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[shisuni]

ᯓ➤ matching for christmas ⊹܀˙

← ʙᴀᴄᴋ. ⋮ ⌞ jason todd ✘ reader ⌝ .ᐟ .ᐟ

ৎׅ ׄ synopsis ⋮ You get kidnapped and branded by the joker on christmas. The bat-family sees Jason unravel. word cnt. 14.6k

cw ›››› torture, branding, suicidal language, violence, blood, gore

Something is wrong.

Jason feels it like a pressure change—subtle, almost polite—but it crawls under his helmet and settles behind his eyes. It hasn’t clicked, not cleanly. Not yet. He hasn’t asked. Hasn’t said a word through the harbor sweep, through the cold iron stink of saltwater and oil and Christmas rot. A small job. The kind that should feel easy. The kind that still manages to choke the air out of his lungs anyway.

Everyone’s moving like the night might shatter if they stop.

Tim keeps choosing his words too carefully, syllables slowed and smoothed like he’s sanding down sharp edges. Dick’s doing that thing where he smiles first and speaks second—but the timing’s off, the warmth a fraction too late, like a recording lagging behind the video. Damian watches Jason more than the perimeter, eyes sharp, calculating, guarded. Stephanie hasn’t joked once. Not even a cheap jab to him, not even under her breath. That alone feels wrong enough to tilt the world sideways.

Bruce didn’t come.

That absence is loud. A hollow where a presence should be, echoing through comms and instinct alike. The Cave, he’d said. As if that explained anything. As if Bruce ever sits things out without a reason that claws.

Cassandra says nothing—but she’s closer. Close enough that Jason can feel her awareness like static along his spine. When the group splits, she falls into step beside him without discussion, without a glance. Just there. Solid. Protective in a way that feels less like trust and more like vigilance. As if she’s guarding him.

That’s when unease really sinks its teeth in.

Bruce didn’t need all of them.

Didn’t need six sets of boots scraping concrete, six heartbeats crowding the same dark. Dick alone could’ve dismantled this whole thing with half the effort. Hell, Jason himself could’ve wrapped it up fast and bloody and been home already. Instead, they’re stacked together, overlapping, slowing each other down like they’re afraid to let him out of their sight.

He agreed because no one argued about his presence. Because no one questioned whether he was needed. Because the silence around that decision felt intentional.

That should’ve been his first real warning.

Between two groups of thugs, he had ducked behind a row of shipping containers, Gotham’s lights bleeding gold across the black water. He had pulled out his phone and called you, already rehearsing the apology in his head. Late for presents. Again. You’d tease him, pretend to scold, maybe force him to wrap some gifts for your co-workers. 

You didn't answer.

Probably a bath, he told himself. You’d mentioned one. Candles. The fancy bath salts you bought. Something soft to push the cold out of your bones. The thought settles him, briefly. He sends a text instead—short, careful. An apology. An I love you so much that he doesn’t overthink, because with you, he never has to.

You always know what he means.

The phone stays quiet in his pocket.

No buzz. No vibration brushing against his thigh like it usually does, grounding him, tethering him back to something warm and real. He told himself it’s nothing. That you’re relaxed, distracted, asleep. That the night is just heavy, that Gotham is doing what Gotham always does—making ghosts out of shadows and dread out of coincidence.

Still.

When he looks back at the others, he notices the way Dick avoids his eyes now. The way Tim’s gaze flicks to Jason’s pocket and away again. The way Damian’s jaw tightens when Jason shifts his weight, like he’s bracing for impact. Cassandra meets his eyes once—just once—and there’s something there that twists low and sharp in his chest. Not fear. Not exactly.

Knowing. Jason doesn’t ask. He doesn’t press.

But the harbor feels too quiet, the night stretched thin and listening, and for the first time since he sent that text, a cold, irrational thought curls in his gut—

That whatever is wrong didn’t start here.

And that somewhere far from the water, far from the mission, something precious has already slipped out of reach.

“That was the last of them,” Jason says, voice rough through the helmet, as Tim finishes cinching zip-ties around the final goon and anchors him to a rust-flaked shipping container. The plastic bites down with a sharp click that echoes too loudly across the concrete. The man mumbled insanities through spit.

The harbor exhales around them—cold wind off the water, carrying brine and diesel and something rotten that’s been sitting too long. Sodium lights flicker overhead, casting everything in jaundiced gold and long, distorted shadows that stretch and tangle at their feet. The concrete is damp beneath Jason’s boots, slick with mist and old oil, the kind of surface that never really dries no matter how many ‘sunny’ days Gotham pretends to have.

“We should do another check around the harbor,” Dick says.

He’s already kneeling, already breaking the man's phone in half with practiced efficiency, grinding it into the concrete with his heel until the screen spider webs and dies. He doesn’t look up when he says it. Doesn’t grin. Doesn’t even sound casual about it.

Jason lifts an eyebrow, slow, deliberate. His gaze slides to Damian automatically—because Damian is usually the first to shoot an idea like that down, sharp and impatient and blunt as a blade.

Instead, Damian just mutters, “Tim could be wrong.”

Mumbles it. Like he’s afraid the words might carry.

That alone sends a small, unpleasant chill up Jason’s spine.

Tim doesn’t argue. Doesn’t bristle. He straightens from the goon and dusts his gloves together, eyes flicking—not to Jason—but to Stephanie. The movement is quick, practiced, like muscle memory.

“Do you want to take the gates with me?” Tim says, too smooth. Too rehearsed. “Jason and Dick could go along the—”

“What?” Jason cuts in before he can finish, blinking once. “You two were perched on the gates the entire op. What’re you talking about?”

The wind gusts harder, rattling loose chains and setting a tarp snapping somewhere down the dock. Water slaps against concrete pylons in a slow, hollow rhythm. 

Jason suddenly feels like the sound is counting something down.

“It wouldn’t hurt to double-check,” Tim says, rising to his feet.

He still won’t meet Jason’s eyes.

Jason’s jaw tightens. He shifts his weight, the concrete cold and unforgiving through the thinning soles of his boots, and for a split second his mind drifts—unbidden—to you. To the warmth of your kitchen lights. To the way you’d probably be halfway through setting out plates by now, humming something low and off-key, waiting for him in that way that makes him want to claw his soul out and hand it over to you. 

The thought lands soft, intimate, grounding—and then slips through his fingers when he remembers his phone, silent and heavy in his pocket.

“…You guys don’t need me for that,” Jason says, firmer now. There’s an edge to it, something protective and stubborn. He already has plans. A timeline. A promise he intends to keep. “Seriously. If you want to sweep again, even one person could—”

Dick finally looks up.

It’s just a glance, quick and loaded, the kind Jason’s learned to read over a lifetime of almosts and unsaids. Cassandra shifts closer at the same moment, her shoulder nearly brushing his, her presence steady and deliberate. Jason doesn't think she's ever willingly touched him in his life. Stephanie opens her mouth like she’s about to say something—anything—then closes it again.

The harbor feels tighter suddenly. Smaller. Like the stacks of containers have leaned in, hemming them closer, their corrugated sides looming like silent witnesses. The wind cuts sharper off the water, needling through the seams of Jason’s jacket, and somewhere deep in his chest, that pressure builds again.

Jason turns fully to Damian.

“Kid, I swear to God, tell me what—”

Damian snaps at the exact same moment Cassandra moves. Her hand closes around Jason’s shoulder, firm and sudden, fingers digging in through armor like she’s trying to anchor him to the concrete before he does something irreversible. The contact is intimate in a way that feels wrong, alarmed.

“How the hell should I know? They didn't tell me—” Damian bites back, voice sharp, flaring too fast, too hot.

“Damian!” Dick hisses, the sound cutting through the night like a blade dragged too quickly from its sheath. He’s already moving, stepping between them without quite committing to either side, hands up in a placating gesture that lands closer to panic than calm. He turns to Jason almost immediately, words tumbling over each other. “Come on, dude, let’s just go check the security towers and—”

“That’s going to take another hour,” Jason cuts in.

The words come out flat, but there’s steel underneath. He shrugs Cassandra’s hand off—not rough, but final—and reaches into his pocket. The harbor lights blur for a second as his fingers close around his phone, the familiar shape of something that connects him to you grounding him. It’s 10:20. He knows that without looking but checks anyway. He’s been counting the minutes since the mission dragged past its supposed end.

“I had plans,” he says, quieter now, but more dangerous for it. “Let me at least—”

The batarang whistles through the air.

Jason barely has time to register the movement—Damian’s arm snapping forward, wrist precise, expression tight and furious—before metal slams into his hand. The impact jars up his arm, sharp and biting, and the phone slips free, spinning once before it hits the concrete.

Crack.

The screen fractures instantly, a spiderweb of dead glass blooming beneath the sodium lights before the device skids to a stop near Jason’s boot. The harbor seems to hold its breath. Even the wind falters, the water’s slap against the pylons momentarily muted, as if the night itself is listening.

Jason stares down at it.

At the dark screen. On the way his reflection breaks apart in the shattered glass.

Jason’s gaze lifts slowly from the ruin at his feet.

It settles on Dick.

“Call Bruce.”

The words aren’t loud. They don’t need to be. They cut anyway—clean, controlled, edged with something that’s starting to slip. Dick falters under it, hand coming up to rub at the back of his neck, eyes flicking anywhere but Jason’s face. The harbor lights stutter overhead, one of them buzzing like it’s about to give out, bathing Dick in a sickly gold that makes him look younger. 

Guilty.

“What, you gonna tattle?” Dick says, trying for levity and missing it by miles. His laugh lands wrong, brittle against the cold. “C’mon, Damian's just in a mood. I was going to surprise you with burgers but I thought the kid would spill. I’ll buy you a new phone, okay? Just—”

“Call Bruce,” Jason repeats.

This time it’s a hiss, dragged out through clenched teeth, something feral and fraying around the edges. The wind picks up again, slicing between the containers, rattling loose metal and carrying the sharp tang of rain that never quite falls in Gotham. Jason turns his head, slow and deliberate, until his eyes find Cassandra.

She hasn’t moved. She’s watching him like she’s afraid he might break.

“…He’s busy,” Cass says.

Her voice is barely there. Smaller than usual. Soft enough that Tim, standing a good ten feet away, doesn’t hear it at all. The words dissolve into the night almost as soon as they leave her mouth, swallowed by wind and water and distance—but Jason hears them. Every syllable.

Busy.

Something inside him tightens, winding down to a thin, dangerous thread.

His hand comes up to his comm without conscious thought. He adjusts it once, fingers steady despite the way his pulse thuds too hard, too fast. The harbor seems to lean in again—the stacked containers looming like watchful giants, the river below churning black and endless. 

Gotham breathes around him, damp and unforgiving.

“B,” Jason says.

Sharp. Precise. A single syllable fired into the dark like a flare.

Static answers him. Wind whistling through steel corridors. The distant cry of something alive and miserable echoing off the water. No voice. No correction. No irritation crackling back through the line.

Just silence. It stretches. Pulls thin. Grows teeth.

Jason exhales through his nose, a humorless breath that fogs faintly in the cold air. He thinks of you again—too vividly now. The way your voice softens when you say his name. The way you always pick up, even when he thinks you shouldn’t. The way silence has never belonged between the two of you.

His jaw locks. Fuck this shit, I should be at home with her.

Jason moves before anyone can stop him—before anyone even realizes he’s decided something.

He’s across the concrete in three long strides, boots splashing through shallow puddles that mirror Gotham’s jaundiced lights in broken pieces. Damian doesn’t flinch when Jason grabs his comm. Doesn’t pull back. Doesn’t protest. That, more than anything, makes Jason’s teeth grind.

He clicks the emergency signal to the Batcomputer—once, twice, a break, two clicks hard enough that it hurts his thumb—then rips the comm free. His helmet follows, clattering against the concrete with a hollow, echoing crack that ricochets between the shipping containers. The sound feels too loud, too exposed. Jason presses the comm to his bare ear, cold metal biting into skin.

No one stops him.

Not Dick. Not Tim. Not Stephanie. Cassandra watches with that same quiet intensity, hands flexing like she’s bracing for impact. They stand there and let it happen, like this is how it was always meant to go—like they’ve already accepted that Jason finding out is inevitable, but telling him would be worse. Like this is some twisted test, or penance, or family tradition he never agreed to.

The harbor hums low and restless. Wind slides through steel corridors, rattling chains, carrying the stink of oil and brine and rain-soaked concrete. Gotham feels awake in that way it only does when something bad is already in motion.

“Robin?” Bruce’s voice cuts through the static, sharp and immediate. Too immediate. There’s an edge to it Jason hasn’t heard in years—tight, almost nervous, parental. “Robin, what’s wrong?”

Jason almost laughs.

Instead, his mouth twists.

