category: Gen
fandom: Batfamily
characters and relationships: Jason Todd, the Joker, Sheila Haywood
warnings/additional tags: The Crowbar Times, one swear, joker being joker, tearing out feathers, wingfic, blood and violence, Sheila neutral, hurt no comfort, foreboding
word count: 472
Summary:
@ailesswhumptober Day 26: Defanging/Declawing | pulled feathers | “This should teach you to behave next time.”
notes: WINGFIC!
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Jason spat blood and squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the steel crowbar to slam into his ribs and knock the air out of him again, but no blow came. Instead, there was a soft scuff against the concrete floor, and then… humming. The sadistic bastard was humming.
Jason opened his eyes to give Joker a disbelieving look where he was seated next to Jason’s bloodied wing. “Oh, don’t look so glum, birdie. We can still have so much more fun together. Don’t you think?” He grinned down at Jason, who would have punched him in the teeth for it if he could. He’d give up everything that could even remotely been considered fun if Bruce would just storm through those doors, pull him out of Joker’s clutches, and take him home.
Jason coughed, abandoning the notion of sitting up when his side complained in agony, and didn’t bother to reply, closing his eyes again. Then he felt cold fingers stroke through his feathers and jerked away on reflex. “Don’t- Don’t touch me.”
“Ah ah ah. Hold still now, my little fledgling, or this is going to feel so much worse than it already is!” He grabbed the edge of Jason’s wing and yanked it back into his lap, then started going through his feathers again. “Very pretty. Just like Mama’s, aren’t they?”
Sheila said nothing from next to her stack of crates, only blew another cloud of cigarette smoke. She didn’t even look at him. In that moment, Jason hated the colour of his wings, the vivid crimson just a step away from her orange. He hated the fact that he’d had to take after his biological mother instead of his father, that he’d found his birth certificate at all, that it had led him here. But he couldn’t bring himself to hate her.
“Very pretty indeed. But it looks like you could use a little mani-pedi!” Joker suddenly seized a handful of feathers tight, then yanked them out by the roots, and Jason screamed.
The madman laughed at his cry, scattering the loose feathers over his bloodied Robin suit. “Aw, don’t throw a tantrum, sonny. Don’t you appreciate my help?” He ripped out another handful, and Jason writhed on the ground, tears dripping into his blood-and-sweat-soaked hair. Pleasepleasepleaseican’tpleasehelpmeBRUCEhelphelphelpplease-
He went limp, too injured and exhausted to do anything but gasp for air. Surely Bruce had to be on the way back by now, had to be coming for him, would make it in time to kick Joker back into an Arkham cell and take Jason home safe. All he had to do was stick it out until he got here. But with every clump of feathers ripped off his bloodstained wings, Jason felt his resolve crumble and float away on the wind, disappearing like the smoke from his mother’s cigarette.