That Delusional Mortal

You had never looked at him that way. Not even the first time you saw his eyes turn green.

It had been subtle. A flash beneath the domino mask after a patrol went wrong, there and gone so quickly that anyone else might have mistaken it for reflected neon. Jason had been standing over a man who had used starving children to move weapons through the Narrows, his fist raised, his breath coming hard through his teeth. Bruce had said his name in that particular tone—warning wrapped in disappointment, disappointment wrapped in fear—and the rage had surged so violently that Jason’s vision had gone white around the edges.

Then your hand had closed around his wrist.

You had been smaller then. Physically, you had always been formidable, even when you were in the shape the world considered human. There was something compact and held about you, though, as if every emotion had been folded into a tiny square and pressed beneath your ribs. You rarely raised your voice. You smiled when people expected you to. You moved through the Cave with the careful courtesy of a guest who had been told the furniture was expensive.

But you had touched Jason without hesitation.

“Don’t listen to him,” you had said quietly.

Bruce had stiffened behind you.

Jason’s fist had remained suspended above the unconscious man’s face. “That’s usually terrible advice.”

“I mean, don’t listen to the part of him you’ve put inside your head.” Your thumb had rested over the frantic beat in Jason’s wrist. “Listen to what he is actually saying.”

Jason had looked past you. Batman stood beneath the flickering warehouse light, cape black against the dirt-streaked walls, jaw locked hard enough to crack teeth.

“He’s saying stop,” you continued. “He isn’t saying you’re evil.”

“You a mind reader now?”

“No.” Your eyes had held his, painfully calm. “I just know what it feels like to hear monster when no one has actually said it.”

Jason had lowered his fist.

Later, he learned that you were Bruce Banner’s child. That explained the green. It explained the way the Justice League watched you whenever your pulse rose. It explained the equipment in the reinforced room beneath the western edge of the Cave, the sensors calibrated to gamma radiation, the emergency shutters capable of dropping in less than two seconds. It explained why Bruce Wayne spoke to you with a careful gentleness Jason had once thought reserved for frightened civilians and injured children.

It did not explain why you seemed to understand him better than anyone else.

You had good control. Everyone said so.

Jason hated the phrase. It was usually delivered with the awed approval people reserved for well-trained animals.

You had very good control. You could shift deliberately, most of the time. You could allow the green to spread beneath your skin in smooth increments, your body lengthening and broadening as muscle and bone remade themselves in a thunderous biological miracle. Your larger form was not identical to your father’s. You were leaner, built with a different geometry, but the similarities were impossible to miss: the green skin, the impossible strength, the eyes that seemed to catch light even where there was none.

You could remain articulate after transforming. You could remember names. Follow strategies. Distinguish threats from allies.

Most of the time. People loved those three words almost as much as they loved good control.

Jason learned to hate them, too.

He started working with you by accident. A weapons-smuggling operation in Gotham had acquired experimental gamma technology, and Bruce Banner had asked the League to investigate. Batman had responded by assigning you to Jason, either because he trusted Jason’s knowledge of Gotham’s criminal routes or because he thought the two of you were disposable in similar ways.

Jason chose to believe it was the former. It was better for everyone’s blood pressure.

The mission had lasted four nights. On the first, you followed his instructions without argument. On the second, you corrected his calculations regarding the blast radius of a stolen gamma core. On the third, you threw a shipping container through a reinforced concrete wall because Jason had been pinned beneath a collapsed gantry.

On the fourth, Jason bought you breakfast.

That became something of a habit.

You fit into his life with alarming ease. You did not complain about his safe houses, though one had a permanent damp patch in the ceiling and another had a neighbour who practised the trumpet exclusively between midnight and four in the morning. You never touched his books without permission. You remembered how he took his coffee, which was more than some of his alleged siblings managed after years of knowing him.

You understood that silence was not always a punishment. Jason understood that calm was not always peace.

He noticed the first time you dug your fingernails into your palms beneath the table because Roy had jokingly asked what it was like to “go green.” He noticed how you counted breaths when someone started shouting. He noticed the way you excused yourself from rooms whenever conversations became heated, even if you had every right to be angry.

You were never merely quiet. You were containment given human form.

“You know you’re allowed to tell me to fuck off,” Jason said one night.

You were sitting on the roof of his Crime Alley apartment, your legs hanging over the edge and a carton of noodles cooling between you. Gotham glittered below, wet and poisonous and strangely beautiful. Red and gold light bled across the rain-dark streets.

You glanced at him. “Why would I tell you to fuck off?”

“Because I ate the last spring roll.”

“You asked whether I wanted it.”

“Yeah, but you did that thing.”

“What thing?”

“The thing where you say no because you think wanting something is the first step toward committing a felony.”

Your expression tightened. It was not quite a flinch, but Jason had become an expert in reading all the ways you made yourself smaller without moving.

“I didn’t want it,” you said.

“Liar.”

“Jason.”

“There it is.”

“What?”

“Anger.” He leaned back on his hands, watching you from the corner of his eye. “Little bitty spark of it. World didn’t end.”

You stared out across the rooftops. “You are incredibly irritating.”

“I work at it.”

“And condescending.”

“Natural talent.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The words came sharper than the others. Your eyes flashed green for half a second.

Jason smiled.

You looked at him in horror.

“There you are,” he said.

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Look pleased.”

“I’m not pleased that I pissed you off.” Jason nudged the noodle carton toward you. “I’m pleased you let yourself be pissed off.”

“My emotions are not a group project.”

“Shame. I’d carry the presentation.”

“You would improvise the presentation after forgetting it was due.”

“And still get a standing ovation.”

You tried not to smile. Jason watched the corner of your mouth betray you and decided not to mention it.

The city hummed below.

After a while, you said, “Anger isn’t safe for me.”

Jason’s humour receded. “It’s not safe for anyone.”

“That isn’t the same.”

“No,” he agreed. “It isn’t.”

Your shoulders loosened by a fraction. People argued with you when you said things like that. They rushed to reassure you that you were just like everyone else, as though the differences between you were insults that needed softening.

Jason never did.

You could be dangerous. So could he. Pretending otherwise was not kindness.

“When I was thirteen, I broke my father’s arm,” you said.

Jason remained still. You had spoken about Bruce Banner before, but only in safe, polished fragments. He was brilliant. He worried too much. He liked terrible music. He called every Sunday unless he was off-world or trapped in another dimension, which happened with uncomfortable frequency.

You had never spoken about the years when your power first appeared.

“It was an accident,” Jason said.

“That didn’t make his arm less broken.”

“No. Probably made you feel worse, though.”

Your fingers curled around the edge of the rooftop. “I don’t remember doing it.”

There it was. The true wound. Jason knew memory loss, too. He knew waking with blood beneath his fingernails and no clear picture of whose blood it was. He knew years stripped from him by death, resurrection and the green madness of the Pit. He knew how other people could use the things he did not remember as evidence against the person he was trying to become.