“I’m going home, old man,” he hisses, already turning away from Damian. “What was this? Ya trying to tire me out, or did you get mind-controlled again? ‘Cause everyone here apparently likes you enough to not tell me the truth.”

“Jason—”

“Red Hood,” Jason snaps, the correction coming fast and mean. He bends, scoops his helmet up by the chin guard, and starts walking toward the exit between the containers where the harbor opens up to the road. “What happened to keeping hero names on comms? Or are you the only one allowed to break rules tonight?”

“Red Hood, just give me—”

“It’s a lousy gang!” Jason shouts, voice tearing loose now, bouncing off steel and concrete and dark water. “They don’t even crack the top twenty. Damian could’ve done this shit by himself.”

He doesn’t look back, but he knows they’re following him. He can feel it—the weight of their footsteps, the way they trail just close enough to intervene if he breaks. Later, it’ll hit him why Tim made sure every single goon was double zip-tied, wrists biting white beneath plastic. Insurance. 

Tim knew Jason would find out. 

Knew none of them would be coming back to clean this up.

“Red Hood—”

“Merry Christmas, B,” Jason cuts in, bitter and sharp as broken glass. “Please don’t call.”

“JASON—”

Bruce’s voice snaps through the comm like a gunshot, dragging Jason straight back into another life, another night, another version of himself that answered to that tone. “She’s in danger. And if you want any chance of seeing her again, get to the Batcave—”

The line goes dead.

Not static. Not interference.

Bruce cut it himself.

Jason stops, because there's only one person he could be talking about to send all five of them with him.

The harbor seems to lurch, the world tilting just enough to make his balance feel theoretical. The wind howls between the containers, louder now, like Gotham exhaling something foul and satisfied. Water slaps hard against concrete pylons below, relentless, counting seconds Jason no longer owns.

Slowly—too slowly—he turns.

He looks at them. At Dick’s pale face. At Tim’s clenched jaw. At Damian’s rigid stillness. At Stephanie, eyes bright with unshed panic. At Cassandra, whose gaze is already on him, steady and mournful, like she’s watching something crack.

They look at him like he’s glass.

Like he’s a bomb they’re waiting to defuse—or clean up after.

Jason doesn’t give them the chance.

“Fuck all of you,” he spits, the words coming out broken and small despite his best efforts.

Then he runs.

Out of the harbor. Out of the sodium lights and rust and the weight of too many eyes. Jason runs like Gotham itself is on his heels, boots striking concrete in a brutal rhythm that drowns out thought—or tries to. The city stretches around him in jagged silhouettes and wet stone, skyscrapers looming like blackened ribs against a low, churning sky. Clouds hang heavy and swollen, bruised purple and gray, threatening rain they never quite release. Gotham loves the anticipation of pain more than the act itself.

His blood is loud in his ears. Too loud. Every heartbeat punches through his ribs, frantic and unforgiving, as if his body already knows something his mind refuses to accept.

Toward the manor. Toward answers.

Toward the awful, creeping certainty settling into his bones that whatever Gotham has taken this time, it didn’t take lightly—and it didn’t take something he can afford to replace.

He takes the shorter way.

Fire escapes. Rooftops slick with mist. Narrow alleys that smell like old rain and older sins. He vaults gaps without slowing, coat snapping behind him like a torn banner, the city blurring into streaks of shadow and light. This route cuts close to your place. Too close. He doesn’t consciously choose it; his body does, muscle memory dragging him along a path his heart has memorized better than any map.

And then—

Mid-leap, suspended between one rooftop and the next, he sees it.

Your building sits quiet against the skyline, dark in a way it never is. Your lights are off. All of them. The windows—your windows—are shattered, glass glittering weakly under the city’s glow like fallen stars. The balcony rail is smeared with something darker than shadow.

Blood.

The word doesn’t form. Not fully. His brain skids around it, refuses to give it weight. At most, he tells himself, you’re hurt. Something small. A cut. A scrape. A stupid accident that looks worse than it is. You’ll laugh it off when he gets there, scold him for worrying, tell him he’s being dramatic again.

Because you’re untouchable.

That’s the rule his mind has always clung to. Gotham can drown him in filth and violence and rot, but you—you—are clean. Untarnished. Something soft the city hasn’t learned how to bruise yet. You exist outside its reach, outside its hunger. Gotham takes things like Jason. It breaks people like him. It doesn’t get to put its hands on you.

It can’t have you.

Because if you’re hurt—if you’re really hurt—then everything Jason has built inside himself caves in at once. Every fragile structure, every careful compromise, every promise he’s made to stay standing for you. There’s no version of the world where you’re broken and he survives it intact.

He lands hard, barely absorbing the impact before he’s running again, lungs burning, throat raw. The manor rises ahead of him through the trees like a dark monument, windows glowing warm and oblivious against the night. Too slow. The gates are too slow. The doors are too slow.

Jason doesn’t bother.

He barrels straight for a ground-floor window and drives his elbow through it without hesitation. Glass explodes inward, sharp and screaming, biting into skin. He doesn’t feel it—not really—until he’s inside, boots skidding onto the polished floor, breath tearing out of him in harsh, uneven pulls.

Blood runs freely down his forearm, drips onto the pale carpet in dark, blooming stains.

It looks wrong there. Violent. Out of place, just like the blood on your balcony.

Jason stares at it for half a second too long, chest heaving, and something in him splinters quietly—because now he knows. The city has already touched you and it has never, not once, let go without breaking something in return.

Jason doesn’t slow down in the Cave.

The platform is still lowering when he’s already moving, boots striking metal too hard, too fast, the sound ricocheting off stone and steel. The Batcave yawns around them—vast and echoing, all cold water and colder rock, computer screens throwing pale blue light across jagged walls. The waterfall roars like it’s trying to drown the night itself, a constant, punishing noise that usually steadies him.

Tonight it only sharpens the edges.

Bruce turns at the last possible second. His eyes flick first to Jason’s face, then to the blood smeared down his arm, dripping steadily onto the pristine metal floor. Bruce’s mouth tightens. Not in anger. In calculation. In fear he refuses to name.

Jason shoves him.

Hard.

Bruce’s back slams into the Batcomputer console, screens rattling, data stuttering for half a heartbeat. A lesser man would’ve been airborne. Bruce Wayne could have thrown Jason across the Cave without effort—could have ended this in a clean, controlled second.

He doesn’t.

Jason knows he won’t.

“Where is she,” Jason spits, the words tearing out of him raw and shaking. His hands fist in Bruce’s cape, knuckles white, trembling despite the strength coiled beneath them. The fabric bunches beneath his grip like it might rip if he pulls any harder. “Where is she?”

Bruce lifts his hands slowly, carefully—not in surrender, but in containment. Like approaching a live wire. His voice, when he speaks, is measured to the point of pain.

“…Jason.”

The name alone is an attempt. An anchor. Bruce is already running scenarios, already gauging angles and exits and how much damage Jason could do if this slips another inch. He knows Jason’s tells. Knows the way his breathing has gone uneven, the way his eyes are too bright, too fixed. Knows this isn’t rage yet.

This is terror.

“Don’t,” Bruce says quietly. Not commanding. Pleading, buried deep beneath control. “Just—listen to me.”

Jason laughs once, short and broken, the sound scraping his throat raw. “No. You don’t get to slow this down. You don’t get to prepare me.”

Bruce swallows. “…Joker—” he begins.

And the world fractures.

The word lands heavy and obscene between them, fouling the air of the cave like poison gas. Joker. The name crawls under Jason’s armor, past muscle and bone, straight into the place where you live inside him.

Suddenly, you’re not untouchable.

You’re not the one clean thing Gotham never got its hands on. Not the soft place Jason runs to when the city claws at him too hard. Not the warmth in his bed, the light in his kitchen, the voice that says his name like it belongs to something human.

You’re not safe.

You’re not distant.

You’re not protected by the simple, impossible belief that the worst things in the world know better than to touch you.

You’re real.

You’re fragile.

You’re reachable.

Jason’s grip tightens without him meaning to, breath hitching violently in his chest. His mind fills with images he refuses to finish forming—broken glass, blood on pale surfaces, your windows shattered open to the night the same way his chest feels split open now. He thinks of your hands. Your laugh. The way you look at him like he’s something worth keeping.

And now—

Now you’re the blood he’s already wearing.

The blood he’s going to feel soaking into his gloves tonight.

Bruce sees it happen. Sees the moment Jason slips past anger and into something far more dangerous. His own heart lurches, sharp and traitorous. This—this is what he’s been afraid of since the second he knew Joker was involved. Not Jason lashing out blindly.

Jason focused.

Emotional.

Unanchored.

“Jason,” Bruce says again, softer now, steady as bedrock despite the fear tightening his chest. “I need you to stay with me. I need you here. Because if you go out there like this—”

Jason’s eyes snap back to him, glassy and feral and devastatingly alive.

“If I don’t go,” Jason says hoarsely, “she dies.”

“If you go,” Bruce says, low and sharp, the words cutting through the roar of the Cave, “you die—and you could lose her at the same time.”

The Batcave hums around them, fluorescent light washing the rock walls in cold blue, computer screens flickering with restless data. The waterfall crashes endlessly behind Bruce, mist clinging to the air, dampening everything it touches. It feels like the Cave is breathing—slow, heavy, watchful.

Bruce moves closer and grips Jason’s jacket with both hands, fingers clutching the leather like it’s the last solid thing in the world. He holds on the way a man holds a ledge he’s already slipping from, hoping friction alone might be enough to keep someone from falling.

It isn’t.

“Where is she,” Jason says.

His voice is flat. Too controlled. His eyes have already left Bruce, already slid to the Batcomputer, to the glowing map littered with red and yellow pings like open wounds across Gotham’s body. Each marker pulses faintly, alive and accusing.

He doesn’t notice his siblings closing in—Dick’s careful steps, Tim’s rigid stillness, Damian hovering sharp and coiled like a drawn blade.

“She’s alive,” Bruce says quickly, desperately. “She wasn’t the only one—at least four other children and three women—”

Jason turns his head.

The look he gives Bruce is devastating in its emptiness. Eyes glassed over, jaw set too tight, brows drawn together like the world has narrowed to a single, unbearable point.

“Do you honestly think I give a damn about them right now?”

The words aren’t shouted. They don’t need to be. They land heavy, obscene in their honesty, and Bruce’s grip tightens reflexively, knuckles whitening against Jason’s jacket.

“I know you don’t,” Bruce snaps back, frustration bleeding through control. “Which is why I didn’t tell you she was taken. Because we need a plan that keeps everyone who was captured safe—”

“At the risk she dies in the process?” Jason cuts in.

Then—he stills.

Something shifts. His hands loosen, falling away from Bruce’s cape as if the fabric has suddenly burned him. His gaze slides, sharp and intentional, and locks onto Tim.

“How long,” Jason says.

The question is steady. Solid. Frighteningly calm.

Tim swallows and flicks a glance at Bruce—a silent check, a plea, a habit Jason has seen a thousand times. Jason shoves Bruce’s hand aside and crosses the distance in two strides, grabbing Tim by the shoulders, fingers digging in through armor.

“Don’t,” Jason hisses, thumbs pressing hard, grounding, painful. “Don’t look at him.”

The words aren’t just for Tim. They’re for Jason too.

He vaguely registers Dick saying his name, Stephanie’s voice tight with panic somewhere behind him, but it all dissolves into a dull ringing as he stares down at Tim. Tim doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t pull away. He meets Jason’s gaze head-on.

“How long,” Jason repeats. “Where.”

Tim exhales, slow and controlled, the way he does when delivering bad news. “Two hours,” he says quietly. “Warehouse two blocks from Crime Alley. Behind that busted playground.”

Crime Alley.

The name echoes through the Cave like a curse, sinking into Jason’s chest and blooming outward, cold and malignant. Of course it’s there. Of course Joker chose that place—layers of history piled atop rot, a shrine built from other people’s pain.

Jason releases Tim slowly, hands trembling now, control finally beginning to crack.

Two hours.

Two hours of you alone with the man who taught Gotham how to laugh while it kills.

The Batcomputer hums on, indifferent. Gotham’s skyline glows faintly on the monitors—jagged towers under a bruised sky, rain finally starting to smear the camera feeds, streaking the city in gray. Somewhere out there, windows are broken. Somewhere out there, that cashmere scarf he wrapped and placed under your tree stays un-wrapped.

Jason understands then—with a clarity so sharp it almost feels merciful—that plans are a luxury meant for people who still believe time is something they own.

Time has never belonged to him.

Because you—you—aren’t alone. You’re trapped with seven other people. Four of them children, Bruce had said, like that word didn’t rearrange Jason’s insides completely. His mind does something traitorous then, something he hates himself for even acknowledging: it calculates. It knows how these things go. It knows Joker’s sense of theater, his appetite for cruelty, his fondness for leaving one survivor behind as punctuation.

And the last one standing is never the strongest.

It’s the smallest. 

