[Jason Todd’s POV]

  From the void, the voice came again without its physical maion in my image. It didn’t speak—it tore its way into my mind, a jagged intrusion that demao be heard.

  It writhed and cwed, its presence so heavy and ing it felt like it could split me apart.

  “Here’s a glimpse of what might have happened if, by some twist of fate, you had survived that explosion,” it hissed. The words weren’t just spoken; they were carved into my skull, each sylble a cruel twist of the knife.

  The oppressive darkness surrounding me unraveled like smoke, giving way to something sharper, something painfully vivid. I wasn’t floating anymore. I was alive—or something close enough.

  The first thing that hit me was the smell: aic, bleach, and something faintly metallic. It was sterile, suffog, a stark trast to the faint ache radiating through my body.

  I was lying in my bed. The sheets were stiff, the air cold, and the room so quiet that the steady beep of the monitors felt deafening. Sunlight filtered through a cra the curtains, but it was muted, weak, casting faint streaks of gold across sterile white walls.

  It should have been calming. It wasn’t.

  I blinked against the light, disoriented, my throat dry and raw as if it had been scraped . “Am I… alive?” The words escaped me in a hoarse rasp, unfamiliar and fragile.

  No answer. Not at first.

  Then, Bruce stepped into view, He stood at the foot of the bed, silent, looming like a gargoyle. His face wore an expression of relief.

  Beside him, Barbara appeared. Her expression was fragile, teetering on the edge of breaking.

  She reached out, hesitant, her fingers brushing my arm as if I might shatter beh her touch. “Yeah, Jason,” she said softly, her voice thick with emotion. “You’re alive. Somehow… you’re alive.”

  Oher side of the bed, Dick leaned forward. His grin was crooked, forced, his usual fidence repced by something brittle.

  “That’s quite a lot of stitches, Jay,” he said, trying for humor but failing. “It kinda feels like you io beat my record. But hey… you’re here. That’s all that matters.”

  Further back, Alfred stood behind everyone, his hands csped ly in front of him. His calm demeanor was a stark trast to the tension in the room, but even he couldn’t hide the faint warmth in his gaze.

  “Indeed, Master Jason,” he said quietly, his voice steady and reassuring. “You have given us quite the fright. But it seems you are far more resilient than we dared hope.”

  “How long?” I rasped, f the words out past the rawness in my throat. My gaze locked onto Bruce, his face had on an expressing I have never see on him before, one of worry. “How long have I been out?”

  The faint glimmer of relief in his expression disappeared, repced by one ret. “Seventy-two days,” he said ftly.

  Seventy-two days.

  I tried to sit up, but pain exploded through my body, sharp and uing. My ribs felt like they were on fire, and the tight pull of stitches ay chest forced me back down.

  My hands instinctively went to my face, trag the gauze that ed my head. Beh the bandages, I could feel the sting of healing wounds, eae a grotesque reminder of how close I’d e to dying.

  “Don’t push yourself, Jay,” Dick said quickly, his voice strained with worry. “You’re still weak. Just… give it time.”

  Time. The word hung in the air as it resounded in my head, meaningless and hollow. Time wouldn’t fix this.

  Their faces blurred, their voices fading into static. I was covered in stitches, skin grafts, scar tissues. Seventy-two days bedridden.

  The outside was healing, sure, but inside? I was a different story. It was like something had been stripped away, some veil that had shielded me from the ugliness of it all. It was as if something clicked inside of me, shattering the lies I tell myself.

  It felt like I could finally see through the walls—not literal walls, but the lies, the facades, the pitying smiles they wore to hide their fear.

  That’s what they felt—fear. And pity. They pitied me.

  To them, I was a victim. A failure. A reminder of what could happen to them. And you know what? They weren’t wrong.

  But the truth? The truth cut deeper than the pain from Joker’s crowbar, hurt more thawenty-seven shattered bones he left me with.

  The truth was staring me in the faow, raw and undeniable: they’re the real victims. Victims of Bruce Wayne.

  My fists ched, the sheets twisting under my grip as the anger burned hotter, spreading like wildfire.

  Dick? A broken, abducted child, ging to Bruce because of his mummy and daddy issues. Barbara? A bright and fearless woman crippled by a maniac of his creation.

  And Bruce? What kind of damaged maors children to fight his war? How deranged does a person have to be that they would see a kid struggling to survive oreets and decide to throw him into the line of fire?

  I was doing fine before Bruce dragged me into his world. I was alive before I met this “family.” Alone, sure. But alive. And now? Now I was just another casualty of their dysfun. Another unfortunate victim of Bruce’s endless crusade.

  Never again.

  No more family.

  If by some miracle I got a sed ce—if I somehow cwed my way out of this abyssal void—I’d do things differently. No more pying by Bruce’s rules. No more bending to his hypocritical, self-imposed leash. I’d bee exactly what they feared.

  I’d take the fear Bruce uses to scare criminals and turn it into a on for me to utilize as I see fit.

  ****

  [Deep within the mountains where the League of Assassin’s base]

  The cave pulsed with an unnatural, otherworldly glow, its light casting jagged shadows across the damp, uneven walls.

  Deep beh the earth, the silence was broken only by the rhythmic drip of water, each drop eg through the cavern like the heartbeat of something a and alive. Shadows g to every er, thid restless, as if they were watg.

  Around a steaming, bubbling pool of lumi green, figures cloaked in deep crimson cloaks, stood in a solemn circle.

  Their hoods were drawn low, shrouding their faces in darkness, their collective stillness almost inhuman. Not one shifted, not one breathed loudly, as though the very air in the cavern beloo the ritual they were witnessing.