“What do you remember?” he asked.

“Before, I remember shouting.” Your gaze lowered to your hands. “I remember Dad telling me to breathe. I remember thinking that he sounded scared. I remember hating him for being scared of me.”

Jason listened.

“Then I remember waking up beneath a containment blanket. There were holes in the walls. Dad’s arm was in a sling. He kept saying it was okay.” Your mouth twisted. “I think that was the worst part. He wouldn’t admit that I had hurt him, so there was nowhere for the truth to exist except inside me.”

Jason looked toward the city. Somewhere below, a siren wailed and faded into the endless noise of Gotham. “He probably thought he was protecting you.”

“I know.”

“Doesn’t mean it worked.”

“No.” You picked up the carton of noodles, though you did not eat. Your thumb pressed against one corner until the cardboard buckled. “I tried to get rid of it after that,” you said.

Jason’s head turned.

“The other form. The gamma mutation. Whatever you want to call it.” You spoke with the flat precision of someone reciting facts from a medical file. “There were inhibitors. Gene therapies. Radiation filtration. A procedure in Switzerland that was supposed to separate the altered cells from the unaffected ones.”

“How old were you?”

“Fourteen.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“I asked for it.”

“You were fourteen.”

“I knew what I wanted.”

“You wanted to stop being terrified.”

Your eyes lifted to his.

Jason’s anger had changed. It was not explosive, not yet. It had gone still and focused, gathering itself around the image of a frightened child strapped to a medical table while adults explained probabilities and consent forms.

“What happened?” he asked.

“It didn’t work.”

“No shit.”

“I lost almost three weeks.”

Jason frowned. “You were unconscious?”

“I was awake for most of it.”

The night seemed to narrow around them.

“You don’t remember,” he said. You shook your head. “Does your dad?”

“Some of it. He doesn’t like talking about it.”

Jason breathed slowly through his nose. “And they still call you the one with good control.”

You laughed, but the sound held no humour. “Compared to Dad, I am.”

“Maybe that’s not a comparison you should have to live inside.”

For a moment, you looked as though he had struck you.

Then your gaze softened.

“You always do that,” you murmured.

“What?”

“Say something kind like you’re trying to start a fight.”

Jason scoffed. “Wasn’t kind.”

“It was.”

“Take it back.”

“No.”

“Now who’s starting shit?”

You smiled properly then, and something in Jason’s chest turned over.

It happened more often than he wanted to admit.

He knew he was in trouble when he started leaving things at his apartment because you might need them. A phone charger compatible with your ancient, indestructible device. Tea that tasted like wet flowers but apparently helped with headaches after a controlled shift. A reinforced sweatshirt made from stretch fabric developed by WayneTech, folded in the bottom drawer of his dresser.

He knew he was doomed when you started doing the same. There was a spare helmet sealant kit in your bathroom. A packet of his preferred painkillers in your kitchen. Two novels on your bedside table that you claimed you intended to read but had clearly bought because he mentioned them once.

Neither of you spoke about it.

Jason had spent too much of his life destroying good things by naming them. You had spent too much of yours believing that loving anything placed it in danger.

So you existed around the truth instead. You trained together. Ate together. Patrolled together whenever your work with the League brought you to Gotham. You learned how to recognise the subtle differences between Jason’s ordinary anger and the rage that came from somewhere deeper, older and greener. He learned that your left hand trembled before an uncontrolled shift, while your right remained perfectly steady.

You could talk him down without making him feel ashamed. He could make you angry without making you feel monstrous. It was, in both directions, dangerously close to love.

The mission that ruined everything was supposed to be routine. Routine was a word heroes used when they wanted the universe to laugh at them.

Oracle had tracked a shipment of stolen S.T.A.R. Labs equipment to an abandoned pharmaceutical facility beside the Gotham River. The building had been condemned after a chemical fire, though the foundations remained stable and the lower research levels were mostly intact. A minor gang called the Burnley Saints had moved in six weeks earlier.

“They’re not smart enough to use the equipment,” Barbara said over comms. “But they’re definitely smart enough to sell it to someone who is.”

Jason crouched on the edge of a neighbouring roof, looking through the scope of his rifle. “Six guards outside. Maybe twelve inside.”

“Eleven,” you corrected beside him. Your eyes shone faintly green as you listened to the vibrations beneath the building. “One of them is alone on the lower level. Heart rate is elevated.”

“Drugs?”

“Possibly. Or fear.”

Jason glanced at you.

You wore a black tactical suit reinforced with flexible gamma-resistant fibres. The material had been designed to adapt during a shift, though Jason had heard you complain that every version still pinched beneath the arms. A small monitor rested against the inside of your wrist, tracking your pulse and radiation output.

Both readings were normal.

“Any unusual energy signatures?” Barbara asked.

You closed your eyes. “The basement is shielded. I can feel something humming, but I can’t identify it from here.”

“Comforting,” Jason muttered.

“Nothing in Gotham is comforting.”

“Me.”

“You threatened a parking meter this morning.”

“It knew what it did.”

Your mouth curved. The sight sent a familiar ache through him.

Jason adjusted the rifle strap across his chest. “We go quiet. Disable the exterior guards, enter from the roof, locate the equipment and tag it for retrieval. No green unless we need it.”

You looked at him. “You’re giving me orders now?”

“Someone’s gotta compensate for your reckless lack of discipline.”

“I once watched you jump from a moving train onto a helicopter.”

“Calculated risk.”

“You missed.”

“Still caught the landing.”

“You went through a greenhouse.”

“Plants broke my fall.”

“You had a cactus embedded in your thigh.”

Jason pointed toward the building. “Mission.”

You smiled as you pulled your mask into place.

It should have been routine.

The exterior guards went down without raising an alarm. Jason disabled the roof sensors while you peeled open a maintenance hatch with careful, human-shaped strength. The upper floor was empty except for rotting desks and abandoned laboratory equipment. Rain drummed against the cracked windows, muffling your movement.

The first three Saints never saw either of you coming. The fourth fired wildly and hit a sprinkler pipe. The fifth tried to run.

Jason caught him at the stairwell and introduced his face to the wall.

“Subtle,” you remarked.

“He slipped.”

“Repeatedly?”

“Floor’s wet.”

Barbara sighed over comms. “Nine heat signatures remaining. Two moving toward you from the east corridor.”

Jason drew his pistols. “Copy.”

The mission unfolded smoothly after that, right up until it did not.

You found the stolen equipment in the basement. The shielded room had once been used for experimental drug trials. Its walls were lined with dense composite panels, each one scorched along the bottom from the old fire. Metal crates filled the centre of the chamber, marked with the logos of S.T.A.R. Labs, Kord Industries and three organisations Jason suspected did not officially exist.

One crate stood open. Inside rested a circular device about the size of a dinner plate. The centre pulsed with sickly yellow-green light.

You stopped in the doorway.

Jason nearly walked into your back. “What?”

Your left hand had begun to tremble.