You would be dying before those kids.

Jason’s breath stutters, just once.

“Jason,” Bruce says from the Batcomputer, voice tight, forced into calm the way it always is when he’s terrified. The blue glow paints him hollow, all sharp angles and restraint. “Don’t make me stop you. The cops are on their way. Joker just wants cash.”

For the first time since the harbor, the noise in Jason’s head goes quiet.

Not peaceful—focused.

Everything narrows down to Bruce. To the way his shoulders are squared like a barricade. To the way his hands hover, uncertain, like he’s trying to decide whether to reach out or brace for impact. Jason’s heart hammers so hard it hurts, louder than the waterfall, louder than any threat Batman could ever make.

“If you even try, Bruce,” Jason says.

He doesn’t look at him when he says it. He can’t. The name comes out wrong in his mouth—too raw, too intimate, scraped down to bone. Instead, he keeps his eyes on Tim, standing rigid in front of him, small in a way Jason suddenly can’t stop seeing. He hopes—distantly, uselessly—that he isn’t glaring at his little brother. Hopes Tim understands this isn’t anger.

Just pure desperation. His last attempt, his last shot.

“Ill fucking shoot myself. I’ll make sure you know it’s your fault,” Jason continues, voice low and shaking despite his effort to keep it steady. “I’ll use my gun. And if you tie me up today, I’ll wait until next week. If you lock me down for a week, I’ll wait a month. I’ll do it.”

He swallows.

Because that’s the only thing that’s ever worked. The only language Bruce Wayne never ignores.

Dick moves fast—too fast—grabbing Jason’s arm where it’s still braced near Tim, fingers digging in hard. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” he shouts, panic cracking straight through his anger.

Jason turns on him then, eyes blazing, voice breaking loose at last.

“Would you be this still?” Jason yells back. “If that was me with Joker again? If it was me instead of her—would you have left me there for the police to find? Again?”

The word hangs between them, heavy and damning.

Again.

Jason knows Dick well enough to see it land. To watch his brother’s grip falter, fingers loosening like they’ve forgotten what they were holding onto in the first place. Dick’s face goes pale, mouth parting uselessly, and Jason twists the knife—not because he wants to hurt him, but because he needs them to understand.

“This,” Jason snaps. “This is why none of you fucking knew about her.”

He looks at all of them now—really looks. At Bruce, frozen behind the console like a man staring down a live bomb. At Dick, wrecked with guilt.

“If you can’t even see me beyond a mistake you made,” Jason says, voice hoarse, “there was no way you wouldn’t have seen her as that too. And I love her too much for that.”

The words leave him hollowed out.

Then he’s gone.

The Cave swallows the echo of his footsteps, leaving only the roar of the waterfall and the hum of machines that suddenly feel pointless. No one moves to stop him. No one even tries.

It takes Tim a full minute to cross the platform and reach the Batcomputer, fingers hovering uselessly over keys he knows by heart.

It takes Cassandra four times as long to find a part of Bruce that still moves—some small, human place in his arm or shoulder that isn’t locked rigid like a man bracing for an explosion he knows is already ticking down.

Dick follows Jason’s trail almost immediately. And Damian follows Dick.

You don’t remember the last five hours.

They’re gone—hollowed out—like someone reached into your head and scooped the time away with a careless hand. The last thing you have is small and warm and ordinary: the coffee table between the couch and the window, set for two. Plates aligned just so. The new glasses you bought with Jason on that stupidly perfect thrift-store date, thin and elegant and impractical. You’d laughed about them, about how easy they’d be to break. Jason had pretended to scold you, fingers warm around yours as he tugged you toward the bookshelves, already stacking paperbacks in his arms like treasure.

You’d bought homeware. A vintage mirror with a gold edge, slightly warped, the kind that makes everything look softer than it is.

Jason always said you needed better locks. You realize it numbly.

He always said it gently, like a suggestion instead of a warning. Like he was talking about replacing a lightbulb or buying better coffee. You brushed him off every time, smiling, pressing a kiss into his shoulder, telling him Gotham wasn’t that bad. That you were fine. That you were safe.

And you were right. You always are.

Because an extra lock wouldn’t have stopped the man with the red smile.

It wouldn’t have stopped hands tangling in your hair, fingers tight and merciless as he dragged you across your rug, skin burning where it scraped against the fibers. It wouldn’t have stopped the way your mirror shattered when he slammed you against it, glass singing as it broke, your own reflection splintering into a hundred terrified pieces that stared back at you with wide, unbelieving eyes.

It wouldn’t have stopped the way he looked at you.

He crouched in front of you like this was intimate. Like this was a secret. His smile stretched too far, paint cracked and smeared, eyes bright with something wrong and delighted and ancient. 

Joker tilted his head, studying you the way a child studies an insect pinned to cork.

“Here’s the other lovebird,” he murmured, voice lilting, almost fond. “Ohhh… how cute you are.”

You remember thinking—absurdly, desperately—that Jason would hate that word. That he’d bristle at it, roll his eyes, pull you closer just to prove a point. You remember the ache of missing him hitting harder than the pain at first, your mind reaching for him the way it always does when the world goes wrong.

Jason would know what to do.

Jason would make this stop.

The thought is a comfort even now, curled tight in your chest, fragile but stubborn. You cling to it as the man stands, as one of the shadows behind him passes up an old, rusted crowbar. The metal is pitted and dark, flaking with age and something older still. It smells like iron and damp and rot.

It doesn’t take a lock to stop that.

It doesn’t take a security system to stop the sound your bones make when he brings it down.

The pain comes in blinding flashes—white-hot, nauseating, wrong. Your legs scream before you do, nerves lighting up in protest, your body trying to fold in on itself, trying to protect something already broken. You taste blood, copper and thick, your teeth chattering even as your throat burns raw from crying out.

Through it all, you think of Jason.

Of his hands—gentle despite their strength. Of the way he says your name like it’s something precious, something he’s afraid to drop. You think of his laugh, low and surprised, the way he softens when it’s just the two of you and Gotham can’t see him. You think of the books still stacked on the table, waiting to be read, of the glasses that shattered just like the mirror did.

Of how he warned you.

Of how he would be here already if he knew.

The room feels wrong—tilted, smeared with shadow, the air thick and sour. Blood pools where it shouldn’t, dark against your floor, soaking into the rug you picked out together. The city hums outside your broken windows, indifferent and vast, neon bleeding into the night like nothing is wrong at all.

You breathe when you can. You hold onto Jason’s name like a prayer you’re afraid to say out loud.

Because if he comes—when he comes—you need to believe there will still be something left of you for him to find.

Your consciousness returns in fragments, drifting in and out the same way you remember nights with him. Not clean breaks. Not mercy. Just gaps.

A void of sleep.

Jason easing your window open like the city might hear him, hands raised in mock surrender, voice low and careful. I didn’t mean to wake you… shh… go back to bed. The mattress dips, familiar weight settling beside you, warmth bleeding into your back.

A void of sleep.

Jason in your bathroom, the light too bright, the mirror fogged. Gotham’s blood and grime rinsed down the drain while he rubs his hair dry with one of your soft, ridiculous pink towels. He smiles at you through the doorway, sheepish and fond, promises he’ll be there in a second. He always is.

A void of sleep.

Jason shifting beside you, breath warm against the delicate skin beneath your ear. His arm tightens in his sleep, possessive without knowing it, like even unconscious he’s afraid the world might take you if he lets go. He murmurs your name—broken, reverent.

A void of sleep.

White hands. Cracked paint. Fingers threading through your hair, slick and tangled with blood. The touch is intimate in the worst way, scalp burning as he hums—no, sings—a childish tune about robins, voice lilting and wrong, laughter bubbling beneath it like rot under sugar.

A void of sleep.

Concrete tearing at your skin as you’re dragged, knees bouncing, spine jolting with every crack in the ground. A van door yawns open, metal teeth waiting. A child sobs near your ear, small and hiccuping. A woman screams at the child to shut up—panic sharp and desperate—until a gunshot rings out like punctuation. The woman goes silent. The child doesn’t. The word mommy repeats, thin and broken, drilling into your skull.

A void of sleep.

You wake choking on pain.

Your body is bound to a chair, wrists cinched tight, ankles screaming. Barbed wire coils around you like something alive, biting deep with every involuntary twitch. The metal is rusted, flaking, cruel—tearing skin open in ragged kisses that burn and throb and never quite stop bleeding. Your legs are numb in places, screaming in others. You can feel blood soaking into fabric, sticky and cooling as it trails downward.

He’s in front of you.

Smiling.

Head cocked, eyes bright with interest, like you’re a puzzle he’s just started enjoying. He steps closer, crouches until he’s eye-level with you, hands clasped together as if in prayer.

“You do love your sleep, don’t you?” he says, voice almost gentle.

Your vision swims. The room smells like iron and oil and damp concrete. Somewhere nearby, something drips steadily—water, or blood, or both. The walls feel too close, the shadows stretching and curling like they’re listening.

“The other birdy,” he continues, grinning wider, “wouldn’t even sleep if I cracked his skull. Such a shame.” He sighs theatrically, tapping the barbed wire with one gloved finger, delighted by the way you flinch. “I suppose I’ll have to find a way to keep you awake.”

Through the haze, through the pain, one thought stays stubbornly intact.

Jason is coming.

And you cling to that like a lifeline, even as the horror closes in, even as the night tries to peel you apart—because if you let go of that belief, if you let the void take everything—There will be nothing left for him to save.

You can’t see farther than four feet in front of you.

Anything beyond that dissolves into smears of color and motion, the edges of the room bleeding into one another. When you try to focus, your vision tilts violently, the world pitching sideways as warm blood slips down from your temple, sticky and insistent. It drips into your eye, blurring everything further, each blink making it worse. The ceiling swims. The walls breathe.

He notices.

Of course he does.

He steps into what little clarity you have left, face snapping into focus like a nightmare finally deciding to be seen. His hand comes up fast, fingers prying your jaw open with impatient familiarity. Something chalky presses against your tongue.

You gag immediately.

Your throat spasms around his fingers, saliva thick and useless as panic claws up your chest. Your head jerks instinctively, barbed wire biting deeper in protest, fresh pain flaring white-hot along your wrists and ankles. He doesn’t pull away. He shoves the pill back, past your tongue, past your resistance, until your body betrays you and swallows.

You choke.

Tears spill from your eyes, hot and humiliating, streaking through the grime on your cheeks. Your lungs burn as you suck in air in sharp, broken pulls.

Jason, you think, distantly, desperately. The name is a reflex now. A prayer you don’t dare say out loud.

His hand withdraws at last.

Then—

Smack.

Your head snaps to the side, vision exploding into sparks. Before you can react—

Smack.

The second strike lands harder, ringing through your skull, teeth clacking together as pain blooms anew. The world steadies just enough to be cruel about it.

“That’ll keep you awake, birdy,” he croons, pleased.

Your heart slams against your ribs, frantic and trapped. Already you can feel it—the way the haze pulls back just a little too much, the way your thoughts sharpen against your will. Your eyelids burn, heavy but refusing to close, nerves screaming as the drug seeps in and denies you even the mercy of darkness.

“Now.”

He leans back into his own chair like this is a rehearsal, like he’s bored of waiting for his cue. The legs scrape loudly against the concrete, the sound sharp enough to hurt. He reaches forward and adjusts the camera in front of you with careful precision. A small red light blinks every few seconds—steady, patient. Watching.

“We’re going to make a deal, okay?”

You don’t answer.

Your eyes refuse to cooperate, swimming uselessly as you blink through blood and tears. Every attempt to focus sends a wave of nausea through you, the room tilting, your pulse roaring in your ears louder than his voice. Your jaw trembles. Your tongue feels thick, wrong in your mouth.

“Okay?”

Nothing comes out.

The barbed wire strung cruelly across your throat digs in deeper with every breath you take, a quiet reminder that sound would cost you skin. Air hisses past your teeth in shallow pulls. You can feel your heartbeat there, fluttering and frantic against metal.

His smile thins.

He stands.

The rusty crowbar tightens in his grip as he rises from a stupid, bright orange folding chair—out of place, obscene against the filth of the warehouse. He steps into frame, then closer, until the camera, until you, are all that exist. He hooks two fingers under your chin and lifts your face, forcing your eyes up.

“Answer.”

You try.

Your mouth opens. Nothing happens.

All you can see is him—cracked white makeup creasing around his eyes, green hair greasy and limp, age showing in the lines around his mouth where smiles have lived too long. He smells like oil and metal and something sour beneath it all. The warehouse stinks of rust, damp concrete, old fuel. It crawls into your lungs.

And then—

You hear it.

A sound that doesn’t belong to him.

Crying.

Your head turns slowly, painfully, vertebrae protesting as the wire shifts against your throat. The movement costs you another sharp breath. Your vision blurs again—but this time, shapes resolve.