  Apart from them stood Ra’s al Ghul, the new immortal leader of the League of Assassins, loomed tall and imperious. His sharp, angur face bore the lines of wisdom from the times of old, the glow of the Lazarus Pit casting stark shadows across his cheekbones.

  At his side stood his daughter, Talia, a picture of poised elegarayed only by the tension iance.

  Her sharp eyes were fixed on the ing waters, their usual calg gleam softened by something rare: apprehension.

  “It’s not w, Father,” Talia said, her voice a quiet whisper, but there was no mistaking the frustration ced within it.

  Her fiighte her sides, betraying her iurmoil, worried her lht loose one of his sons food.

  “The waters… he’s not responding.” Her gaze flickered to Ra’s, searg his face for some sign of doubt, but his expression remained as unreadable as stone.

  Ra’s didn’t look at her. His eyes stayed locked on the Lazarus Pit, its surfaow rippling faintly, as though disturbed by an unknown forbsp;

  “Patience, my daughter,” he said, his tone even, calm—a true man of patience who is aced to waitiuries for his pns to e to fruition if need be.

  “The Pit works in its own time.” He added.

  The hooded figures shifted imperceptibly at his words, their heads bowing slightly in reverence—or fear. Ra’s crossed his arms behind his back, a faint glimmer of anticipation sparking in his eyes. The air seemed to grow thicker, the heat emanating from the bubbling pool more oppressive.

  Seds stretched ieralia’s nails dug into her palms, her patience fraying. She opened her mouth to speak again, but the words froze oongue as the water erupted.

  A violent burst of motiohe green liquid scattering across the cave walls. Steam hissed upward in twisting, serpentine coils, and the once-faint ripples transformed into a boiling, chaotic frenzy.

  “Father!” Talia’s voice rose, her posure breaking as she gripped his arm. “The waters—they’re reag!” Her wide eyes reflected the pit’s glow, her usual fidence repced by awe and dread.

  The cloaked figures leaned forward, their hidden faces catg the eerie light for fleeting moments. Some wore expressions of reverehers fear, and a few curiosity—but all were transfixed by the spectacle before them.

  The pit ed violently, its glow intensifying until it seemed to fill the entire cavern. The mist rising from its depths thied, coiling around the pool like living tendrils.

  Talia’s voice dropped to a whisper, barely audible over the chaos. “Do you think he’ll e back… whole?”

  Ra’s raised a hand, sileng her. “The Pit is not known for mercy,” he said, his tone heavy with grim certainty. “It restores what it will, how it will. Whatever returns to us will bear the mark of the Lazarus.”

  As if ohe water surged violently, and a pierg scream tore through the cavern. It was a sound that seemed to e from beyond the grave, raw and guttural, scraping against the ears of all who heard it.

  From the ter of the pool, a figure erupted, breaking the surfa a violent, gasping vulsion. Steam g to his form, curling around him like a shroud as he thrashed, his movements wild and uncoordinated.

  Talia’s breath caught. “Jason Todd…” she whispered, her voice trembling with both awe and dread. She took a step closer, her gaze fixed on the man now g at the air, his body wracked with pain.

  Jason’s eyes, once dull and lifeless, now burned with an unnatural green light. They darted around the cavern, wild and unseeing, as if he were trapped between two worlds.

  His gasps turo choked retches, his body vulsing as he struggled te the remnants of the Lazarus Pit from his lungs. His movements were erratiimalistic, every muscle in his body taut with pain and fusion.

  Ra’s watched him ily, his expression unreadable, though his eyes betrayed a glimmer of fasation.

  He stepped closer, his voice calm, almost gentle. “He is strong,” he murmured, half to himself. “Strohan most who have emerged from the Pit. But the madness… it lingers.”

  Jason staggered, his body trembling as he tried to make sense of his surroundings. His gaze locked onto the crimson-cloaked figures, then onto Talia and Ra’s, and something primal fred in his eyes. Panic turo fury.

  Two figures stepped forward to restrain him, but Jason moved with a speed and ferocity that defied his weakeate. His fist collided with one man’s jaw, the siing crack of bone eg through the cavern as the assassin crumpled to the ground.

  The sean barely had time to react before Jason drove his thumbs into his eyes, a guttural snarl esg his lips as the man screamed in agony.

  “Enough!” Talia shouted, drawing out a gun in one fluid motion. She leveled it at Jason, her hands steady, though her eyes betrayed her hesitation.

  Ra’s pced a hand on her arm and pushed it down just as she pulled the trigger.

  Jason’s gaze so them, his chest heaving as he fought for trol. His eyes flickered with reition, but it was fleeting, swallowed by the sting within him.

  Without another word, he turned and bolted, toward the edge of the cavern, his movemeic but fueled by sheer will.

  Jason sprihrough the upper levels, his breath ragged but his resolve unshaken. Ahead, a rge window loomed, its fractured surface catg the faint moonlight.

  Without breaking stride, he unched himself through it, the crash of shattering gss eg like thunder iill air.

  For a fleeting sed, he hung suspended, weightless against the vast night sky. Then gravity seized him, pulling him into a freefall.

  His scream tore through the air, raw and defiant, as he plummeted from the dizzyi of the mountain. The jagged valleys below rushed up to meet him, their rocky surfaces cloaked in shadow.

  Ra’s al Ghul arrived at the broken window moments ter, his long cloak billowing behind him. He leaned forward, sing the darkness below, his eyes sharp and searg.

  The echo of the boy’s scream still lingered, boung off the cliffs like a phantom haunting the mountainside.

  But there was nothing. No sign of Jason. No trace of his dest. Just silend the cold, unyielding night.

  Ra’s straightened, his expression unreadable. Whatever had just unfolded, it wasn’t over—not by a long shot.

  ********

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