"I'm talking about the scum who stole your son from this world," Jason snarled, his voice cracking under the strain of both anger and pain. "The man who took me away from you. The man who ripped my life apart after hours of agonizing, deliberate torture."
Pain bled through his rage, unrestrained and unmistakable, every word dragged from somewhere unhealed.
"This waste of existence, the one you've refused to end for years, has murdered hundreds," Jason continued, his tone dropping into something far more intense. "And every single time you stop him, lock him away in Arkham, and walk away knowing he'll escape again… every life he takes after that—"
He stepped closer.
"—their blood is on your hands."
The words weighed upon Batman who said nothing in response. He couldn't. His gaze drifted to the Joker's broken form—bloodied, grotesque, and barely recognizable beneath the damage Jason had inflicted. If the man lying there were anyone else, he would already be dead.
And yet, credibly, the Joker was still alive.
As if summoned by the silence between the two, the clown stirred. Despite his ruined state, his eyes still gleamed with that familiar, horrifying madness.
"Oh… look who we… have here," Joker rasped, forcing the words through a shattered jaw and a puntured lung. "Tonight just got… a whole lot more interesting… ain't that right, Batsy?"
He tried to laugh—but the sound broke apart into a wet, choking wheeze as his fractured ribs betrayed him.
Jason kept his gaze on Batman without even glancing at the clown.
"If it had been you," he said quietly, spite dripping into every syllable. "If Joker had killed you that night in Bosnia, I would've torn the world apart to find him. I wouldn't have slept. I wouldn't have stopped. And I wouldn't have rested until he stopped breathing."
His voice shifted then—no longer just angry, but wounded. Betrayed.
"But you," Jason went on, "you never did that for me. You let him live. You let him rot in a cell you knew he'd eventually escape from."
Batman saw it even clearer now. Not just the anger, but pain. A son screaming to be heard.
Still, his resolve didn't break.
"You know I can't take a life," Batman said with his usual tight voice, teeth clenched as if forcing the words past iron conviction.
Jason laughed bitterly. "That thing," he spat, gesturing at Joker, "isn't even human anymore. Is it really so hard to end him and save Gotham from his terrorism? From the innocent lives he keeps destroying?"
Batman's fists clenched, knuckles whitening beneath his gloves. Jason wasn't wrong, that was the worst part. The logic was sound.
But the cost—
"No!" Batman growled suddenly, stepping forward. "No. It would be too goddamn easy." His voice came out heavy with years of restraint and self-loathing.
"For years I've thought about it," he admitted. "Ending him would save lives, ending the nightmare he causes Gotham. But once you cross that line—once you decide you get to choose who lives and who dies, there's no coming back."
The air hung thick between them as Jason exhaled slowly. When he looked up again, the rage had cooled into something far worse…cold resolve.
"Then you'll have to cross it tonight," he said flatly.
He drew his pistol in one smooth motion and pressed the barrel firmly against Joker's head.
And once again the room fell dead silent
Jason's gloved hand clenched the pistol, his knuckles stretching on the weapon's frosty steel.
"I crawled back from the cold embrace of death just to carry out my vengeance on this clown," he growled. Slowly, he pulled back the hammer of the gun pressed against Joker's temple.
The air between them thickened, almost suffocating in its tension. Batman's eyes narrowed, calculating, knowing full well that Jason could fire at any moment.
"Don't do this," Batman warned, his voice low but firm, trying to reach the part of his son that still held restraint.
"Why not?" Jason deadpanned, his calmness masking the storm of rage beneath. "It's only fair that I do. An eye for an eye… a tooth for a tooth…" He paused, fixing Batman with a piercing gaze. "A life for a life."
Joker's bloodshot eyes flicked between the two of them, a spark of twisted anticipation still alive in their depths, as though he thrived on the tension in the room.
"With the pull of this trigger," Jason continued with a coolly tone, "revenge would be served. Gotham would finally be free of this lunatic… a man who kills children for his own amusement." His gaze remained locked on Batman, challenging him without words.