A cluster of bodies huddled together against a dented equipment container. Two teenage girls with their knees pulled tight to their chests, faces streaked with dirt and tears. Four little boys wedged between them, shaking, hands bound too tight, mouths open in silent sobs like they’ve already learned screaming doesn’t help.

Something in your chest caves in.

You don’t even see the crowbar move.

The impact comes out of nowhere—white-hot, brutal. The hooked end of the bar slams into your shoulder with a wet, tearing sound, metal biting deep as it pierces flesh. Pain detonates through you, ripping the air from your lungs. He yells as he does it, manic and delighted, like the violence startled even him.

Your body jerks against the restraints.

Barbed wire bites deeper. Blood spills warm and fast down your arm, soaking into your sleeve, dripping to the floor in thick, uneven drops. Your vision fractures, stars bursting behind your eyes.

You clamp your teeth down hard on your lip to keep from screaming.

You taste iron immediately—sharp and overwhelming—as skin breaks beneath your bite. Tears spill freely now, blurring everything, mixing with the blood already clinging to your lashes. It burns. It hurts. Your whole body shakes with the effort of staying quiet.

Behind you, the crying gets worse—fractured, panicked.

“Okay,” you choke out.

The word scrapes your throat raw on the way out, barely more than a breath. It tastes like blood and rust and surrender.

Immediately, the pressure is gone.

The crowbar pulls free with a wet sound that makes your vision white out, pain screaming down your arm as the hooked metal tears away from muscle and skin. You shudder hard, a broken gasp ripping out of you despite your best effort to swallow it down.

He steps back like a magician deciding on the next trick.

Then he leans in again—careful, deliberate—and pats at the wound where the bar pierced you. Not gentle. Never gentle. His palm presses just enough to make you flinch, fingers smearing warm blood across your torn clothes.

“See?” he says brightly, turning slightly so the camera gets a better angle. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

Your breath comes shallow and fast, chest stuttering against the wire. Every inhale sends a fresh bloom of pain through your shoulder, the edges of it pulsing in time with your heart.

His hands come up next.

Dry. Cracked. Too warm.

He grabs your face, fingers digging into your cheeks, thumbs pressing at your jaw as he tilts your head from side to side. The movement drags the skin of your neck against the barbed wire, a searing, intimate pain that makes your eyes flood instantly.

“What a dumb dumb birdy you are,” he croons, affectionate in the way predators are. “It’s okay. Joker can teach you.”

Your body trembles uncontrollably now. Your fingers spasm uselessly against the wooden arms of the chair, nails scraping shallow grooves into the surface. You can feel blood slicking your palm and you don't even want to think about how you got hurt there too.

He releases your face.

Pats your head once.

The gesture is almost worse than the violence.

“Now,” he says softly, pleasantly, “say thank you.”

Your vision swims. The room feels too loud, too close. Somewhere behind you, one of the children sobs so hard it turns into hiccupping gasps. You swallow around the wire, throat burning.

You look up at him with shaking eyes, lashes heavy with tears and blood. Your mouth opens. Your lips quiver.

“Thank—” Your voice breaks completely. You force it back together, dragging the word out of yourself like it’s being pulled through glass. “Thank you.”

His smile spreads slow and satisfied, stretching the cracks in his makeup wider.

“Good birdy,” he coos, pleased. “So much more compliant than your love bird already!”

“Now—” Joker announces, voice lifting into a theatrical lilt, like he’s stepped beneath a spotlight instead of flickering warehouse fluorescents. He turns toward the camera, gives it a jaunty little nod, then looks back at you, grin splitting wider. “I was gonna let you go for some cash. Thought your little boy bird might get scared shitless—just a fun little bonus, really—buttt—”

He drifts away from you, footsteps light, almost playful. You can’t turn your head far enough to see what he’s doing. The wire bites when you try. Your vision pulses, dark at the edges.

Then—

A scream.

Sharp. High. A girl’s voice.

It cuts off halfway through, collapsing into a thin, broken cry that echoes far too long in the hollow space of the warehouse.

Something in you fractures.

Joker reappears at your side, breath brushing your ear, laughter bubbling out of him like it’s a private joke the two of you share. “Got lucky with a rich bitch on the road,” he cackles, delighted. “Gotham really does keep on givin’.”

Your stomach twists violently. You taste bile. The crying behind you swells again, panicked and animal, and you can feel your own body trying to fold in on itself despite the restraints, like if you curl inward hard enough you might disappear. 

His hands slide to your throat and at the same time your eyes land onto his hands. Diamond earrings.

He ripped her earrings out of her ears. 

Before you can flinch at the sight of pieces of skin in his open hand, he yanks.

The chain snaps free with a sharp tug, metal biting into your skin as the necklace tears away. You gasp, the wire at your neck punishing you for it, and the sudden cold where the chain used to rest feels obscene—too exposed. You feel lucky that you took off your earrings when you were doing your hair.

He dangles it in front of the camera, letting it glint under the harsh light, gemstones smeared faintly red from your blood. “This could go for a couple hundred too!” he sings. “Ohhh, how delightful!”

He leans closer, eyes alight, savoring every tremor that runs through you. “At least one of the birdies knows how to decorate their nest. Found a few rings at your place as well.”

Joker pockets the necklace with a satisfied hum.

“Well, now that I don’t need the money,” he croons, voice lilting, playful, like he’s deciding which joke to tell next, “what should I do with you?”

His fingers drag along your cheek again, slower this time, the pad of his thumb pressing just hard enough to bruise. His touch leaves heat behind, a crawling sensation that makes your stomach revolt. You feel contaminated where he’s touched you, like your skin is remembering something it shouldn’t.

“…I’ll give you more,” you whisper. Your voice fractures around the word, splintering into something pitiful and thin. “However much you want—just—”

“Oh, I don’t need money.”

The change is instant. His tone drops, sharp and venomous, and when he leans in his eyes are blown wide and empty, pupils swallowing the green like oil slicks. A hawk spotting movement. A blade finding flesh.

“I was looking for some fun, love bird,” he hisses. “You can’t give me that?”

You whimper around the grip on your jaw as his fingers tighten, nails biting into your skin. The wire at your throat digs deeper when you gasp, its teeth kissing something vital. Pain blooms hot and bright, stars bursting behind your eyes.

“Jason— Jason will—”

He doesn’t even flinch at the name.

Maybe that’s mercy.

His fingers move higher, rough and invasive, smearing through the makeup you’d put on hours ago with careful hands. The eyeshadow burns as it’s ground into your skin, sweat and blood turning it into a dark, ugly paste. His thumb drags through the faint blush on your cheeks, erasing it like it was a mistake.

“How pretty you are,” he murmurs, almost tender. “I do makeup on myself too, you know.”

Then his hands leave you entirely.

He grabs his own face, fingers digging into the cracked greasepaint, stretching the red grin wider, tearing at the corners until the white creases and flakes. For a second you think you see real skin underneath—white, lined, angry. Horrid.

“Do you like mine?” he asks brightly. “Do you think I’m pretty?”

Your mind blanks.

Your eyes flick helplessly to the camera instead—the blinking red light pulsing steadily, patiently. Recording. Waiting. You try to speak, to say yes or no or anything that might stop what’s coming, but your throat locks around the wire and all that comes out is a wet, useless sound.

Then—

“Very pretty!”

The voice is behind you.

Too young.

A teenage girl, no older than seventeen. Her voice trembles, thin and frantic, the words tumbling over each other. “So—so pretty—”

You feel something inside you tear open.

She’s trying to survive. You can feel that hope radiate off of her. The hope of throwing words into the dark and praying it lands somewhere safe.

Joker’s head snaps toward her.

His eyes narrow, sharp and wrong, smile freezing into something predatory. “You think so?”

There’s a frantic nod you can hear more than see—the quick intake of breath, the shuddering little sob that follows.

Joker bends down.

The crowbar scrapes loudly as he lifts it, metal screaming against concrete. You catch a glimpse of it as he moves past you—rusted, pitted, darkened in places where it’s already been used tonight.

Then he’s gone from your line of sight.

The scream that follows is immediate and unbearable.

It’s not just pain—it’s shock, terror, the sound of someone realizing too late that they were wrong. The metal wall amplifies it, throws it back at itself until it feels like the warehouse is screaming with her.

There’s a wet, sickening crack.

A sound like meat hitting concrete.

“Why don’t we match?” Joker coos from behind you, voice light and delighted. “I did one side, now the other!”

The crowbar hits again.

You hear bone give this time—feel it in your teeth, in your chest. Her scream fractures into something animal, then into choking sobs, then into a raw, bubbling sound that makes bile rush up your throat.

Your own crying breaks free, ugly and uncontrollable. Your body jerks against the restraints, fingers cramping, nails tearing uselessly into the wood of the chair. Hot tears spill down your face, mixing with blood, dripping off your chin in thick, dark drops.

The camera’s red light blinks again.

Once.

Twice.

It taunts you by matching every sound that breaks out of you.

Every gasped sob, every wet, hitching breath. The camera’s red light blinks in time with your chest, like it’s learned your rhythm, like it’s decided to breathe with you instead of for you.

And then the Joker comes back.

You smell him before you see him—iron-thick blood, old rust, sweat gone sour. His hands are slick, red to the wrist, fingers shining under the warehouse lights. The crowbar hangs loose in his grip, darker now, clotted, strands of hair caught cruelly in its curve.

He crouches in front of you, bringing himself eye-level, like he’s talking to a child.

“Well,” he hums thoughtfully. “I can’t give you her look, can I?”

Your vision swims. You can’t stop shaking. Tears slide down your face in hot, unstoppable streams, carving clean paths through blood and grime. Your mouth opens, but nothing coherent comes out—just a broken, animal sound that folds back in on itself.

His smile twitches.

“What should I do with you?” he asks softly. “Hm?”

You don’t answer. You can’t. You just cry harder, chest stuttering against the wire, throat raw and burning.

That seems to irritate him.

He clicks his tongue, disappointed, and lifts the crowbar. The cold metal taps against your cheek once—tap—just enough to make you flinch violently. He pauses, head tilting.

“Oh—”

His eyes light up.

“Oh yes, that’s wonderful! Oh—” He erupts into laughter, sudden and explosive, clutching his stomach as if the joke is too much to bear. Spit flies from his mouth, warm and disgusting as it lands in your hair, streaking through blood-matted strands. “Oh, isn’t my brain just splendid?”

He straightens, still laughing, wiping his eyes like he’s genuinely amused. “You bats are all poetry, I say—pure poetry!”

Then he turns.

Walks away.

His footsteps fade, echoing hollowly through the warehouse, until there’s only the hum of the lights, the distant crying behind you—and the camera.

You’re alone.

One last sob claws its way out of your throat, wet and choking. Blood follows it, dribbling down your chin, splashing darkly against your chest. You force your eyes open, drag them upward, lock them onto the camera.

You don’t know who’s watching. You don’t know if anyone is.

Your voice comes out steadier than it has any right to be.

“How—”

“Shut up!” someone whisper-yells behind you, frantic and terrified. “There’s other men!”

Your mouth snaps shut.

And the red light keeps blinking.

The metal door slams open with a shriek of abused hinges, the impact shuddering through the warehouse floor and straight up your spine. Dust rains down from the rafters in a thin, dirty veil, catching in your hair and sticking to the blood already drying there.

He’s laughing before you even see him.

Not distant laughter—close. Moving. Each step accompanied by a wet, dragging sound, like something heavy being pulled across concrete. His cackle ricochets off the shipping containers, off the steel beams, off the low ceiling that traps the sound and forces it back into your skull.

A little boy cries out behind you as Joker passes him. A sharp, panicked sound that fractures into a sob and then cuts off abruptly, like someone clamped a hand over his mouth.

The air grows hotter.

Through the warped reflection in the camera lens, you see it clearly now: a long metal bar burning red-hot, so bright it hurts to look at directly. Heat ripples distort the image around it, the glow painting the walls in feverish streaks of crimson. The smell hits you next—burning iron, scorched metal, something faintly organic beneath it that makes bile crawl up your throat.

Joker taps the brand against the concrete behind you.

It doesn’t clang.

It hisses.

The sound is sharp and alive, like meat on a skillet. Tiny sparks spit outward where it kisses the floor, leaving blackened scars in the cement. The red glow doesn’t dull. Doesn’t cool. It stays furious and bright, as if fed by something endless.

Whatever fragile hope you were clutching evaporates in that moment, leaving you hollowed out, lungs burning as you exhale something that feels like your last prayer.

He’s behind you in the next second.

Joker’s hand comes out of nowhere, clamping over your mouth, palm slick and hot. The copper taste floods you as his fingers press into your cheeks, nails digging in just enough to hurt—just enough to remind you that restraint is a choice he’s making. Your head is forced back, neck screaming as the wire saws deeper, the barbs biting into tender skin.