“Oracle,” you said. “Run a visual analysis.”

Jason’s lenses scanned the device.

Barbara was silent for a few seconds. “I’m not finding an exact match. The internal structure resembles a sonic regulator, but the power core is emitting low-level gamma radiation.”

“How low-level?” Jason asked.

“Too low to affect either of you under normal circumstances.”

Your breathing had changed.

Jason holstered one pistol. “Hey.”

“I know that design.”

“You’ve seen it before?”

“No.” Your fingers pressed against your temple. “I don’t think so.”

Jason stepped in front of you, blocking your view of the device. “Talk to me.”

“I can’t—”

A burst of gunfire exploded from the corridor.

Jason turned instinctively, drawing both pistols as bullets struck the reinforced doorway. You moved at the same moment, shoving him aside and taking the shots against your armoured shoulder.

“Contact!” Jason barked.

He fired twice. One attacker dropped. Another ducked behind the wall.

The man alone on the lower level, Jason realised. The one with the elevated heart rate.

He had not been afraid. He had been waiting.

The attacker emerged again, but he was not aiming at either of you.

He aimed at the device.

Jason saw his finger tighten on the trigger. “No—”

The bullet struck the central core.

The room became light.

There was no explosion. No fire. Only a deep, resonant pulse that moved through Jason’s bones like a second heartbeat. His helmet systems shrieked and died. The lights overhead shattered in a wave, plunging the basement into darkness.

Something hit Jason hard enough to throw him across the room. He struck a crate, rolled and came up on one knee.

He called your name in the darkness.

The emergency lights flickered red.

You stood beside the ruined device, both hands clamped over your ears. Your monitor emitted a continuous alarm.

Jason could see the change beginning beneath your skin. Green spread from your throat in branching veins. Your shoulders jerked wider. The armour stretched around your arms as muscle built beneath it in violent surges. Your spine bowed with an audible series of cracks.

Jason had watched you transform dozens of times. This was different. Controlled shifts moved like a wave. This tore through you like an animal trying to escape a trap.

“Oracle, we have a problem.”

Only static answered. The pulse had killed communications.

You dropped to one knee. Your fingers struck the floor hard enough to fracture concrete.

Jason moved toward you.

Your head snapped up. Your eyes were green, but there was no recognition in them.

“Easy,” Jason said.

Your body surged upward. The ceiling suddenly seemed much lower.

The tactical suit expanded with you, dark fabric stretched across green skin. You dragged in a breath, and the sound was enormous in the shielded chamber. Dust trembled from the walls.

Jason stopped several feet away.

You stared at him. He watched confusion move across your face, followed by fear. Then your gaze shifted to the dead attacker sprawled in the corridor.

Blood pooled beneath the man’s head.

You made a sound Jason had never heard from you before. It began low, almost too deep to register. It grew until the metal crates vibrated across the floor.

Rage. Not anger as Jason knew it. Not even the Pit’s blind green violence. This was terror with nowhere else to go.

You looked down at your hands as though they belonged to someone who had murdered you.

Jason took another step. “Hey. Look at me.”

You swung. Jason ducked beneath your fist. The impact struck the wall behind him, caving in the composite panels.

“Okay,” he breathed. “Not feeling conversational.”

You turned toward him. 

Jason had seconds to make a decision. The building contained unconscious criminals, two restrained guards and at least one injured man on the upper floors. Beyond the facility stood apartment blocks, a twenty-four-hour petrol station and a shelter that housed almost sixty people.

He could not let you reach the street. He also could not fight you here.

Jason fired a grappling line into the corridor ceiling and launched himself through the doorway as you charged.

The floor shook beneath your weight.

He sprinted deeper into the basement. You followed.

Jason knew what he was doing. That was the lie he told himself as he vaulted over a collapsed support beam and felt your fist strike the floor where his legs had been half a second earlier. He was drawing you away from the stairs. Away from the exterior walls. The lower facility connected to a network of old service tunnels leading beneath the riverfront, most of them sealed but structurally reinforced.

Jason could keep ahead of you. Probably.

A metal door appeared at the end of the corridor. Jason fired twice at the lock, kicked it open and threw himself through.

You hit the door without slowing. Steel ripped from concrete.

Jason ran.

Red emergency lights flashed through the tunnels. Water dripped from overhead pipes. His boots struck the ground in a rapid rhythm that was almost drowned beneath the thunder of your pursuit.

He glanced back once. You were too large for the passage, shoulders scraping both walls, but nothing in the world had prepared the old concrete to stop you. You tore through pipes and wiring as you came. Steam burst into the corridor behind you.

Your face was twisted with fury.

Jason’s chest tightened.

You were looking at him, but you did not know him. That hurt more than it should have.

He reached a junction and turned left. The tunnel narrowed ahead, ending at an old freight lift that had long ago collapsed into its shaft. Jason fired his grapple upward and caught the maintenance platform three floors above.

He rose just as you reached the shaft. Your hand closed around his ankle.

“Shit.”

You yanked.

The grapple line snapped taut. Jason’s shoulder nearly dislocated as he slammed against the wall. His pistol fell into the darkness below.

You dragged him downward.

Jason released the line before his arm tore from its socket, twisted in the air and landed against your forearm. He used your momentum to vault over your shoulder, boots striking the back of your neck as he flipped onto the opposite platform.

You roared.

Jason staggered, one hand clutching his shoulder.

“That’s gonna bruise,” he muttered.

You leapt.

The platform collapsed beneath your landing. Jason barely cleared the shaft before several tonnes of metal plunged into the dark. The impact shook the facility.

He lay on his stomach at the edge, staring down. Dust churned through the darkness.

For one dangerous second, everything went quiet.

Then green fingers gripped the wall below him.

Jason rolled aside as you climbed out.

Your eyes found him immediately.

“You really are stubborn,” he panted.

You lunged.

Jason fired his remaining grapple through a ventilation grate and let it pull him into the adjacent corridor. Your hand closed around empty air inches behind his boot.

The vent was too small for you. That bought him approximately four seconds.

You punched through the wall.

Jason hit the ground running.

He could have called for backup if his comms were functioning. He could have activated the emergency beacon in his belt, but the pulse had fried half his systems. He had weapons designed for metahumans, sonic grenades and electrical charges powerful enough to drop Killer Croc.

He did not use them.

Partly because he suspected the sonic pulse had triggered this. Mostly because it was you.

You had sat beside him through nights when the Pit seemed to boil beneath his skin. You had allowed him to pace, curse, break old furniture and hate every person who had ever loved him poorly. You had never once treated his anger as a problem that needed to be beaten unconscious.

Jason would not offer you less.

The tunnel ended in a circular maintenance chamber. Thick water pipes curved along the walls, and a rusted ladder led upward to a sealed hatch.

Dead end.

“Of course,” Jason said.

You entered behind him.

The chamber was too small for evasion. Too reinforced for an easy escape. Jason looked up at the hatch, judged the distance and knew he would never reach it before you reached him.