"Don't do it," Batman urged, carefully taking a cautious step forward, trying to bridge the distance without provoking Jason's fury.
"This isn't the way."
Jason's hand twitched, but instead of firing, he retracted the pistol from Joker's head. "For what it's worth," he said softly, leaving the gun hanging at his side, "you don't have to worry about me killing your deranged boyfriend."
Batman's brow furrowed, suspicion and confusion tightening his expression. He studied his son, trying to decipher what angle Jason was working, what plan he had in mind.
"Instead…" Jason's voice hardened as he tossed the pistol at Batman's feet. "…you'll do it for me. Your chance to finally set things right—and avenge my tormented soul."
Batman bent slightly, eyes narrowing, his jaw tight. "What is this?" His voice was calm but edged with controlled anger.
"I'm giving you the opportunity to do what you should have done years ago," Jason said, stepping closer, his words deliberate and purposeful.
"To be the hero Gotham expects you to be. To end him. That's literally killing two birds with one stone—or, in this case, a crazed clown." He let the weight of his words settle on Batman, already anticipating the inevitable refusal.
Batman's gaze hardened, his voice steady. "Why do you keep forcing this? Knowing full well I won't cross that line. I know the pain and hate is difficult to let go just like that, but you've done enough to him already. That should be enough for your conscience."
Jason's face darkened, a flicker of pain and exasperation passing across it.
"Shut up! Don't pretend you understand what I've been through just because you heard a couple summaries from my time at the League. You can't even begin to fathom it." His voice softened slightly as he drew in a deep, controlled breath, regaining a calm neutrality.
"There are times," he said quietly, almost mournfully, "when we have to cross a line we are not proud of." He drew a second pistol and cocked the hammer with deliberate slowness.
Pressing it against the side of Joker's battered, grotesquely smiling face, he let the tension stretch, almost unbearable.
Joker, barely able to muster strength, let out a rasping comment. "One… one bad day, and look how much you've grown. Papa Joker…is really proud of your work." His words made Batman's stomach turn.
Jason didn't react to him, though; he let Joker speak, letting the man vent what would likely be his final words.
The clown's cackle, weak but unsettling, echoed faintly through the room as his unnaturally wide eyes locked onto Batman. The red, distorted grin stretched across his bruised and battered face in a grotesque parody of joy.
"How does it feel, Batsy," Joker rasped, eyes wide and gleaming with manic delight, "knowing the child you raised completely abandoned your teachings… and took up my mantle after just one night with ol' Uncle Joker at that warehouse?"
Batman said nothing. He only gritted his teeth, fingers clenching into tight fists, a storm of anger and regret churning within him as Joker continued.
"This beautiful little disaster even stole my old monicker," Joker crowed, his fractured jaw twisting what should have been a signature smile into something grotesque and nightmarish. "And he's giving you the kind of hell only I could."
He leaned forward slightly, eyes glittering with pride and lunacy. "In just a couple of months, he's made a name for himself in Gotham… so much that even Black Mask was wary of him."
A rattling, forced cackle tore from his throat. It was a miracle Joker could still speak at all.
But then again—
He was the Joker.
"That's enough garbage for one night, clown," Jason snapped.
He shoved the barrel of his pistol into Joker's mouth, forcing it past teeth that could barely close anymore. Joker gagged weakly, eyes still gleaming with warped amusement even as death loomed inches away.
"There it is," Jason said coldly, eyes never leaving Batman. "Even staring death in the face, he'd rather mock you and your precious morals."
He pressed the gun harder, then continued. "You could've walked away tonight. You could've chosen not to save him. But here you are, still trying to protect this scum that can't be redeemed."
"You've got it wrong," Batman began, "I'm not just here for him. I'm here for you."
Jason let out a sharp, humorless laugh.
"Save the sentimental crap," he snapped. "If you really want to make things right, prove it. Pick up the gun and shoot this bastard."