“Would you like to match your birdy?” he murmurs.

His voice is serene. Gentle. Almost affectionate.

He angles the brand around the arm of the chair so you can see it clearly. The letter is unmistakable now, its edges glowing white-hot, heat radiating off it in suffocating waves.

A ‘𝙹’.

Your body reacts before your mind can—your stomach convulses, gagging against his hand, breath stuttering uselessly through your nose. Your skin feels too tight, like it’s already shrinking away from what’s coming.

“We’re going to make the deal now,” he coos.

In the camera’s reflection, you can see his eye—wide, bright, utterly focused on the blinking red dot. Performing. Enjoying the audience if there even is one.

“You either get a matching look…” The brand drifts closer, close enough that the heat kisses your cheek, nerves screaming in anticipation, sweat instantly breaking out along your spine. “…or you tell me who you hate.”

His hand peels away from your mouth.

Air rushes in too fast. You choke on it, coughing hard enough that the wire grinds into your throat, pain blooming hot and blinding. Your voice comes out shredded. “Who… who I hate?”

“Who put you here?” he hums thoughtfully, as if the answer delights him. “It wasn’t me.”

The brand pauses, hovering inches from your skin. You can feel the heat burrowing inward, like it’s already memorizing you.

“Why do you think I found you?” he continues lightly. “Do you know how sloppy he is?”

Silence stretches, thick and oppressive.

You stare at the glowing red letter, your mind drifting somewhere distant and numb to survive. Absurdly, irrationally, you think of Jason’s helmet—the same violent red, the same defiant color. You wonder if he’s thinking of you right now. If he can feel this, somehow.

“Tell me who you hate.”

The words don’t just reach you—they enter you, heavy and cold, sinking past bone and settling somewhere deep and irreversible. They press the air flat, make the warehouse feel smaller, closer, like the walls are leaning in to listen.

He stands before you in all his wrongness, and up close there is nothing theatrical left. The Joker’s makeup has melted into something corpse-like, white cracked and flaking into the grooves of his face as though his skin is trying to shed it. The red smile is no longer a grin so much as a wound, smeared unevenly, darker where blood has mixed in, the corners dragged downward by age and use. His hair hangs limp, green dulled to the color of mold, clinging to his scalp in greasy strands. His eyes are too bright—glass-bright, feverish—never still, never soft, reflecting the warehouse lights like knives.

The space around you hums with misery. The concrete beneath your feet is slick with blood and oil, cold seeping up through the chair and into your bones. Shipping containers loom like coffins, their metal sides scarred and rusted, shadows pooled so thick between them it feels like something could step out at any moment. The air reeks—burnt iron, old sweat, copper, rot—and every breath feels like inhaling something alive and hostile.

You look at the camera.

That red eye blinks steadily, rhythmically, a heart that isn’t yours. It sees the way your chest shudders, the way your fingers twitch uselessly against the bindings, the way your body is already bracing for pain it knows is coming. Your thoughts drift, slow and exhausted, slipping through your hands like water you can’t quite hold.

You think of Jason.

Not the helmet. Not the blood. But his hands—warm, callused, careful when they touch you. The way he looks at you like the world might soften if you stay. The way he says your name like it’s something solid.

You could say his name now.

You could offer it up like a sacrifice and pray that this monster believes in deals, that you might walk out of here broken but breathing. You could lie and hope he lets you go.

Or you could say Jason’s name and watch Joker’s smile vanish as he switches off the camera and kills you quietly, preserving this horror to show your sweet boy later.

Or you could stay silent and take the brand—feel your skin burn, your body marked, watch the ecstasy bloom in Joker’s eyes as he claims you like an object he’s improved.

None of them feel survivable.

Something inside you twists—not courage, not bravery, but love sharpened into something desperate and ugly and defiant. You gather what spit you can in your blood-wet mouth and turn your head as far as the wire allows.

You spit in his face.

It lands wet and unmistakable, dragging a slow line through the cracked white paint, cutting through the red smile like an insult carved in flesh.

For a heartbeat, everything freezes.

The Joker goes utterly still, his expression emptying out in a way that is far more frightening than his laughter. Then his eyes widen, pupils dilating, fury flaring bright and feral—pleased.

You lean forward, neck screaming as the wire bites deeper, and you whisper because your voice will not survive being louder.

“You know,” you murmur, breath shaking despite everything you do to steady it, “he’s never mentioned you before.”

His breath stutters.

“You must not have left quite an impression.”

It’s a lie. A reckless, transparent lie.

You have lived in Gotham long enough to know exactly what he is—his name written in blood across the city’s history—but lies can still cut, and you see it land. You see the way his smile stretches wider, hungry and thrilled.

You’ve given him a reason.

A reason to prove himself.

A reason to keep you alive.

A reason to make you hurt longer.

His hand tangles in your hair and yanks your head back violently. Your neck slams into the barbed wire, spikes tearing in with a wet, intimate sound that makes you sob despite yourself. Warm blood spills down your throat, choking you, slicking your chest.

Then the brand descends.

The heat is indescribable—ancient, total, a pain so vast it consumes thought itself. Your flesh screams as it burns, the smell of seared skin rising thick and sweet, smoke curling upward as the letter is carved into you slowly, deliberately. Your body arches uselessly against the restraints, every nerve on fire, and the sound that leaves you is not a scream so much as something torn out of your soul.

You hate that he hears it. And when that drug denies you the void of sleep you so desperately need, you allow yourself to think numbly as the man pulls it away that at least Jason can't dwindle his appearance anymore.

Your tears stripe down your cheeks, burning as they touch your skin.

We match. You think numbly, Atleast we match.

He strokes over the brand with more delicacy than he has ever had in this whole nightmare, mumbling, “This is going to hurt you a lot more than it hurts me.”

When you wake again, it’s to the weight of tears landing on your face—warm, uneven drops that pull you out of the dark in slow, reluctant pieces. For a moment you don’t know where you are. The world rocks gently, like it can’t decide whether to keep moving or stop altogether. There’s the low hum of an engine beneath you, vibration traveling through bone and bruised muscle, and the smell of old leather surrounds you—worn, familiar, grounding in a way that makes your chest ache.

Leather is good.

Leather is not acid.

Leather does not burn your lungs on the way in.

“Hurts,” you mumble, the word barely surviving the journey out of your throat. You offer it up like an apology, like a peace offering, half-expecting pain to answer you back.

Instead, the crying breaks harder.

It comes undone above you, raw and ugly, and through the haze you realize you aren’t lying flat on concrete, waiting for the Joker to press a cinder block to your stomach. Your body is stretched across someone, your legs draped over another set of knees, your weight distributed carefully, reverently, like something fragile that might shatter if shifted wrong. 

An arm is braced beneath your neck, steady and strong, keeping your head from lolling, and your cheek presses into a leather jacket that smells unmistakably like gun oil, sweat, rain—

Jason.

The knowledge hits softer than it should, cushioned by exhaustion and shock, and when your eyes finally manage to open, everything swims. Light smears at the edges, colors bleeding into one another, but his face is there anyway, hovering close, carved with terror and relief and something so naked it almost scares you more than the warehouse did.

“Am I in heaven?” you mumble.

He lets out a sound that isn’t quite a sob and isn’t quite a laugh, choking on it as his chin trembles. “You don’t even believe in heaven.”

“Well,” you murmur, trying—and failing—to pull your mouth into something that resembles a smile, “what else could you be?”

Your jaw burns when you speak. Everything burns. It feels like your body has been filled with broken glass and lit from the inside, and you’re dimly aware of warm liquid slipping from your mouth, darkening the leather beneath your cheek every time you breathe wrong. You hate that you’re staining him. You hate that you can’t stop.

“I’ll kill him,” Jason whispers, like a prayer he’s been holding onto with both hands. His fingers shake as they brush your hair back, careful to avoid places he knows are hurt. “I’ll kill him. I promise.”

“Can I have hot chocolate first?” you mumble. The words feel distant, like they belong to someone else. “I bought that expensive kind… from Finland. Asshole knocked it all over my carpet…”

Jason’s breath fractures completely at that. He nods too hard, tears spilling freely now, dropping onto your cheeks, your neck, your collarbone. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll buy you hot chocolate. I’ll buy you all of it.”

Somewhere near your feet, another voice cuts in, low and strained with concern. “Hey, Jay—breathe—”

Jason doesn’t hear them. Or maybe he does and simply can’t afford to listen. His chest is rising too fast beneath you, breaths sawing in and out like he’s drowning on dry land, his eyes glassy and unfocused, the green in them shifting with every frantic blink.

Or maybe that’s just your vision still failing you. That would make sense. The powder. The smoke. The way light hurts now.

“Stop crying,” you murmur weakly. “I can’t die with you looking like that.”

That breaks him.

His face crumples completely, grief spilling over into something fierce and desperate as he bends closer, forehead almost touching yours. “Good,” he chokes. “Fuck you. I’ll cry even more, so–so stay with me, yeah?”

“No,” you whisper, your voice scraping raw against your throat. “Wanna sleep.”

“You slept an awful lot,” he snaps, but there’s no anger in it—only terror wearing sharp edges, only love clawing its way out however it can.

“Well,” you murmur, your voice thin but soft, like you’re afraid of startling him, “You show up in my dreams an awful lot.”

That does it.

Whatever fragile control Jason had left fractures clean through. He folds over you instinctively, shoulders caving as he tries—fails—to hide the sound of it. His breath comes apart against your hair, his forehead dipping close to your temple like if he presses himself near enough, he can keep you here by force alone. You feel the tremor of him through your whole body, every hitch of his chest echoing in your ribs.

You smell blood on him then. Copper and iron, sharp beneath the leather and sweat and rain. For a distant, numb second you think it’s yours again—until the scent is too heavy, too layered.

Oh.

Was this—

“Did I interrupt family bonding?” you whisper.

Your lips barely move. The words slip out half-asleep, half-dreaming, and they earn you a startled huff from somewhere behind you. Jason doesn’t answer. He can’t. His arms tighten instead, one hand splayed carefully at your back like he’s afraid even breathing too hard might hurt you more.

A voice comes from the seat behind, dry and unimpressed, because Jason is currently incapable of speech and whoever has your legs resting in their lap is rubbing slow, grounding circles into his back.

“If this is what you think family bonding is, you’ll fit right in.”

“Damian, be quiet,” another voice snaps.

“She’s the one shamelessly flirting with him in front of all of us, Tim” Damian continues anyway, undeterred. “And Father isn’t even saying anything, so—”

“Well she’s the one dying!” Tim blurts, voice cracking sharp with fear.

Jason chokes on the words that come from Tim’s mouth, breath stuttering hard, and a deeper voice cuts in from the front seat—controlled, measured, holding itself together by sheer will.

“She’s not going to die, Tim.”

“I want hoya bellas on my grave,” you interrupt softly.

Jason lets out a broken sound that might have been a laugh in another universe. He shakes his head over you, forehead brushing your hair, and through your blurry vision you think you catch a gloved hand popping up behind him in a solemn thumbs-up.

“Got it.”

Another voice joins in from the front, exasperated and strained. “Cassandra, she’s not being serious.”

“I’m sorry,” Jason whispers, over and over, like a mantra, like something he’s trying to carve into reality. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” His thumb strokes your hair away from your forehead again, impossibly gentle, avoiding the places he knows hurt, the places he doesn’t want to know at all.

“I’m gonna sleep now,” you murmur. It takes effort to shape the words. The dark is getting heavier again, tugging at you, warm and deep. “Can one of you give Jason water?”

“Hey—” Jason breathes, panic flaring sharp as his voice cracks. “Hey, no—no, no, no, stay with me, come on—”

But you’re already slipping.

Your eyes flutter closed despite him, despite the warmth of his arms, despite the way his heart is racing beneath your ear like it’s trying to outrun fate itself. His glove comes off hurriedly and you feel his bare fingers press to your pulse, grounding himself in the steady beat there, in the fact that it’s still happening.

After a few minutes, Dick leans forward and taps Jason’s shoulder gently, offering a water bottle. His uniform is torn and scorched like the rest of them, a thin cut bright against his cheek, but his voice is soft when he speaks.

“Drink.”

Jason doesn’t look up. He doesn’t let go. He just nods once, tight and shaky, eyes fixed on you like if he looks away for even a second, the world might take you again.

He forces himself to take a full gulp of water, the plastic bottle crinkling loudly in the too-quiet car, his throat working like it has to remember how swallowing goes. His hands are still shaking when he passes it off to Tim.

“Hey, I don’t need any—”

Jason looks at him.

Not sharp. Not angry. Just steady in a way that leaves no room for argument, the kind of look that says do this or I will fall apart next.

Tim takes a long swig immediately. Somewhere in the background, Damian lets out a low, satisfied cackle.

The digital clock on the Batmobile reads 4:00 a.m.

