. “Right. Because that’s all it is. Closure.”

“That’s not fair.”

He steps closer, rain dripping off his hair, his shoulders. “What’s fair got to do with it? I come back from the dead and find out the girl I grew up with is with Dick. I mean, damn—” he stops himself, jaw tightening. “—you don’t even see how that sounds?”

You toss your cigarette, watch it spark out against the concrete. “You think this is about picking sides? You were dead, Jason. You left a hole in everyone’s life and we had to learn how to live around it.”

“That easy, huh?”

“Nothing about it was easy.”

“You don’t even realize how much this hurts me,” he mutters, voice rough, almost pleading.

Your chest tightens. “Nothing was ever easy for either of us.”

He swallows, the rain dripping off his face. “And yet here we are.”

The air between you thickens. Your hand reaches for him, brushing the wet leather of his shoulder. He doesn’t move back — not yet. Just holds your gaze, unblinking, as if daring you to take the next step.

He takes another step forward, too close now, the smell of smoke and rain and gunpowder thick between you.

“You were pretty reckless to tell me to shoot you, y’know” he says, not as a question but as an accusation.

You meet his eyes through the rain, steady. “Maybe I knew you wouldn’t.”

Jason’s mouth twitches — a grim, humorless shadow of a smile. “You had that much faith in me?”

“I had that much left to lose,” you answer quietly.

For a moment, neither of you speak. The city hums belowcars, sirens, a train in the distance — life carrying on without either of you in it. Rain gathers at his jaw, slips down the line of his throat. You want to reach up, wipe it away, but your hand just hangs there, useless.

He watches you with that look — half disbelief, half something you don’t want to name. “You shouldn’t have said that,” he mutters, voice low. “You make it sound like I still matter.”

“You do,” you say, before you can stop yourself. “You’re always going to matter to me”

The words hit harder than you meant them to. Jason’s breath catches — a subtle hitch, but it’s there. His eyes soften, then harden again, fighting something he doesn’t want to feel.

He takes a step closer. You can feel the heat coming off him despite the cold. “You keep saying things like that, and I’m gonna forget you’re dating Dickieboy.”

Your pulse kicks. “Maybe we–”

The rain starts again, harder this time, as if Gotham’s trying to drown the moment before it goes any further.

You stand there, both soaked and shivering, the smoke gone but its scent still clinging between you. You could let him walk away. You should. But you don’t.

The way your eyes shake is what breaks him. His hand lifts —hesitates— then finds your cheek, the leather of his glove cold against your skin. His thumb grazes your jaw, and he shakes his head once, like he’s trying to talk himself out of it. 

As a teenager he never had the chance to make a move on you. You were always out of reach, two years older. Confessing back then felt like a cruel joke. But now? Now that he’s come second to Grayson again? Now he doesn’t care. If he closes the distance between you he’ll kill two birds with one stone.

“Yeah,” he warns, voice barely above a whisper, too condescending to carry any good action.

You’re close enough now to see the lines time has carved into him — the small scar at the corner of his mouth, the darker circles beneath his eyes. There’s something haunted in the way he looks at you, like he’s already bracing for pain.

“I missed you,” you whisper.

He exhales, shaky and furious. “You should’ve missed me less.”

“Whatever you say won’t push me away. I promise”

Jason’s breath catches, a visible tremor in his chest. The rain beads on his lashes; his hair sticks to his forehead. “Don’t do that,” he mutters, voice low. “Don’t say things you can’t take back.”

“I’m not taking anything back.”

Before you can answer, his hand catches your wrist — rough, gloved, uncertain. He doesn’t pull you in, not yet. Just holds you there, suspended in the space between wanting and warning.

“I really shouldn’t,” he says.

But neither of you moves. You tilt your face just enough that your breath brushes his mouth. The air between you goes still.

Then, finally, he leans in.

It isn’t soft. It’s clumsy, angry, necessary. His lips crash against yours, tasting of rain and smoke and everything that never got said. You catch his jacket with both hands, pulling him closer as if that could anchor either of you. For a moment, he kisses you like he’s trying to prove he’s alive. Then, just as quickly, he pulls back — breathing hard, eyes wide, as if he’s broken some sacred rule. He dives in again and the kiss deepens — messy, desperate, too much and not enough all at once.

When he finally pulls back, you’re both breathing hard, foreheads still touching. His eyes flick open— bright, wet, and wrecked.

You dwell on the hate you weave for yourself at the realization that his lips– soft, plump– fit perfectly against yours. This has probably been the best kiss of your life and for a moment you wonder if this is what people say that kissing feels perfect with the person you’re in love with.

The worst part about this situation is that you don’t even feel bad about it. You just kissed your boyfriend’s adoptive brother and you don’t even feel a spec of guilt. No tremor in your chest. Just a profound augmentation in heart pulses. It’s just you and your blood running scorching hot inside your entire body.

That is even more dangerous on its own than admitting against Jason’s lips that–

“This was a mistake,” 

Jason lets out a sorrowful, shaky breath. “Yeah. Probably.”

Wait! The person you’re in love with?

“Jason—”

“Don’t,” he says again, voice rougher now, almost pleading. “If I stay, I’ll ruin whatever’s left.”

You shake your head. “You already did. I–”

A faint, pained smile flickers across his face, more a grimace than anything else. He reaches out, tucks a wet strand of hair behind your ear, and says quietly, “Tell Dick I said hi.”

You almost laugh, but it catches somewhere in your throat.

Then he steps back into the rain, shoulders squared, hood pulled up. Within seconds, he’s swallowed by the fog and the hum of Gotham, just another shadow walking away.

You stand there long after he’s gone, the ghost of his mouth still burning against yours, the taste of smoke lingering like a confession you never got to finish.

~All rights reserved: @/strawberry-nugget, 2025. Please do not copy, over write or steal my work.

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