Batman hesitated, jaw tight. Jason could see it—see that Bruce was at the end of his rope just as much as he was.
"Like I said, I know the pain and hatred you're carrying," Batman said, making one last attempt. "But it doesn't have to define you. It's not too late to choose another path."
"It is too late," Jason replied calmly—too calmly. His turquoise eyes darkened, the blue overtaking the green as his emotions flattened into something colder.
"So pick up the gun. It's time you made a decision."
Jason straightened, his voice steady and without mercy. "It's him or me. One of us dies tonight."
"You walk out of here with only one of us still breathing."
Batman stared at him—and felt something twist painfully in his chest. The fragments of the son he recognized seemed to fade right before his eyes, slipping away until the man standing there felt hollow, stripped and devoid of emotion.
He wasn't certain—not fully—but a familiar dread crept in. Was this what the Lazarus Pit had done? Had dragging Jason back from death fractured something deeper than memory or sanity?
Jason looked like his son. But the coldness in his eyes told a different story.
This wasn't the Jason who had raged at him earlier—the one whose anger had been fueled by pain, betrayal, and grief.
The boy who had once felt utterly betrayed by his father, who had sought to exact vengeance by ending Joker's life, had done so in the desperate hope of finding some measure of closure.
Every action since his return, every calculated move, had been fueled by that raw, personal need to make sense of the pain and loss he had endured—a fractured attempt to reclaim control over a life that had been violently stolen from him.
The man standing before him now felt different.
This was the Jason Bruce had seen on the rooftop—the moment the helmet went back on. Cold. Controlled. Detached. As if the emotions had been locked away behind the mask along with his humanity.
Bruce's mind raced. He needed answers. He needed to understand whether this sudden shift was the Pit's corruption, a defense mechanism, or something far worse. Jason didn't just suppress his emotions—he erased them in an instant, becoming someone else entirely without warning.
Batman had been counting on Jason's volatility. The plan—if it could even be called that—had been to provoke him, push him until the emotions overwhelmed his judgment. At some point, anger or grief would crack his composure, and Batman would exploit that opening to end this without anyone else dying.
But that moment never came.
Jason didn't look unstable now. He looked
aware—terrifyingly so. His current expression was empty and made difficult for Batman to read him. He wasn't acting on rage anymore. He was operating on cold, self-defined logic. Like a sociopath.
Batman tightened his grip around the shard of glass he'd discreetly taken earlier, the edge biting into his gloved palm. It was meant to be a last resort—something to use when Jason made a mistake.
But Jason wasn't looking like he would be making any.
Bruce turned to face him. The boy standing there felt eerily similar to the Batman persona he himself wore—except Jason embodied it with genuine intent to kill.
"And what if I refuse to choose?" Batman asked, his voice steady and unyielding as he deliberately turned his back on Jason, hoping an opportunity would present itself.
"Then we all die," Jason replied without hesitation.
Batman turned to see him raise a detonator, thumb resting lightly on the trigger. Batman's brow furrowed beneath his cowl as his gaze snapped to every corner, scanning the environment.
"The clock's ticking," Jason added calmly. "Literally."
The certainty in his voice made it impossible to tell if he was bluffing—until Batman caught sight of the explosives secured to the far side of the ceiling fan's blades, perfectly positioned above them.
Joker's eyes widened in delight.
It was as if the pain had momentarily left him, adrenaline and madness surging back to the surface. "Finally," he wheezed, giddy. "Oh, what a way to end the night… with a bang."
He squirmed against his restraints, half in agony, half in ecstatic anticipation—like a child moments from tearing into a long-awaited gift.
Cornered by the ultimatum, Batman stood frozen between two unbearable choices: his resurrected son and the monster who had been his constant adversary in a decades‑long game of cat and mouse.
Now, with a bomb ticking above them, the stakes had escalated beyond morality into sheer survival.
His mind raced with thoughts, searching desperately for a loophole—any path that would let the night end without another life being lost.