He drew his pistol.

You stopped. Your eyes fixed on the weapon.

Jason could see your chest rising and falling. Each breath scraped from your throat like stone dragged over stone.

He slowly ejected the magazine. It hit the floor. Then he removed the round from the chamber and tossed the empty pistol aside.

Your head tilted.

“Yeah,” Jason said. “I’m not doing this.”

You stepped closer.

Jason removed his helmet. Cold, damp air touched his face. Blood ran from a cut near his hairline and slipped along his cheek.

Your nostrils flared.

“Look at me.” Jason set the helmet on the floor. “You know me.”

You growled.

“Not a compelling argument, I’ll admit.” He kept his hands visible. “But I’m the idiot who buys that disgusting tea you like. I’m the one who knows you steal my blankets and then blame it on shifting during your sleep.”

Your expression did not change.

Jason’s pulse hammered. He had faced men with guns, monsters with teeth longer than his fingers and gods who could burn cities from the sky. None of them frightened him as much as the absence in your eyes.

“You hate olives,” he continued. “You pretend you don’t because you think it’s childish. You read the endings of books first when you’re anxious. You call your dad every Sunday, and you never tell him when you’re hurt because you think he already has enough to worry about.”

You came closer. The floor cracked beneath your feet.

Jason stood his ground. “You got mad at me because I ate the last spring roll.” His voice roughened. “You were right to be mad. I knew you wanted it.”

A flicker. So small Jason might have imagined it.

Your brow tightened.

“There you are,” he whispered.

You roared and struck him.

Jason flew across the chamber. His back slammed into a pipe. Pain exploded through his ribs, bright and immediate. He dropped to the floor, unable to breathe for several seconds.

You stood over him. Jason tasted blood.

“That,” he wheezed, “felt personal.”

Your hand closed around the front of his armour and lifted him.

His boots left the ground. Up close, you were terrifying. Green skin stretched over impossible muscle. Your pupils were blown wide. Anger shook through you so violently that Jason could feel it through your grip.

Beneath it, he saw fear.

“Why?” you demanded.

The word was distorted by the size of your jaw, but it was yours.

Jason’s heart lurched. “Why what?”

“Why stay?”

Your fingers tightened.

Armour plates creaked over his ribs. Jason reached up slowly and put one hand against your wrist.

“Because you would.”

Your face twisted. “Liar.”

“You have stayed for me every damn time.”

“Not safe.”

“No,” Jason said. “You’re not.” Pain burned through his side with every breath. He did not look away. “Neither am I.”

Your grip trembled. “Hurting.”

“I’ve been hurt before.”

“By me.”

“Yeah.”

The word struck harder than reassurance would have.

Your expression crumpled with sudden, unbearable horror.

Jason tightened his hand around your wrist.

“I’m not gonna lie to you,” he said. “You hit me. It hurts. I’m probably gonna complain about it for weeks because I’m a vindictive bastard.”

A broken sound dragged itself from your throat.

“But you’re still in there,” he continued. “You’re scared. You’re confused. Something got inside your head and tore every locked door off its hinges.”

“Monster.”

“No.”

“Monster!”

The roar shook the chamber. Pipes burst behind Jason, spraying freezing water across the floor.

He flinched, but his grip remained steady.

“No,” he repeated.

You slammed him against the wall. Jason’s vision blurred.

“You don’t get to decide,” you snarled.

“Neither do you.”

Your face stilled.

Jason’s ribs screamed. Blood ran into his eye. He could hear the pulse in your wrist beneath his hand, fast and thunderous.

“You think I don’t know this?” he demanded. “You think I don’t know what it’s like to wake up and find out your body did something while you were gone? You think I don’t know what it’s like to see fear on somebody’s face and wonder whether you put it there?”

Your grip loosened by a fraction.

“I’ve hurt people I love,” Jason said. “I’ve gone after Bruce. Dick. Tim. I’ve had the Pit in my head telling me everything I ever loved was a threat. I’ve lost time. I’ve lost control. I’ve tried to carve pieces out of myself because I thought everyone would be safer if there was less of me left.”

The fury in your face wavered.

Jason swallowed blood. “It didn’t make me safer. It made me alone.”

Your arm began to shake.

Jason let his forehead fall against yours. The movement was absurd. Your head was massive compared to his, your skin fever-hot despite the cold water raining over them.

“I’m not leaving you alone in this,” he whispered.

“Jason.”

His name broke from you like something surfacing after drowning.

“Yeah.” He closed his eyes. “That’s me.”

Your grip opened.

Jason fell.

You caught him before he hit the ground.

For one suspended moment, you stared at him in your enormous hands.

Recognition returned slowly, then all at once. You looked at the bruising already forming along his face. The blood on his mouth. The damaged armour around his ribs.

“No,” you whispered.

Your body contracted. The transformation reversed with brutal speed. Muscle folded in on itself. Bones shifted beneath green skin, each movement accompanied by a stifled cry. Jason slid from your shrinking hands and managed to catch you against his chest despite the pain in his ribs.

By the time the green receded completely, you were trembling violently.

“I’ve got you,” Jason said.

You stared at him without comprehension.

Then your eyes rolled back.

Jason held you as the emergency lights continued to flash red around them.

The first thing you remembered was shouting.

Not your own. Jason’s voice. It came through darkness in broken pieces, sometimes furious, sometimes frightened. You could not understand the words. Every time you tried, your mind slipped sideways and showed you something else: green hands, red lights, a pistol on the floor, blood on Jason’s face.

Then nothing.

You woke in the Cave.

The medical bay lights were dim. A blanket covered you from chest to foot, weighted along the edges to give your body something firm to recognise. Sensors clung to your temples, wrists and ribs.

Your father sat beside the bed.

Bruce Banner looked older than he had on Sunday. His curls had gone wild around his head, and the sleeves of his purple shirt were rolled to the elbows. He was holding a tablet but not reading it. When your eyes opened, relief moved through his face so nakedly that you wanted to close them again.

“Hey,” he said.

Your throat felt flayed. “Hey.”

“How do you feel?”

You searched your body. Sore. Heavy. Empty in places that should have contained memories. “Where’s Jason?”

Your father looked toward the far side of the medical bay.

Jason sat in a chair beside the diagnostic station. His chest was wrapped beneath a black shirt. Butterfly strips crossed the cut near his hairline, and purple bruising spread along his jaw. One arm rested in a sling.

He was awake. He did not smile.

The sight of him opened something beneath your ribs.

You remembered lifting him. You remembered the sound his body made when it struck the wall.

The monitor beside your bed began to beep more quickly.

Your father set the tablet aside. “Your pulse is rising.”

“Get him out.”

Jason’s eyes narrowed. “Sweetheart—”

“Get him out.” Your fingers gripped the blanket. “Get everyone out.”

The green beneath your skin stirred.

Your father stood immediately, hands open and visible. “Okay. We can give you space.”

“No,” Jason said.