The numbers glow cold blue against the dark interior, reflected faintly in the windshield like a second set of eyes staring back at them. Gotham outside is hollow and half-dead at this hour—streetlights flickering, rain-slick asphalt stretching endlessly, buildings slumped together like they’re exhausted too.

Bruce’s voice is calm as he calls Alfred, clipped and precise, already listing supplies like this is something he can control if he names enough of it out loud.

Jason doesn’t listen.

He keeps his focus on you.

On the shallow rise and fall of your chest. The warmth is still clinging stubbornly to your skin. On the way your weight settles into him like it belongs there, like it always has. One hand stays firm at your neck, holding you upright because you need it—because you need him steady, and that knowledge anchors him harder than anything Bruce could ever say.

You need him here. You need him present. You need him not to break.

He knows that, because once—once—that was all he ever wanted too.

And that’s the cruel part of it.

Because the weight of you in his arms has only ever meant safety. Home. Sleep curling warm and heavy in his bones. His body doesn’t know the difference between holding you safe and finally being allowed to rest.

Jason Todd passes out with his forehead dipping gently toward yours, his grip loosening only by a fraction, like even unconscious he’s afraid to let you go.

The last thing he hears before everything goes dark is Tim’s voice, sharp with panic and disbelief.

“Dude—what the fuck—”

“Hold his head up—don’t let him fall on her!” Bruce barks from the front, voice cracking sharp through the Batmobile like a snapped cable.

All at once, everyone moves.

Damian fists the back of Jason’s T‑shirt, knuckles white as he yanks him upright with a strength born of panic he’d never admit to. Dick stretches impossibly from the passenger seat, arm braced awkwardly as he cups the back of Jason’s head, careful, reverent, like he’s afraid one wrong angle will shatter him. Tim presses a steadying hand to Jason’s chest, feeling the uneven rise and fall beneath his palm, grounding him the way he’s learned to do with bombs and brothers alike.

Jason is dead weight. Heavy. Still clinging to you even in unconsciousness, his arm slack but stubborn around your shoulders, like muscle memory alone refuses to let you go.

The Batmobile hums on, tires slicing through wet streets, Gotham blurring past in streaks of sodium light and rain-slick concrete. The city feels distant now, muffled, like it’s holding its breath with them.

“…Did someone check if the Joker was—uh—breathing?” Stephanie asks from the back, her voice small in a way it rarely ever is.

She hadn’t stayed for the end. Her job had been triage—getting the kids out, shouting orders, dragging civilians through blood and broken glass while the rest of them stayed behind in the warehouse with the laughter and the screaming. She’d smelled the aftermath on them when they regrouped. She didn’t need details then but...

Bruce doesn’t look back. His hands tighten on the wheel.

“Jason didn’t hit any vital points,” he says quietly, like he’s reciting a report he’s already memorized. “Just… ah—”

“Carved his face like a jack‑o’‑lantern,” Damian supplies, entirely too calm. “Heated up a crowbar to do it too. Very effective.”

There’s a beat of silence.

The city lights flash over Bruce’s face—old stone and deep eyes that are hollowed by relief he doesn’t let himself feel yet.

“…Yeah,” Bruce exhales, short and rough. “That.”

The Batmobile keeps moving.

Jason breathes.

You breathe.

And for now, that’s enough to keep the night from swallowing them whole.

You wake up in bed.

Not the thin, borrowed kind your body has learned to tolerate at your apartment, but something deep and indulgent—clean sheets tucked tight, the mattress yielding just enough to cradle you instead of swallowing you whole. The pillow beneath your cheek feels stupidly expensive, cool and smooth, smelling faintly of detergent and something old and comforting, like cedar and money and quiet hallways that echo.

For a moment, you think you’re dreaming again.

Then you feel him.

Jason is asleep beside you, solid and unmistakable. You don’t need to move—you can’t really anyways—to know it’s him. The arm wrapped around your waist is heavy with familiar strength, protective even in unconsciousness. His hair brushes against your arm every time he breathes, soft, tickling your skin in a way that makes your chest ache.

He’s breathing.

That fact alone nearly undoes you.

God. You really need to raise your standards, you think hazily. You’re reduced to this—listening to him breathe, feeling the slow rise and fall of his chest, and already you want to curl into him and coo like nothing in the world has ever gone wrong.

Then you see Bruce.

He’s standing near the bed, still as a statue, watching you with the careful intensity of someone afraid to spook a wild animal. It takes effort to focus on his face, your vision dragging itself into clarity inch by inch.

When you try to lift your head—manners resurfacing before sense—your body protests sharply.

Bruce moves instantly.

“Hey, hey—no,” he murmurs, hands gentle but firm as he presses you back into the mattress. “Relax. It’s okay. You’re safe.”

Your head sinks back into the pillow, and the moment stretches. You swallow thickly before managing a small, hoarse sound of politeness.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Wayne. Jason—”

“Hasn’t told you much about me,” Bruce finishes for you, a faint, tired chuckle slipping out. “That’s alright. I just need you to sleep right now.”

You glance downward as best you can, feeling something sharp dig into your side.

“…I can’t sleep if your son’s elbow is in my ribs.”

Bruce blinks.

Actually blinks—surprised enough that it breaks through the carefully assembled calm. “Ah—” he starts, then reaches for Jason, trying to rearrange him with the same precision he uses on everything else.

It doesn’t work.

Jason huffs in his sleep, a low, irritated sound, and somehow manages to make it worse—his arm tightening, his leg hooking over yours possessively, like you’re something he’s afraid the world might steal back if he lets go.

Bruce freezes.

You mumble, exhausted but soft, “It’s alright. I’m sure he hasn’t slept… I’ve gotten quite a lot, so…”

Bruce looks like he wants to argue. His jaw tightens, then loosens, the fight draining out of him. He exhales and sits back in the chair by the bed, elbows on his knees, hands clasped tightly together.

“It’s the 26th,” he says quietly.

Oh.

You missed Christmas.

What a shame.

After a moment, Bruce speaks again, and his voice is heavier now—careful, deliberate, like every word costs him something.

“I… want to apologize to you.” His fingers interlace, knuckles whitening. “I knew you’d been taken. And I didn’t tell him. Possibly… he could have been there sooner. But I needed to make sure the others would be saved as well.”

“Well,” you murmur, the word barely more than breath, “I don’t exactly blame you for that.”

It isn’t forgiveness exactly—nothing so grand—but it’s honest, and it lands heavier than anger ever could.

Bruce doesn’t relax. If anything, his shoulders pull tighter, like he’s bracing for a blow that never quite comes. He’s spent his whole life learning how to de‑escalate men with guns, gods with vendettas, cities with teeth—but you unsettle him in a quieter, more dangerous way. You’re calm. You’re lucid. You’re something Jason had threatened to shoot himself for.

He clears his throat, trying to give you something solid, something measurable. Facts are safer.

“Jason… got him,” Bruce says carefully. “Badly. I think—” He hesitates, eyes flicking once toward Jason like he’s checking for movement. “I think the Joker may be blind now. Or at least permanently impaired.”

“You let him?” you ask.

Still no accusation. Just a soft, stunned curiosity, as if you’re piecing together a story you were never meant to survive.

Bruce nods. Once. The motion costs him. “I did,” he admits. “But I—”

“Then that’s enough,” you whisper, interrupting him gently, like you’re afraid the words themselves might hurt. “Jason will realize that too.” Your lashes flutter; exhaustion tugs at you like a tide. “I mean… he probably won’t. He’ll still try to kill him.” A faint, crooked exhale. “But you did everything you could yesterday.”

Your gaze drifts—not to Bruce, but to Jason. To the way his arm is still locked around you, even in sleep. To the stubborn set of his jaw, the crease between his brows that never fully smooths out anymore.

“Thank you,” you add quietly. “For finding me.”

That’s when Bruce goes still.

Not rigid. Not defensive.

Still.

Because he’s been looking at you, yes—but now you realize he hasn't been looking you in the eye while he speaks. His eyes have been caught in one place, drawn there again and again like a bruise you can’t help but press.

Your cheek.

The skin there is angry beneath the bandage’s edge—raw, faintly swollen, discolored in a way he winced at while he bandaged it. Bruce didn't let anyone else tend to it, not even Alfred. 

Because this was a wound he inflicted, one that he needed to tend to.

“It’s still fresh,” he says, softer now, stripped of the Bat and the rules and the fear. Just a man speaking carefully around something fragile. “I’ll get you better medicine. The pigment should fade.” A pause. His voice lowers. “I can’t promise about the texture.”

You don’t look away. You don’t flinch.

“That’s okay,” you say.

And Bruce doesn’t know if you mean the scar, or the pain, or the fact that you’ll carry this forever—but Jason shifts in his sleep then, brow tightening, arm drawing you closer like he sensed the weight of the moment and refused to let it settle on you alone.

Bruce watches that. Watches how Jason anchors himself to you without waking, how his breathing steadies when yours does, how it pauses even in sleep when yours hitches.

“He loves you a lot.” Bruce mumbles.

“...And you too Mr.Wayne.”

jason peter todd tag-list (check pinned post for info on how to be added .ᐟ ) :@justamarsbar, @peridotnature854, @nayy-a, @that-willowtree,

let me know what you think!

© shisuni all rights reserved

[kill3ill]

using him as your dildo — 18+

yes, the idea of reader getting used as a fleshlight is fantastic, but what about reader using him as a dildo? not worried about his pleasure. you're only fucking him because he's a loser with a huge cock.

you're stuffing your panties (lacy, soaked through, reeking of your perfect pussy) into his face in a failed attempt to stifle his loud, unabashed moans. he definitely hasn't been fucked before, if so, not like this. due to his inexperience, he's probably came way too many times already inside you, and so you're bouncing on his fat, slimy cock with cum sloshing inside you and leaking with every bounce onto his pelvis.

"oh fuck- shut up, will you? i'm t-trying... mmnh... to focus," you manage out. trying to sound stern is basically an impossibility when you've got his cock smushed inside you to the hilt.

his hands are fisted in the sheets, knuckles white, thighs trembling beneath you as you sink down on him and then rock your hips back and forth while completely stuffed. this method doesn't give him as much pleasure as it does for you, but you don't care. this isn't for his pleasure, or your connection. all you care about is how deep he hits when you sink all the way, how your cunt's clenching so tight he can't stop shaking.

"f-fuck-!" he whines again pathetically through the lace in his mouth, drool soaking the crotch of your panties where they're pressed over his mouth and nose. his eyes are wide, glassy, fixed on the place where you meet him. it's humiliating how desperate he looks.

"you like getting used, huh?" you pant, beginning to bounce again so the overstimulation hits once more. you let his big, drooling cock drag and catch with each rough bounce. it makes that slick, wet sound every time you move.

"ah- ye-yeah, like it soooo much," he moans so loud it vibrates through your soaked panties, tries to say something, but you shove your panties harder into his face so you don't hear what shit he has to say. his cock pulses again and you can feel more warmth spill out of you, overflowing from the tip, dripping down to his balls in glooping heaps. "such a -shit- big fucking cock wasted on a nobody like ngh! you. y-you don't deserve it."

your voice cracks halfway through but you don't stop or pretend this is anything but using him like he's just a toy that happens to twitch and moan and cum without your permission. your hands are braced on his chest for balance, his skin hot and slick under your palms from how hard he's sweating, poor thing.

you push the underwear just enough to see his eyes, which are teary and rolled back. his eyes clamp shut when you drop down especially hard, and his whole body jerks like he's seizing. his stomach tightens under your hands but the second you grind down again deep, slow and mean, he lets out a strangled sob into your panties, soaked through with spit and the sharp scent of your cunt.

"mmnh, fuck, look at you," you breathe out, "you're crying, sweetheart. is it too much?" you coo mockingly, dragging your hips up until just his swollen tip is nestled at the edge of your cunt, nearly pulling out. the area where his cockhead enters you is smeared in cum and slick. he scrabbles at your arms, needing to be back inside you. then, without warning, you slam back down, clamping hard on him.

he screams behind the fabric. legs kicking. you begin grinding down hard as punishment until you feel another twitch inside you, his cock thickening, spurting another weak, creamy load. his fifth? sixth? doesn't matter.

see more in my multifandom masterlist

see more in my main masterlist

reblog and leave a comment to keep the fic alive if you enjoyed it!

[kill3ill]

using him as your dildo — 18+

yes, the idea of reader getting used as a fleshlight is fantastic, but what about reader using him as a dildo? not worried about his pleasure. you're only fucking him because he's a loser with a huge cock.

you're stuffing your panties (lacy, soaked through, reeking of your perfect pussy) into his face in a failed attempt to stifle his loud, unabashed moans. he definitely hasn't been fucked before, if so, not like this. due to his inexperience, he's probably came way too many times already inside you, and so you're bouncing on his fat, slimy cock with cum sloshing inside you and leaking with every bounce onto his pelvis.

