Jason’s face twisted. Tears mixed with the grime on his cheeks. "You don’t get it. You’ll never get it. I’m not broken, Bruce. I’m fixed . For the first time, I see clearly."
"You’re predictable," the Hood said, his voice a metallic snarl. "That’s your problem, old man. You save the wrong people." batman under the red hood
Jason snarled and kicked him to the floor. "You made nothing. You’re a punchline. And tonight, the joke ends." Jason’s face twisted
"Or what? You’ll hit me? You’ll send me to Arkham? You won’t kill me, Bruce. That’s your whole problem. You have one rule, and it’s a suicide pact. You’d let the Joker murder a thousand people before you’d put a bullet in his head. That’s not justice. That’s cowardice." You’ll never get it
But some stains never come out.
Years ago, Ra’s al Ghul, the Demon’s Head, had been intrigued by Batman’s grief. To curry favor, he had used a Lazarus Pit—a mystical resurrection pool—to restore Jason Todd to life. But resurrection had a cost. The Pit’s green fire heals the body but scalds the soul. Jason clawed his way out of the earth, feral and confused. He wandered Gotham’s streets for a year, a ghost without a memory, until Talia al Ghul found him and helped him rebuild. She trained him, sharpened his fury into a weapon. And when he finally remembered everything—the crowbar, the warehouse, the laughter of the Joker—he understood one terrible truth.
"You’re right," Batman finally said. His voice cracked. "I failed you. I should have been faster. Smarter. I should have… I should have killed him that night. But I didn’t. And I can’t go back. I can’t become what he is, Jason. If I cross that line—if I let you do this—then the Joker wins. Not because he lives. Because he would have finally proven that we are the same. That anyone can be broken into a killer."