“Jason,” Banner warned.

“They’re scared.”

“I am aware.”

“Then don’t leave them alone with it.”

Your breathing shortened. “I hurt you.”

Jason rose from the chair. He moved stiffly, one arm secured against his chest. Every sign of pain made the room tilt.

“Stay back,” you said. He kept walking. “Jason.”

“Your monitor says you’re stable.”

“Jason, stop.”

He stopped beside the bed. You could see every injury now. The shadow beneath one eye. The split in his lower lip. The careful way he held his torso.

“You should be afraid of me,” you whispered.

His expression hardened.

Bruce Banner stepped toward the door. “I’m going to speak with Batman about the device. I’ll be directly outside.”

You looked at him in disbelief.

Your father gave Jason a long, unreadable look. Then he left. The door closed behind him.

“Traitor,” you murmured.

“Smart guy,” Jason said. You looked away.  “Don’t.”

“What?”

“Do that.”

“I’m lying in bed.”

“You’re trying to disappear while I’m looking right at you.”

The words struck with surgical accuracy.

You stared at the far wall. “I don’t remember most of it.”

“I figured.”

“I remember the pulse. I remember thinking I knew the machine. Then I remember chasing you.”

Jason was silent.

“I remember wanting to catch you,” you continued. “I don’t remember why.”

“You thought I was a threat.”

“How do you know?”

“You called me one.”

Your stomach turned.

The monitor quickened again.

Jason reached over and switched off the sound. “Better.”

“No.”

“No?”

“It shouldn’t be quiet.” Your voice shook. “There should be alarms.”

“There were plenty. Got annoying.”

“Jason.”

“You want the entire Cave screaming because you feel guilty?”

“I nearly killed you.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“I saw your scans.”

“One cracked rib.”

“Two.”

“One full crack. One fracture. We’re splitting hairs.”

“Your shoulder was dislocated.”

“Technically, it was almost dislocated.”

“You have a concussion.”

“I’ve had worse concussions from getting out of bed.”

You turned toward him sharply. “Stop making jokes.”

Anger flashed through you. The room remained standing.

Jason leaned closer. “There you are.”

“Don’t say that.”

“Why?”

“Because this isn’t that night on the roof. This isn’t a spring roll. I hunted you.”

“Yeah.”

“I hurt you.”

“Yeah.”

“I wanted to—” Your voice broke. “I don’t know what I wanted.”

Jason pulled the chair closer and sat. “That’s the part messing with you.”

“All of it is messing with me.”

“No. The injuries are something you can point at. You can count them. Catalogue them. Use them to build a case against yourself.” His gaze held yours. “The missing pieces are worse.”

You closed your eyes.

Jason knew. Of course he knew.

“I saw things,” you whispered. “When I was unconscious.”

“Memories?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

The pulse had torn through old scar tissue in your mind. It had pulled images from whatever place held the years you had lost: white medical lights, straps around your wrists, your father shouting at someone behind a glass wall. A machine filling the air with a vibration that made every cell in your body feel as though it were screaming.

“I think the device was based on the treatment,” you said. Jason went very still. “The one in Switzerland.”

“You said you’d never seen it.”

“I didn’t remember seeing it.” You pressed the heels of your hands against your eyes. “That’s different.”

Jason’s good hand curled into a fist.

“The pulse wasn’t just sonic. It was designed to agitate gamma-altered cells and force them into a separate state. They thought if they could trigger the transformation while suppressing higher brain function, they could isolate the mutation.”

“Who’s they?”

“I don’t know.”

“Your dad does.”

“Maybe.”

“Then I’ll ask him.”

“No.”

Jason stared at you.

You lowered your hands. “It doesn’t matter.”

“The hell it doesn’t.”

“The treatment failed years ago.”

“And now somebody’s building the technology in Gotham.”

“Then destroy it.”

“We will.”

“That’s enough.”

“No, it isn’t.”

You looked toward the medical bay door. “I need to leave.”

Jason’s expression changed. It was subtle, but you knew him. You knew every degree of his anger, from the bright surface irritation he wore like a leather jacket to the deep, cold fury that meant someone had touched a wound they would not survive.

“What?” he asked.

“I can’t stay in Gotham.”

“Bullshit.”

“The device was aimed at me.”

“It was activated by some idiot firing at it.”

“They knew I was coming. The man in the basement was waiting.”

Jason said nothing. You saw confirmation in his silence.

“They used me to turn a routine mission into a disaster,” you continued. “They knew exactly what would happen.”

“Which means we find them.”

“Which means I leave before they try again.”

Jason stood too quickly and winced.

You reached for him without thinking.

He saw.

You pulled your hand back. Something in his face tightened.

“You packed already,” he said.

You did not answer.

Jason laughed once, sharp and joyless. “Unbelievable.”

“I have supplies at the Hall.”

“No. You packed before the mission.”

Your stomach dropped. He knew about the bag beneath your bed.

It had been there for months. Clothes, cash, forged identification, emergency medication and a satellite phone registered under a name that had never existed. You maintained one wherever you stayed.

“You went through my room?”

“I was looking for the stabiliser tea your dad wanted.”

“You had no right.”

“Probably not.”

“You can’t use that to—”

“How long?” You stared at him. “How long have you been ready to run?” Jason demanded.

“It isn’t running.”

“What do you call it?”

“Risk management.”

“Of course you do.”

You sat up despite the ache in your spine. “You keep weapons hidden in every room.”

“That’s different.”

“How?”

“I use them to stay.”

The answer silenced you.

Jason’s anger filled the medical bay, hot and raw. Yet he did not shout. The restraint made it worse.

“You keep an escape plan because you’ve already decided how this ends,” he said. “You lose control, hurt somebody and vanish before anyone gets the chance to tell you whether they still want you around.”

“You’re injured because of me.”

“And I’m still here.”

“This time.”

His face went blank.

You hated yourself the moment the words left you.

Jason stepped back. “Right.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“You did.”

“I meant you won’t always be able to forgive me.”

“You haven’t asked.”

“I shouldn’t have to ask you to forgive something like this.”

“Why? Because you’ve already convicted yourself?”

Your pulse rose again.

Jason gestured toward your hands. “Go on. Get angry.”

“Stop.”

“You think I’m gonna run because you raise your voice?”

“I said stop.”

“And I said I’m still here.”

Green flickered along your knuckles. Jason did not move.

“Don’t make me prove your point,” you warned.

“You’re proving mine.”

The transformation pressed against your skin, not wild this time but awake. Listening. Your body felt too small to contain the pressure building inside it.

“You don’t understand,” you said.

Jason’s laugh was quiet and vicious. “Don’t I?”

“No. The Pit is not your fault, it is not your body. It was done to you.”

“And the gamma mutation was your choice?”

“I inherited it.”

“As a kid.”

“It’s still mine.”

“So’s the Pit now.”

Your mouth opened.