"oh fuck- shut up, will you? i'm t-trying... mmnh... to focus," you manage out. trying to sound stern is basically an impossibility when you've got his cock smushed inside you to the hilt.

his hands are fisted in the sheets, knuckles white, thighs trembling beneath you as you sink down on him and then rock your hips back and forth while completely stuffed. this method doesn't give him as much pleasure as it does for you, but you don't care. this isn't for his pleasure, or your connection. all you care about is how deep he hits when you sink all the way, how your cunt's clenching so tight he can't stop shaking.

"f-fuck-!" he whines again pathetically through the lace in his mouth, drool soaking the crotch of your panties where they're pressed over his mouth and nose. his eyes are wide, glassy, fixed on the place where you meet him. it's humiliating how desperate he looks.

"you like getting used, huh?" you pant, beginning to bounce again so the overstimulation hits once more. you let his big, drooling cock drag and catch with each rough bounce. it makes that slick, wet sound every time you move.

"ah- ye-yeah, like it soooo much," he moans so loud it vibrates through your soaked panties, tries to say something, but you shove your panties harder into his face so you don't hear what shit he has to say. his cock pulses again and you can feel more warmth spill out of you, overflowing from the tip, dripping down to his balls in glooping heaps. "such a -shit- big fucking cock wasted on a nobody like ngh! you. y-you don't deserve it."

your voice cracks halfway through but you don't stop or pretend this is anything but using him like he's just a toy that happens to twitch and moan and cum without your permission. your hands are braced on his chest for balance, his skin hot and slick under your palms from how hard he's sweating, poor thing.

you push the underwear just enough to see his eyes, which are teary and rolled back. his eyes clamp shut when you drop down especially hard, and his whole body jerks like he's seizing. his stomach tightens under your hands but the second you grind down again deep, slow and mean, he lets out a strangled sob into your panties, soaked through with spit and the sharp scent of your cunt.

"mmnh, fuck, look at you," you breathe out, "you're crying, sweetheart. is it too much?" you coo mockingly, dragging your hips up until just his swollen tip is nestled at the edge of your cunt, nearly pulling out. the area where his cockhead enters you is smeared in cum and slick. he scrabbles at your arms, needing to be back inside you. then, without warning, you slam back down, clamping hard on him.

he screams behind the fabric. legs kicking. you begin grinding down hard as punishment until you feel another twitch inside you, his cock thickening, spurting another weak, creamy load. his fifth? sixth? doesn't matter.

see more in my multifandom masterlist

see more in my main masterlist

reblog and leave a comment to keep the fic alive if you enjoyed it!

[shisuni]

ᯓ➤ matching for christmas ⊹܀˙

← ʙᴀᴄᴋ. ⋮ ⌞ jason todd ✘ reader ⌝ .ᐟ .ᐟ

ৎׅ ׄ synopsis ⋮ You get kidnapped and branded by the joker on christmas. The bat-family sees Jason unravel. word cnt. 14.6k

cw ›››› torture, branding, suicidal language, violence, blood, gore

Something is wrong.

Jason feels it like a pressure change—subtle, almost polite—but it crawls under his helmet and settles behind his eyes. It hasn’t clicked, not cleanly. Not yet. He hasn’t asked. Hasn’t said a word through the harbor sweep, through the cold iron stink of saltwater and oil and Christmas rot. A small job. The kind that should feel easy. The kind that still manages to choke the air out of his lungs anyway.

Everyone’s moving like the night might shatter if they stop.

Tim keeps choosing his words too carefully, syllables slowed and smoothed like he’s sanding down sharp edges. Dick’s doing that thing where he smiles first and speaks second—but the timing’s off, the warmth a fraction too late, like a recording lagging behind the video. Damian watches Jason more than the perimeter, eyes sharp, calculating, guarded. Stephanie hasn’t joked once. Not even a cheap jab to him, not even under her breath. That alone feels wrong enough to tilt the world sideways.

Bruce didn’t come.

That absence is loud. A hollow where a presence should be, echoing through comms and instinct alike. The Cave, he’d said. As if that explained anything. As if Bruce ever sits things out without a reason that claws.

Cassandra says nothing—but she’s closer. Close enough that Jason can feel her awareness like static along his spine. When the group splits, she falls into step beside him without discussion, without a glance. Just there. Solid. Protective in a way that feels less like trust and more like vigilance. As if she’s guarding him.

That’s when unease really sinks its teeth in.

Bruce didn’t need all of them.

Didn’t need six sets of boots scraping concrete, six heartbeats crowding the same dark. Dick alone could’ve dismantled this whole thing with half the effort. Hell, Jason himself could’ve wrapped it up fast and bloody and been home already. Instead, they’re stacked together, overlapping, slowing each other down like they’re afraid to let him out of their sight.

He agreed because no one argued about his presence. Because no one questioned whether he was needed. Because the silence around that decision felt intentional.

That should’ve been his first real warning.

Between two groups of thugs, he had ducked behind a row of shipping containers, Gotham’s lights bleeding gold across the black water. He had pulled out his phone and called you, already rehearsing the apology in his head. Late for presents. Again. You’d tease him, pretend to scold, maybe force him to wrap some gifts for your co-workers. 

You didn't answer.

Probably a bath, he told himself. You’d mentioned one. Candles. The fancy bath salts you bought. Something soft to push the cold out of your bones. The thought settles him, briefly. He sends a text instead—short, careful. An apology. An I love you so much that he doesn’t overthink, because with you, he never has to.

You always know what he means.

The phone stays quiet in his pocket.

No buzz. No vibration brushing against his thigh like it usually does, grounding him, tethering him back to something warm and real. He told himself it’s nothing. That you’re relaxed, distracted, asleep. That the night is just heavy, that Gotham is doing what Gotham always does—making ghosts out of shadows and dread out of coincidence.

Still.

When he looks back at the others, he notices the way Dick avoids his eyes now. The way Tim’s gaze flicks to Jason’s pocket and away again. The way Damian’s jaw tightens when Jason shifts his weight, like he’s bracing for impact. Cassandra meets his eyes once—just once—and there’s something there that twists low and sharp in his chest. Not fear. Not exactly.

Knowing. Jason doesn’t ask. He doesn’t press.

But the harbor feels too quiet, the night stretched thin and listening, and for the first time since he sent that text, a cold, irrational thought curls in his gut—

That whatever is wrong didn’t start here.

And that somewhere far from the water, far from the mission, something precious has already slipped out of reach.

“That was the last of them,” Jason says, voice rough through the helmet, as Tim finishes cinching zip-ties around the final goon and anchors him to a rust-flaked shipping container. The plastic bites down with a sharp click that echoes too loudly across the concrete. The man mumbled insanities through spit.

The harbor exhales around them—cold wind off the water, carrying brine and diesel and something rotten that’s been sitting too long. Sodium lights flicker overhead, casting everything in jaundiced gold and long, distorted shadows that stretch and tangle at their feet. The concrete is damp beneath Jason’s boots, slick with mist and old oil, the kind of surface that never really dries no matter how many ‘sunny’ days Gotham pretends to have.

“We should do another check around the harbor,” Dick says.

He’s already kneeling, already breaking the man's phone in half with practiced efficiency, grinding it into the concrete with his heel until the screen spider webs and dies. He doesn’t look up when he says it. Doesn’t grin. Doesn’t even sound casual about it.

Jason lifts an eyebrow, slow, deliberate. His gaze slides to Damian automatically—because Damian is usually the first to shoot an idea like that down, sharp and impatient and blunt as a blade.

Instead, Damian just mutters, “Tim could be wrong.”

Mumbles it. Like he’s afraid the words might carry.

That alone sends a small, unpleasant chill up Jason’s spine.

Tim doesn’t argue. Doesn’t bristle. He straightens from the goon and dusts his gloves together, eyes flicking—not to Jason—but to Stephanie. The movement is quick, practiced, like muscle memory.

“Do you want to take the gates with me?” Tim says, too smooth. Too rehearsed. “Jason and Dick could go along the—”

“What?” Jason cuts in before he can finish, blinking once. “You two were perched on the gates the entire op. What’re you talking about?”

The wind gusts harder, rattling loose chains and setting a tarp snapping somewhere down the dock. Water slaps against concrete pylons in a slow, hollow rhythm. 

Jason suddenly feels like the sound is counting something down.

“It wouldn’t hurt to double-check,” Tim says, rising to his feet.

He still won’t meet Jason’s eyes.

Jason’s jaw tightens. He shifts his weight, the concrete cold and unforgiving through the thinning soles of his boots, and for a split second his mind drifts—unbidden—to you. To the warmth of your kitchen lights. To the way you’d probably be halfway through setting out plates by now, humming something low and off-key, waiting for him in that way that makes him want to claw his soul out and hand it over to you. 

The thought lands soft, intimate, grounding—and then slips through his fingers when he remembers his phone, silent and heavy in his pocket.

“…You guys don’t need me for that,” Jason says, firmer now. There’s an edge to it, something protective and stubborn. He already has plans. A timeline. A promise he intends to keep. “Seriously. If you want to sweep again, even one person could—”

Dick finally looks up.

It’s just a glance, quick and loaded, the kind Jason’s learned to read over a lifetime of almosts and unsaids. Cassandra shifts closer at the same moment, her shoulder nearly brushing his, her presence steady and deliberate. Jason doesn't think she's ever willingly touched him in his life. Stephanie opens her mouth like she’s about to say something—anything—then closes it again.

The harbor feels tighter suddenly. Smaller. Like the stacks of containers have leaned in, hemming them closer, their corrugated sides looming like silent witnesses. The wind cuts sharper off the water, needling through the seams of Jason’s jacket, and somewhere deep in his chest, that pressure builds again.

Jason turns fully to Damian.

“Kid, I swear to God, tell me what—”

Damian snaps at the exact same moment Cassandra moves. Her hand closes around Jason’s shoulder, firm and sudden, fingers digging in through armor like she’s trying to anchor him to the concrete before he does something irreversible. The contact is intimate in a way that feels wrong, alarmed.

“How the hell should I know? They didn't tell me—” Damian bites back, voice sharp, flaring too fast, too hot.

“Damian!” Dick hisses, the sound cutting through the night like a blade dragged too quickly from its sheath. He’s already moving, stepping between them without quite committing to either side, hands up in a placating gesture that lands closer to panic than calm. He turns to Jason almost immediately, words tumbling over each other. “Come on, dude, let’s just go check the security towers and—”

“That’s going to take another hour,” Jason cuts in.

The words come out flat, but there’s steel underneath. He shrugs Cassandra’s hand off—not rough, but final—and reaches into his pocket. The harbor lights blur for a second as his fingers close around his phone, the familiar shape of something that connects him to you grounding him. It’s 10:20. He knows that without looking but checks anyway. He’s been counting the minutes since the mission dragged past its supposed end.

“I had plans,” he says, quieter now, but more dangerous for it. “Let me at least—”

The batarang whistles through the air.

Jason barely has time to register the movement—Damian’s arm snapping forward, wrist precise, expression tight and furious—before metal slams into his hand. The impact jars up his arm, sharp and biting, and the phone slips free, spinning once before it hits the concrete.

Crack.

The screen fractures instantly, a spiderweb of dead glass blooming beneath the sodium lights before the device skids to a stop near Jason’s boot. The harbor seems to hold its breath. Even the wind falters, the water’s slap against the pylons momentarily muted, as if the night itself is listening.

Jason stares down at it.

At the dark screen. On the way his reflection breaks apart in the shattered glass.

Jason’s gaze lifts slowly from the ruin at his feet.

It settles on Dick.

“Call Bruce.”

The words aren’t loud. They don’t need to be. They cut anyway—clean, controlled, edged with something that’s starting to slip. Dick falters under it, hand coming up to rub at the back of his neck, eyes flicking anywhere but Jason’s face. The harbor lights stutter overhead, one of them buzzing like it’s about to give out, bathing Dick in a sickly gold that makes him look younger. 

Guilty.

“What, you gonna tattle?” Dick says, trying for levity and missing it by miles. His laugh lands wrong, brittle against the cold. “C’mon, Damian's just in a mood. I was going to surprise you with burgers but I thought the kid would spill. I’ll buy you a new phone, okay? Just—”

“Call Bruce,” Jason repeats.

This time it’s a hiss, dragged out through clenched teeth, something feral and fraying around the edges. The wind picks up again, slicing between the containers, rattling loose metal and carrying the sharp tang of rain that never quite falls in Gotham. Jason turns his head, slow and deliberate, until his eyes find Cassandra.

She hasn’t moved. She’s watching him like she’s afraid he might break.

“…He’s busy,” Cass says.

Her voice is barely there. Smaller than usual. Soft enough that Tim, standing a good ten feet away, doesn’t hear it at all. The words dissolve into the night almost as soon as they leave her mouth, swallowed by wind and water and distance—but Jason hears them. Every syllable.

