Chapter Text
Back hit concrete, Bruce rolling across the ground, He watched Red Hood, Jason, crash through a window. Batman was right behind him every step of the way, shattered glass spraying around him and raining down on bathroom tiles.
A gun greeted him, only a domino mask separating him from his sons face. His real son. Shot cracked and echoed, mirror shattering as Bruce ducked. Fist collided with Jason’s jaw, knocking him through the door. Wooden splinters hit the ground as Jason rolled.
“Stop!” Jason demanded and held up a trigger. A bomb trigger to be exact.
Bruce stopped, holding out a hand in front of himself. “Jason…” He whispered softly, staring at him. He couldn’t stop staring. “What is this about?”
Jason started to laugh, before kicking a door open. He dragged a bound and gagged figure out of what appeared to be a closet.
“Him! It’s always been about him and what he took from you. And why you didn’t take his life in return!” Jason snapped, arm wrapped around the figures neck with the gun pressed against their head.
And the Arkham Knight couldn’t stand by anymore. He was watching the entire exchange. Batman had lost his touch, hadn’t even noticed he was following him. Or maybe he did and he simply didn’t care. Either way, enough was enough.
This situation would only get worse and there was no way he was letting any version of himself live with the same guilt he did. Or die. Because that’s ultimately what this situation would amount to.
Glass shattered and the Red Hood hit the ground, Jay’s arm wrapped around his neck as he brought his own gun up to his doppelgänger’s head, pressing it to his temple.
Red Hood started to laugh.
“Call your pet off before I explode is all!” Jason threatened, gesturing with the trigger.
Several things then happened at once.
Batarang left Batman’s hand, impaling itself in Jason’s wrist.
Trigger clattered to the ground.
Red Hood’s nose collided with Jay’s, the Arkham Knight's head snapping back.
The hostage escaped, wiggling the gag free from his mouth.
Then he started to laugh.
A laugh all too familiar that sounded like nails scraping across chalkboard, a crowbar dragging across the ground, barbed wire piercing flesh.
And then the world went black.
The stench of damp and bugs and rotting wounds filled the room. One he was far too accustomed to. It didn’t even bother him anymore. But the laughter echoed, wires holding the clown back as it was bound to a wooden chair.
The Arkham Knight was there, pounding his fist on the glass wall and staring at Jay’s world. At the clown trying to get free from his bonds.
The rope came loose and he lunged for the trigger, grappling with it and dodging Batman.
Like the clown always did.
Let Batman burn with him. They deserved to die together. But Jay…
Jay needed him. Him and this imposter. None of them would make it out alive without him. They Needed him.
He took several steps back, the clown in the corner still laughing at him. Laughing like he always did.
Then sprang into action. Several running steps left him careening into the glass.
He bounced off and rolled his shoulders, doing it again.
One thin crack spread.
Then two.
Then they ran deeper and deeper.
And his shoulder went right through. The glass shattered and the Arkham Knight opened his eyes for the first time.
Jay stiffened, going rigid as blue eyes went hard and a hand wrapped around Jason, throwing the Red Hood behind him. He pulled out his gun, the Arkham Knight firing at the Joker.
“Knight, no! You know how this ends!” Batman shouted. He grunted as the bullet hit Bruce’s abdomen. Bruce tumbled to the ground, wrestling Joker.
Right as his finger slammed down on the trigger.
Arkham Knight soared from the broken window, Red Hood wrapped in his arms and struggling, shouting and swearing at him. Grapple line snapped forwards and they rolled across the rooftop.
Head rocked back, helmet blinking and cracked as a bullet embedded itself in the screen.
“Get your hands off of me! You have no idea what he did, what he’s capable of. He deserves to die. They both do!” Jason roared, finger still on the trigger.
Fingers reached up, finding the latch on the helmet. It hissed and released.
“I have far more of an idea than you ever could.” The Arkham knight said, voice low and dangerous.
The Red Hood went still and stared at him, masking folding as he squinted at him. Or glared. The knight couldn’t care less.
He pulled the helmet off and let it drop, smashing upon the ground and fritzing.
The gun snapped back up at his face, Jason grinding his teeth together.
“What the fuck?! Is this meant to be a joke? Who the hell are you?” Red Hood screamed, finger on the trigger.
The knight took a step closer, checking his own gun was loaded before pointing it at Jason.
The moon cascaded over his scar, the shiny pink material illuminated by the light that also glinted off his gun and armour. Far more armour than this pretender could think of wearing. He didn’t know what it meant to need armour to function. To have your body turn against you. He was lucky and the knight would make him pay for that. He deserved to suffer as badly as he did. It wasn’t fair that him and Jay got to experience the worst pain imaginable whereas this fake got off easy. He was so lucky and he didn’t even notice. He would teach him to appreciate what he has.
Had.
The knight fired, hitting the red hood in the shoulder. The man shouted and went to fire back, but the Knight shot his hand with his secondary gun first. The red hood had enough of the easy life.
“Who do you think I am, pretender? You think you had it tough? You think what you went through was bad? You died. It ended. Dead, done. The world had a body to bury and eventually moved on but you got to rest. You have a family that cares about you. A Bruce that fucking cares. You’re an inconvenience to Jay. But you’re an asset to me.” The Knight spoke as he kept walking forwards, pressing the gun to Jason’s chin.
“One big happy family means Jay can replace me. Get rid of me. He doesn’t need me anymore and I can’t have that. Can I?” The knight said, grinning sharply with far too many teeth. A few of which were missing, the gums scarred and ripped apart. “But I have to make,” he jammed the gun into Jason’s throat, “you,” he whipped him across the face with the gun, “suffer first. Suffer like I did. So, do you want to be hung from the meat hook first or wired to the chair?”
“You’re fucking insane. What is wrong with you?! Jay, you, are you saying you’re not some weird fucked up version of me? And even if you are, get over yourself! Blah blah blah shit happened, well guess what buckaroo, it happened to me too!” Jason shouted, laughing at him.
And The Knight shot him in the foot.
“No it didn’t.” He holstered on of the guns and grabbed Jason’s face, running his thumb over it. “Look at you. Smooth skin. Not a scratch on you. Joker didn’t brand you. You’re not his little puppy, his boytoy. Not in this world. You got off easy. So damn easy.” He let go and stomped on the injured foot, kicking Jason to the ground.
“Motherfucker! Listen psycho, the joker is still out there, and so is Batman! There’s no way they didn’t get out before that building went up knowing those goddamn cockroaches. And he’s gonna get away again and kill more people!” Jason screamed, grabbing onto his foot.
“So?” The knight asked, turning his back on the pathetic doppelgänger. He started to walk away as Jason hurled insults at him.
He then leapt off the building, leaving the weak and pathetic child behind. He had a bat and a clown to hunt.