Jason stepped closer. “I’ve spent years trying to decide which parts of me count,” he said. “The kid Bruce adopted. The Robin who died. The thing that crawled out of the ground. The man Talia trained. The Hood. The murderer. The brother. The son no one knew what to do with.” His voice roughened. “Every time I did something I hated, I tried to cut that version off. Pretend he wasn’t me. Pretend the anger came from somewhere else.”

You watched him, unable to breathe.

“It didn’t help,” Jason said. “I still had to live in the body that did it.”

“That’s what I’m trying to prevent.”

“No. You’re trying to punish yourself first, so nobody else gets the chance.”

The green reached your wrists.

Jason glanced down at it. His expression did not change.

“I have hurt people,” you said. “Not hypothetically. Not in some nightmare I’ve created because I hate myself. I broke my father’s arm. I injured three doctors during the procedure. I put a teammate in hospital when I was seventeen.”

“Did you mean to?”

“Does intention repair bones?”

“No.”

“Then stop asking.”

“I’m not asking because I think it erases what happened.” Jason leaned over the bed, his face close to yours. “I’m asking because it matters.”

“To you.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

The word escaped before you could stop it. Jason froze.

The green beneath your skin dimmed.

You had wanted to ask for months. Years, perhaps. Through late-night meals and rooftop conversations, through missions and injuries and mornings when you woke on his sofa beneath a blanket he claimed he had not placed over you.

Why did he care? Why did he stay? Why did he look at you as though the parts you hated were not invisible, but worth knowing?

Jason swallowed. “You know why,” he said.

“No.”

“Don’t do that.”

“I don’t know.”

“You do.”

“I know you understand me.” Your voice was barely audible. “I know we work well together. I know you trust me more than most people, although that may have changed.”

“It hasn’t.”

“It should.”

“Stop telling me what I should feel.”

“Then tell me.”

Jason looked away. For all his fury, he seemed suddenly terrified. The sight frightened you more than anger ever could.

“I love you,” he said.

The room became very quiet.

You stared at him.

Jason’s jaw clenched as though the words had physically injured him. “There. Happy?”

“No.”

“Great.”

“No, I mean—” Your thoughts scattered. “You can’t.”

His eyebrows rose. “Pretty sure I just did.”

“You can’t love me.”

“That’s your response?”

“You’re hurt.”

“I noticed.”

“You have a concussion.”

“Minor.”

“You’re not thinking clearly.”

“I was thinking clearly before you threw me through a wall.” You flinched. Jason immediately closed his eyes. “Shit.”

“No. You’re right.”

“That was cheap.”

“It was true.”

“Both can happen at once.”

You pulled the blanket tighter around your waist. The transformation had receded entirely, leaving you cold.

Jason exhaled and lowered himself back into the chair. “I shouldn’t have said it like that,” he muttered.

“How long?” He glanced at you. “How long have you…” You could not make yourself repeat the word.

Jason’s mouth twisted. “Long enough to know a head injury isn’t responsible.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Why didn’t you?”

Your heartbeat skipped.

Jason gave you a tired, crooked smile. “Yeah. Thought so.”

You looked at his bruised face and remembered his forehead against yours in the maintenance chamber. His voice moving through the rage when everything else had become noise.

“Do you remember what you said to me?” you asked.

“Down there?” You nodded. “Most of it.”

“I don’t.”

Jason’s expression softened.

“I remember your voice,” you continued. “I remember thinking that I had to make you leave. I thought if I scared you enough, you would go.”

“You’re not that scary.”

“I threw you through a wall.”

“Wall was flimsy.”

“It was reinforced concrete.”

“Gotham contractors. Can’t trust ’em.”

Despite everything, a laugh broke from you. It hurt. The sound scraped through a throat still raw from roaring, but once it began, you could not stop it. The laugh collapsed into something wetter, sharper, and you covered your face before Jason could see.

The bed shifted. His good arm came around you.

You stiffened. “Jason.”

“I know.”

“I could—”

“I know.”

You could feel the brace around his ribs. You could feel how carefully he held his injured shoulder away from you. Every fragile part of him seemed pressed against every dangerous part of you.

Yet he remained.

Your hands hovered near his waist, terrified to touch.

Jason rested his cheek against your hair. “You’re allowed.”

“To do what?”

“Hold on.”

Your fingers closed in the back of his shirt. The fabric crumpled beneath them.

Jason breathed out. You pressed your face against his neck, and the first sob tore free. It was ugly. There was no graceful release, no cinematic tear sliding silently down one cheek. Your body shook hard enough to disturb the sensors. You cried for the missing hours in the basement, for the three weeks stolen from your childhood and every memory that might still be buried beneath them. You cried for your father’s broken arm and the doctors whose names you no longer knew. You cried because Jason was injured and holding you anyway.

He did not tell you it was fine. He did not say you had done nothing wrong. He held you and allowed the truth to remain complicated.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered.

“I know.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“I know.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I know.”

You pulled back enough to look at him. “How can you keep saying that?”

“Because I believe you.”

“What if believing me isn’t enough?”

“It isn’t.”

The answer startled you.

Jason brushed his thumb beneath your eye. “We need plans. Training. Better comms and actual fail-safes that don’t involve somebody shooting you with a sonic cannon.”

“You should have used one.”

“No.”

“You could have stopped me faster.”

“Or made it worse.”

“You didn’t know that.”

“No,” he admitted. “I made a choice.”

“You could have died.”

“So could the people upstairs if I’d driven you into a bigger frenzy.”

“You stayed because of the civilians.”

Jason stared at you.

“Partly,” he said.

The honesty hurt and healed in equal measure.

“What was the other part?” you asked.

“You.”

Your grip tightened in his shirt.

“I wasn’t gonna let the worst moment of your life end with you waking up alone,” Jason said.

You looked at him, really looked. Jason did not love gently. He loved like he fought—with his whole body, with every scar exposed, with the expectation that it might kill him and the stubborn decision to do it anyway.

You had known. That was the terrible thing. You had known for months in the instinctive way you knew a shift was coming before the monitor sounded. You had felt it in the books beside your bed and the tea in his kitchen, in the way he always positioned himself between you and unfamiliar machinery. You had felt it every time his rage eased beneath your hand.

You had simply refused to name it, because unnamed things could not be lost.

“I love you too,” you whispered.

Jason went motionless.

“You don’t have to say it because I did,” he said.

“I’m not.”

“You’re emotionally compromised.”

“So are you.”

“Baseline condition.”

Your hand rose toward his face. You stopped before touching the bruise along his jaw.

Jason saw the hesitation. He took your wrist and placed your palm against his cheek. His skin was warm. Stubble rasped beneath your fingers. His eyes never left yours.

“You don’t get to be afraid of touching me forever,” he said.

“I’m afraid of breaking you.”

“Good luck.”

“Jason.”

“I’m serious. People have been trying for years.”

“Some of them succeeded.”

The humour left his face. “Yeah,” he said. “They did.”

Your thumb moved gently beneath the edge of the bruise. Jason leaned into your hand.

