The warehouse burned behind them like a dying monster, its screams reduced to smoldering embers and ash curling into the stormy Gotham sky. Rain poured from the heavens, steam rising where it met fire, and through that haze, Draven stumbled forward—Evelyn's arm wrapped tightly around his waist.
"Stay with me," she whispered, her voice raw with desperation. "You're losing too much blood."
Draven's breaths came in ragged gasps, his side a searing wound from Pulse's energy blast. The villain had vanished into the inferno, but his damage lingered in every trembling breath Draven took.
They reached the cover of a half-collapsed tunnel under the East End rail line. Evelyn pulled a rusted door open and helped Draven inside. The hideout was barely more than a maintenance substation—old generators, dust-coated gear, and a cracked leather couch—but it was shelter.
He collapsed onto the couch, coughing hard. Evelyn knelt beside him, peeling away his suit's shredded armor to reveal angry, scorched flesh.
"You need stitches, maybe even surgery," she muttered, trying to steady her shaking hands.
"I'll live," Draven rasped.
She met his eyes, then slowly sat back. "You always say that. But you're running on fumes. How much more can your body take before it doesn't bounce back?"
Silence. Rain drummed against the walls like distant drums of war.
"Why didn't you let me take the shot?" she asked. "When Pulse had that detonator—if you had let me—"
"There were children in that building," he said hoarsely. "He wired it to their life signs. You miss, they die."
"You were willing to die too."
Draven looked at her, rainwater still dripping from his brow, mingling with blood.
"I was."
She blinked back something. Anger? Grief? She stood and turned away.
"I'm not just your voice in the ear anymore, Draven," she said. "I'm here. I'm in this. And if you die because you keep carrying all of this alone—what the hell does that leave me?"
He didn't answer. Couldn't.
Evelyn moved toward the first aid kit and returned with gauze, a needle, and a bottle of whiskey. "This is going to hurt," she said, and poured the alcohol over his wound.
Draven clenched his jaw but didn't cry out.
As she stitched him, their proximity became unbearable. Not from pain—but from unspoken weight. Every scrape of the needle pulled more than skin—it pulled truth from shadow.
"Do you know why I left the GCPD?" she said quietly. "Why I stopped believing in all this?"
Draven looked at her.
"It was a bust gone wrong," she continued. "Black Sun. We had evidence—real, damning evidence. My partner and I were tracing data leaks from Halcyon files. He found a trail—dirty cops tied to child disappearances. When he tried to go public... his apartment exploded."
A pause.
"They called it a gas leak. Swept it up like dust. And when I pushed harder? I got reassigned. Then benched. Then threatened."
"You kept digging."
"I always do," she whispered.
He watched her now—not just with gratitude—but something deeper. Resonance. She wasn't a tagalong or support. She was like him—scarred by betrayal. Hardened by truth.
And that bond? It was no longer just necessity. It was real.
"You kept fighting," Draven said. "Even after everything. That's more than most."
She smiled faintly. "So did you."
They sat in silence for a moment. Then her fingers, trembling slightly, touched the edge of his hand.
"I thought I lost you back there."
"You didn't."
"I can't," she whispered.
He turned to her. For a moment, Gotham faded—the rain, the fire, the war. It was just her. Him. The space between two souls bruised by the same city.
Then he leaned in.
The kiss was slow. Gentle, at first. But real—achingly real. A promise, not of happy endings, but of shared survival. Of us against them.
When they broke apart, Evelyn's eyes were glassy.
"We should rest," she said.
Draven nodded. But neither moved.
Later That Night…
The world had changed again.
Newsfeeds flickered across dark screens in a hidden bunker far beneath the Narrows. An old man watched from behind thick, reinforced glass, sipping tea as the footage showed the aftermath of Pulse's destruction. Police. Fires. Chaos.
"You played your part beautifully," the man said to the figure across the room.
Pulse—his body still recovering—sat slouched in a chair, helmet removed, his pale, blistered face barely visible.
"He interfered. Again," Pulse growled. "He's getting smarter."
The man smiled. "So are we."
A faint, high-pitched giggle echoed through the comms panel. A distorted laugh. Not Pulse's. Not the old man's.
"Did I not say it'd be fun?" came a voice—silk over glass shards. "Let the little knight run. Let him believe he's winning."
The man turned toward the monitor, where a distorted smile flickered into view. The other one. The one no one truly knew.
"Are you ready for your next move, Joker?" the man asked.
Joker leaned forward, eyes gleaming. "Pulse breaks the body. I break the soul. The game has just begun."
Back in the Substation…
Draven woke to the low beep of a terminal. Evelyn was at the console, illuminated by its green glow. Files streamed down the screen—encrypted logs, Halcyon tags, coordinates.
"I found something," she said without turning.
Draven sat up, his side still burning.
"An old Halcyon facility," Evelyn said. "Decommissioned years ago. Buried beneath the old asylum ruins near Southridge. But these logs say it's active again. Shipping manifests list 'emotional trial variants.' Same phrasing we found at the Black Sun vault."
"Another lab," Draven muttered.
"Or worse," Evelyn said. "Whatever Halcyon is planning, it's escalating."
She turned to him.
"We go in together. No more solo runs."
Draven nodded slowly. "Together."
Their war was far from over.
But for the first time… they weren't alone in it.