“But I’m not asking you to love some version of me nobody managed to damage,” he continued. “That guy doesn’t exist.”

You swallowed.

“And I don’t need you cured,” he said. “I don’t need you calm every second. I don’t need you easy.”

“What do you need?”

“You here.”

It was almost unbearable in its simplicity.

You leaned forward. Jason met you halfway.

The kiss was soft, not because either of you were soft people but because there were injuries between you, and fear, and years of treating desire like another dangerous thing that needed containment. His good hand cupped the back of your neck. Your palm remained against his cheek.

He tasted faintly of blood and the terrible Cave coffee he had apparently been drinking while waiting for you to wake. You kissed him again anyway.

Jason’s mouth curved against yours.

“You’re smiling,” you murmured.

“Shut up.”

“Are you pleased?”

“Actively reconsidering this.”

“You confessed first.”

“Under duress.”

“You were standing beside a hospital bed.”

“Terrifying environment.”

You kissed the uninjured corner of his mouth.

Jason’s breath caught. Something bright and fragile opened inside your chest. Not happiness exactly. Happiness seemed too small and tidy for it.

Hope, perhaps. Hope was terrifying too.

The medical bay door opened.

Bruce Banner stood in the doorway. Bruce Wayne loomed behind him, doing an admirable impression of a gargoyle who had recently received several troubling scan results.

Your father looked at your hand on Jason’s face. Then at Jason’s hand behind your neck.

“Oh,” Banner said.

Jason did not move away. “Knock.”

“It’s a medical bay.”

“Still rude.”

Bruce Wayne’s gaze settled on Jason’s ribs. “You are supposed to be resting.”

“I am sitting down.”

“You dislocated your shoulder.”

“Almost.”

Banner’s mouth twitched despite his exhaustion. “That appears to be a point of contention.”

You reluctantly released Jason. He kept hold of your wrist.

“We identified the device,” Banner said. “Or part of it.”

Your stomach tightened.

Jason’s thumb pressed once against your pulse.

“It was built using stolen research from the Zürich trials,” your father continued. “The original data should have been destroyed.”

“Should have?” Jason asked.

Banner glanced toward Batman. Bruce’s expression darkened. “A private defence contractor obtained copies before the facility closed. The company dissolved twelve years ago, but several researchers continued working under different organisations.”

“Who hired the Saints?” you asked.

“We’re tracing the payment,” Bruce said. “The attack appears targeted.”

Jason rose.

“Sit down,” three voices said simultaneously.

He looked offended. You almost smiled.

“We’ll find them,” Bruce continued. His gaze moved from Jason to you. “After both of you recover.”

“I should be contained until then,” you said.

Jason’s hand tightened. Your father’s face fell.

Bruce Wayne remained unreadable. “Is that what you want?”

“No,” you admitted. “It’s what is safe.”

“Those are not always the same thing,” Banner said quietly. You looked at him. Your father stepped farther into the room. “I agreed to containment too quickly when you were young.”

“Dad.”

“I was afraid.”

“You had a broken arm.”

“I wasn’t afraid of you.”

“You should have been.”

“No.” Banner’s voice sharpened. The sound startled all of you. “I was afraid for you. There is a difference, and I failed to make you understand it.”

Your throat tightened.

He pulled the nearby stool closer but did not sit until you nodded. “When you asked me to remove the mutation, I knew the procedure was experimental,” he said. “I told myself that you understood the risks because you were brilliant and because you spoke like an adult.”

“I did understand.”

“You were fourteen.” His eyes shone behind his glasses. “You understood the science. You could not understand what it meant to hate yourself that young because I had taught you to.”

“You didn’t.”

“I called my other form a curse. A monster. A disease I needed to cure.” Banner looked down at his hands. “You heard every word.”

Silence settled over the medical bay.

Jason’s hand slipped from your wrist to your fingers. Your father noticed but said nothing.

“The procedure was not only intended to separate the gamma cells,” Banner continued. “They believed they could suppress the emotional response associated with transformation. Fear. Anger. Survival instincts.”

“Emotions,” you said.

“Yes.”

Jason’s expression became dangerous. “They tried to cut emotions out of a kid.”

Banner’s jaw tightened. “I stopped the trial when I realised what they were doing.”

“After three weeks,” you whispered.

“Yes.”

“Why don’t I remember?”

“They induced repeated transformations. Your brain protected itself in the only way it could.”

The room blurred.

Jason’s fingers laced through yours. You gripped them carefully.

“The device in the basement recreated part of the process,” Banner said. “It disrupted the connection between your conscious memory and the transformation response. You didn’t simply lose control. Someone removed your ability to recognise that control belonged to you.”

The distinction should have comforted you. Instead, it made you furious.

The lights flickered.

Bruce Wayne glanced toward the gamma monitor.

Jason remained beside you. You looked down at your joined hands.

“I’m angry,” you said.

“Yeah,” Jason replied.

The word contained no fear. Your skin warmed beneath his. Green moved delicately across your knuckles, not erupting but blooming.

Banner watched. Bruce watched. Jason lifted your hand to his mouth and kissed the back of it.

You stared at him.

“What?” he said. “Still your hand.”

The green deepened.

Your fingers grew slightly beneath his, nails darkening at the tips. Jason adjusted his grip without hesitation.

The transformation stopped at your wrist.

You breathed. Nothing broke. No alarms sounded. The world did not end.

Bruce Wayne cleared his throat. “The reinforced training room will be available when you are medically cleared.”

You looked at him.

“No containment,” he said. “Training.”

Something in your chest loosened.

Banner smiled faintly. “I would like to stay and help, if that’s all right.”

You nodded.

Jason leaned toward you. “Family therapy in the gamma bunker. Cute.”

“You’ll be there too,” you said.

“Absolutely not.”

“You’re half the reason I shifted back.”

“Natural talent.”

“You’re going.”

“I’m injured.”

“Bruce said after we’re medically cleared.”

Jason looked betrayed. “You used Batman against me.”

“You taught me risk management.”

Bruce Banner laughed. Even Batman’s mouth moved at one corner, though Jason would deny it under oath.

Recovery was not linear.

Jason’s ribs healed before the fear did. For weeks after the mission, you woke with the memory of his body striking concrete. Sometimes you dreamed of chasing him through the tunnel, though the details changed. In some dreams, you caught him. In others, you reached the maintenance chamber and found only his helmet on the floor, empty and streaked with blood.

Jason never told you to stop apologising. He told you to be specific. When you woke from nightmares, shaking and green-eyed, he asked what you were sorry for. The injury? The fear? The fact that he had chosen to stay?

Sometimes you had an answer. Sometimes you did not. He listened either way.

You trained in the reinforced room beneath the Cave. Your father recalibrated the sensors and removed every piece of equipment related to the Zürich research. Batman developed new emergency protocols built around communication rather than immediate suppression. Oracle designed comms that could withstand the disruptive pulse, then made Jason carry three backups because, in her words, he treated safety equipment like optional side quests.

Jason complained constantly. He attended every session.

At first, you only practised controlled shifts. Human to green and back again, monitoring your memory after each transition. Then your father introduced stressors: loud noises, flashing lights, raised voices.

Jason handled the anger exercises. He was exceptionally qualified.

“You’re being annoying on purpose,” you accused during one session.

He leaned against the reinforced wall, arms folded. “Can’t prove that.”

“You have spent twenty minutes mispronouncing Dostoevsky.”

“Dosta-whiskey.” Your eye twitched. “Dusty-eff-ski.”

“Stop.”

“Doss-toy-jet-ski.”

Green rippled over your skin. Jason grinned.

“You are the worst person I know.”

“Feel it.”

“I feel homicidal.”

“Great. Don’t repress it.”

You grew several inches. The monitor chimed steadily.

Jason moved closer. “What do you want to do?”

“Throw you through another wall.”

“Valid. Alternative?”

“Tell you that you’re an uncultured idiot.”

“Good.”

“You’re an uncultured idiot.”

“Excellent control.”

“I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.”

The confidence in his voice disrupted the transformation more effectively than any breathing exercise. Your body settled into the familiar shape between forms—green skin, increased height, enough strength to bend steel, but your face and voice still recognisably yours.

Jason reached up to rest his hands on your waist.

You looked down at him. He had healed, though a faint yellow shadow remained along one rib. You still checked without meaning to.

Jason noticed. He always noticed.

“I’m okay,” he said.

“I know.”

“Do you?”

“I’m learning.”

His expression softened.

You placed both hands against his face. They seemed enormous now, capable of covering his skull completely. Jason did not flinch.

“Still your hands,” he reminded you.

You bent and kissed him. He rose onto his toes, which he would later deny, one arm sliding around your neck.

The gamma monitor beeped faster.

Jason pulled back. “Your pulse is up.”

“You’re very distracting.”

“Another natural talent.”

You smiled.

Being together did not solve either of you. Jason still had nights when anger arrived without a clear target. He still sometimes woke with the Pit glowing in his eyes and his hands locked around a weapon he did not remember reaching for. You still swallowed irritation until it became nausea. You still kept a bag packed beneath the bed.

For a while.

Three months after the mission, Jason found you kneeling beside it.

The safe house was quiet. Rain tapped against the windows, and a pot of your terrible tea steamed on the kitchen counter. Jason paused in the bedroom doorway.

You looked at the open bag between your knees. Clothes. Cash. Medication. False identification.

His expression closed.

“I’m not leaving,” you said.

“Wasn’t gonna ask.”

“You were.”

“I was gonna ask why you pack socks like a psychopath.”

“They’re rolled.”

“They’re suffering.”

You pulled one of the shirts from the bag.

Jason remained in the doorway, watching.

“I don’t think I can throw it away,” you admitted.

“You don’t have to.”

You glanced up.

He shrugged. “Emergency bags make sense. Our lives are ridiculous.”

“This one isn’t for emergencies.”

“I know.”

“It’s for running.”

“I know that too.”

You folded the shirt and placed it in the dresser.

Jason came closer.

One by one, you removed the contents. The clothes went into the drawers. The medication went into the bathroom cabinet beside his painkillers. The cash remained in a smaller emergency kit near the window.

You held the false identification last. The name belonged to no one.

Jason sat beside you on the floor.

“You could keep it,” he said.

“Why?”

“Maybe we’ll need to disappear someday.”

“We?”

He took the identification, studied it, then grimaced. “Terrible surname.”

“Tim chose it.”

“No taste.”

“What would you choose?”

Jason considered. “Something dramatic.”

“You already have a dramatic surname.”

“Todd is one syllable.”

“You’re called the Red Hood.”

“Branding isn’t the same as drama.”

You laughed and leaned against his shoulder.

Jason turned the card over in his fingers.

“Could make one for me,” he said.

“You want a fake identity?”

“I have twelve.”

“Of course you do.”

“But if you need an exit plan”—he placed the card back in your palm—“make room for two.”

Your chest ached. “You shouldn’t have to run because of me.”

“I won’t.”

“Then why would you come?”

Jason kissed your temple. “Because sometimes leaving is strategy.”

You looked at him.

“And sometimes staying is,” he added.

You tore the card in half. Then again.

Jason helped you carry the empty bag to the kitchen. You did not burn it or destroy it. You folded it and placed it beside the proper emergency kits.

A tool rather than a promise. Something you could use without allowing it to decide your future.

Later, you sat together on the roof. Gotham glittered below, wet and poisonous and beautiful in the particular way broken things often were. Jason had brought noodles from the same restaurant as that first night. He set the carton between you and passed you the final spring roll without comment.

You looked at it. He looked away with exaggerated innocence.

“You want half?” you asked.

“Absolutely not.”

“Liar.”

“Prove it.”

You split it anyway. Jason accepted his half.

Your shoulder rested against his, human skin warm beneath the sleeve of your sweatshirt. The city growled in the distance, full of anger and hunger and people trying to survive both.

“Do you ever wish it was gone?” you asked.

Jason chewed thoughtfully. “The Pit?”

“The anger.”

He considered longer this time.

“Sometimes,” he said. “Not all of it.” You nodded. “Some of it’s mine,” he continued. “Some of it keeps me moving. Lets me know when something’s wrong.”

“And the rest?”

“The rest is damage.”

The word sat between you without judgement.

“Damage can heal,” you said.

“Sometimes.”

“Sometimes it scars.”

“Scars are still healing.”

You smiled faintly. “You rehearsed that.”

“Shut up.”

“Did you read it in one of my therapy books?”

“They were lying around.”

“They were on my bedside table.”

“Public domain.”

“That isn’t what that means.”

Jason stole the remainder of your spring roll. You shoved his shoulder.

He gasped with theatrical betrayal, hand flying to his chest. “Violence.”

“I barely touched you.”

“Formerly injured man.”

“You’ve been medically cleared for two months.”

“Emotionally, I’ll never recover.”

Green flashed across your fingers.

Jason looked down. Then he laced his hand through yours.

The colour remained. You did not pull away.

“You know,” he said, “I’m still right.”

“About what?”

“You’re hot when you’re green.”

You stared at him. Jason’s grin widened.

“You have terrible survival instincts,” you said.

“Yeah.”

Your skin shifted slowly beneath his hand, green spreading up your wrist. You let yourself feel the irritation, the affection beneath it and the deeper, more frightening love that bound them together. Jason watched without fear.

“World’s still here,” he murmured.

Below, Gotham breathed through rain and sirens.

Inside you, anger moved. It did not vanish. It did not become harmless. It remained vast, complicated and alive, carrying every wound you had survived and every boundary you had been taught to erase. But it was not the only thing inside you.

Jason’s thumb moved across your green knuckles. You leaned against him, holding his hand with enough strength to crush bone and enough care not to.