Busy.

Something inside him tightens, winding down to a thin, dangerous thread.

His hand comes up to his comm without conscious thought. He adjusts it once, fingers steady despite the way his pulse thuds too hard, too fast. The harbor seems to lean in again—the stacked containers looming like watchful giants, the river below churning black and endless. 

Gotham breathes around him, damp and unforgiving.

“B,” Jason says.

Sharp. Precise. A single syllable fired into the dark like a flare.

Static answers him. Wind whistling through steel corridors. The distant cry of something alive and miserable echoing off the water. No voice. No correction. No irritation crackling back through the line.

Just silence. It stretches. Pulls thin. Grows teeth.

Jason exhales through his nose, a humorless breath that fogs faintly in the cold air. He thinks of you again—too vividly now. The way your voice softens when you say his name. The way you always pick up, even when he thinks you shouldn’t. The way silence has never belonged between the two of you.

His jaw locks. Fuck this shit, I should be at home with her.

Jason moves before anyone can stop him—before anyone even realizes he’s decided something.

He’s across the concrete in three long strides, boots splashing through shallow puddles that mirror Gotham’s jaundiced lights in broken pieces. Damian doesn’t flinch when Jason grabs his comm. Doesn’t pull back. Doesn’t protest. That, more than anything, makes Jason’s teeth grind.

He clicks the emergency signal to the Batcomputer—once, twice, a break, two clicks hard enough that it hurts his thumb—then rips the comm free. His helmet follows, clattering against the concrete with a hollow, echoing crack that ricochets between the shipping containers. The sound feels too loud, too exposed. Jason presses the comm to his bare ear, cold metal biting into skin.

No one stops him.

Not Dick. Not Tim. Not Stephanie. Cassandra watches with that same quiet intensity, hands flexing like she’s bracing for impact. They stand there and let it happen, like this is how it was always meant to go—like they’ve already accepted that Jason finding out is inevitable, but telling him would be worse. Like this is some twisted test, or penance, or family tradition he never agreed to.

The harbor hums low and restless. Wind slides through steel corridors, rattling chains, carrying the stink of oil and brine and rain-soaked concrete. Gotham feels awake in that way it only does when something bad is already in motion.

“Robin?” Bruce’s voice cuts through the static, sharp and immediate. Too immediate. There’s an edge to it Jason hasn’t heard in years—tight, almost nervous, parental. “Robin, what’s wrong?”

Jason almost laughs.

Instead, his mouth twists.

“I’m going home, old man,” he hisses, already turning away from Damian. “What was this? Ya trying to tire me out, or did you get mind-controlled again? ‘Cause everyone here apparently likes you enough to not tell me the truth.”

“Jason—”

“Red Hood,” Jason snaps, the correction coming fast and mean. He bends, scoops his helmet up by the chin guard, and starts walking toward the exit between the containers where the harbor opens up to the road. “What happened to keeping hero names on comms? Or are you the only one allowed to break rules tonight?”

“Red Hood, just give me—”

“It’s a lousy gang!” Jason shouts, voice tearing loose now, bouncing off steel and concrete and dark water. “They don’t even crack the top twenty. Damian could’ve done this shit by himself.”

He doesn’t look back, but he knows they’re following him. He can feel it—the weight of their footsteps, the way they trail just close enough to intervene if he breaks. Later, it’ll hit him why Tim made sure every single goon was double zip-tied, wrists biting white beneath plastic. Insurance. 

Tim knew Jason would find out. 

Knew none of them would be coming back to clean this up.

“Red Hood—”

“Merry Christmas, B,” Jason cuts in, bitter and sharp as broken glass. “Please don’t call.”

“JASON—”

Bruce’s voice snaps through the comm like a gunshot, dragging Jason straight back into another life, another night, another version of himself that answered to that tone. “She’s in danger. And if you want any chance of seeing her again, get to the Batcave—”

The line goes dead.

Not static. Not interference.

Bruce cut it himself.

Jason stops, because there's only one person he could be talking about to send all five of them with him.

The harbor seems to lurch, the world tilting just enough to make his balance feel theoretical. The wind howls between the containers, louder now, like Gotham exhaling something foul and satisfied. Water slaps hard against concrete pylons below, relentless, counting seconds Jason no longer owns.

Slowly—too slowly—he turns.

He looks at them. At Dick’s pale face. At Tim’s clenched jaw. At Damian’s rigid stillness. At Stephanie, eyes bright with unshed panic. At Cassandra, whose gaze is already on him, steady and mournful, like she’s watching something crack.

They look at him like he’s glass.

Like he’s a bomb they’re waiting to defuse—or clean up after.

Jason doesn’t give them the chance.

“Fuck all of you,” he spits, the words coming out broken and small despite his best efforts.

Then he runs.

Out of the harbor. Out of the sodium lights and rust and the weight of too many eyes. Jason runs like Gotham itself is on his heels, boots striking concrete in a brutal rhythm that drowns out thought—or tries to. The city stretches around him in jagged silhouettes and wet stone, skyscrapers looming like blackened ribs against a low, churning sky. Clouds hang heavy and swollen, bruised purple and gray, threatening rain they never quite release. Gotham loves the anticipation of pain more than the act itself.

His blood is loud in his ears. Too loud. Every heartbeat punches through his ribs, frantic and unforgiving, as if his body already knows something his mind refuses to accept.

Toward the manor. Toward answers.

Toward the awful, creeping certainty settling into his bones that whatever Gotham has taken this time, it didn’t take lightly—and it didn’t take something he can afford to replace.

He takes the shorter way.

Fire escapes. Rooftops slick with mist. Narrow alleys that smell like old rain and older sins. He vaults gaps without slowing, coat snapping behind him like a torn banner, the city blurring into streaks of shadow and light. This route cuts close to your place. Too close. He doesn’t consciously choose it; his body does, muscle memory dragging him along a path his heart has memorized better than any map.

And then—

Mid-leap, suspended between one rooftop and the next, he sees it.

Your building sits quiet against the skyline, dark in a way it never is. Your lights are off. All of them. The windows—your windows—are shattered, glass glittering weakly under the city’s glow like fallen stars. The balcony rail is smeared with something darker than shadow.

Blood.

The word doesn’t form. Not fully. His brain skids around it, refuses to give it weight. At most, he tells himself, you’re hurt. Something small. A cut. A scrape. A stupid accident that looks worse than it is. You’ll laugh it off when he gets there, scold him for worrying, tell him he’s being dramatic again.

Because you’re untouchable.

That’s the rule his mind has always clung to. Gotham can drown him in filth and violence and rot, but you—you—are clean. Untarnished. Something soft the city hasn’t learned how to bruise yet. You exist outside its reach, outside its hunger. Gotham takes things like Jason. It breaks people like him. It doesn’t get to put its hands on you.

It can’t have you.

Because if you’re hurt—if you’re really hurt—then everything Jason has built inside himself caves in at once. Every fragile structure, every careful compromise, every promise he’s made to stay standing for you. There’s no version of the world where you’re broken and he survives it intact.

He lands hard, barely absorbing the impact before he’s running again, lungs burning, throat raw. The manor rises ahead of him through the trees like a dark monument, windows glowing warm and oblivious against the night. Too slow. The gates are too slow. The doors are too slow.

Jason doesn’t bother.

He barrels straight for a ground-floor window and drives his elbow through it without hesitation. Glass explodes inward, sharp and screaming, biting into skin. He doesn’t feel it—not really—until he’s inside, boots skidding onto the polished floor, breath tearing out of him in harsh, uneven pulls.

Blood runs freely down his forearm, drips onto the pale carpet in dark, blooming stains.

It looks wrong there. Violent. Out of place, just like the blood on your balcony.

Jason stares at it for half a second too long, chest heaving, and something in him splinters quietly—because now he knows. The city has already touched you and it has never, not once, let go without breaking something in return.

Jason doesn’t slow down in the Cave.

The platform is still lowering when he’s already moving, boots striking metal too hard, too fast, the sound ricocheting off stone and steel. The Batcave yawns around them—vast and echoing, all cold water and colder rock, computer screens throwing pale blue light across jagged walls. The waterfall roars like it’s trying to drown the night itself, a constant, punishing noise that usually steadies him.

Tonight it only sharpens the edges.

Bruce turns at the last possible second. His eyes flick first to Jason’s face, then to the blood smeared down his arm, dripping steadily onto the pristine metal floor. Bruce’s mouth tightens. Not in anger. In calculation. In fear he refuses to name.

Jason shoves him.

Hard.

Bruce’s back slams into the Batcomputer console, screens rattling, data stuttering for half a heartbeat. A lesser man would’ve been airborne. Bruce Wayne could have thrown Jason across the Cave without effort—could have ended this in a clean, controlled second.

He doesn’t.

Jason knows he won’t.

“Where is she,” Jason spits, the words tearing out of him raw and shaking. His hands fist in Bruce’s cape, knuckles white, trembling despite the strength coiled beneath them. The fabric bunches beneath his grip like it might rip if he pulls any harder. “Where is she?”

Bruce lifts his hands slowly, carefully—not in surrender, but in containment. Like approaching a live wire. His voice, when he speaks, is measured to the point of pain.

“…Jason.”

The name alone is an attempt. An anchor. Bruce is already running scenarios, already gauging angles and exits and how much damage Jason could do if this slips another inch. He knows Jason’s tells. Knows the way his breathing has gone uneven, the way his eyes are too bright, too fixed. Knows this isn’t rage yet.

This is terror.

“Don’t,” Bruce says quietly. Not commanding. Pleading, buried deep beneath control. “Just—listen to me.”

Jason laughs once, short and broken, the sound scraping his throat raw. “No. You don’t get to slow this down. You don’t get to prepare me.”

Bruce swallows. “…Joker—” he begins.

And the world fractures.

The word lands heavy and obscene between them, fouling the air of the cave like poison gas. Joker. The name crawls under Jason’s armor, past muscle and bone, straight into the place where you live inside him.

Suddenly, you’re not untouchable.

You’re not the one clean thing Gotham never got its hands on. Not the soft place Jason runs to when the city claws at him too hard. Not the warmth in his bed, the light in his kitchen, the voice that says his name like it belongs to something human.

You’re not safe.

You’re not distant.

You’re not protected by the simple, impossible belief that the worst things in the world know better than to touch you.

You’re real.

You’re fragile.

You’re reachable.

Jason’s grip tightens without him meaning to, breath hitching violently in his chest. His mind fills with images he refuses to finish forming—broken glass, blood on pale surfaces, your windows shattered open to the night the same way his chest feels split open now. He thinks of your hands. Your laugh. The way you look at him like he’s something worth keeping.

And now—

Now you’re the blood he’s already wearing.

The blood he’s going to feel soaking into his gloves tonight.

Bruce sees it happen. Sees the moment Jason slips past anger and into something far more dangerous. His own heart lurches, sharp and traitorous. This—this is what he’s been afraid of since the second he knew Joker was involved. Not Jason lashing out blindly.

Jason focused.

Emotional.

Unanchored.

“Jason,” Bruce says again, softer now, steady as bedrock despite the fear tightening his chest. “I need you to stay with me. I need you here. Because if you go out there like this—”

Jason’s eyes snap back to him, glassy and feral and devastatingly alive.

“If I don’t go,” Jason says hoarsely, “she dies.”

“If you go,” Bruce says, low and sharp, the words cutting through the roar of the Cave, “you die—and you could lose her at the same time.”

The Batcave hums around them, fluorescent light washing the rock walls in cold blue, computer screens flickering with restless data. The waterfall crashes endlessly behind Bruce, mist clinging to the air, dampening everything it touches. It feels like the Cave is breathing—slow, heavy, watchful.

Bruce moves closer and grips Jason’s jacket with both hands, fingers clutching the leather like it’s the last solid thing in the world. He holds on the way a man holds a ledge he’s already slipping from, hoping friction alone might be enough to keep someone from falling.

It isn’t.

“Where is she,” Jason says.

His voice is flat. Too controlled. His eyes have already left Bruce, already slid to the Batcomputer, to the glowing map littered with red and yellow pings like open wounds across Gotham’s body. Each marker pulses faintly, alive and accusing.

He doesn’t notice his siblings closing in—Dick’s careful steps, Tim’s rigid stillness, Damian hovering sharp and coiled like a drawn blade.

“She’s alive,” Bruce says quickly, desperately. “She wasn’t the only one—at least four other children and three women—”

Jason turns his head.

The look he gives Bruce is devastating in its emptiness. Eyes glassed over, jaw set too tight, brows drawn together like the world has narrowed to a single, unbearable point.

“Do you honestly think I give a damn about them right now?”

The words aren’t shouted. They don’t need to be. They land heavy, obscene in their honesty, and Bruce’s grip tightens reflexively, knuckles whitening against Jason’s jacket.

“I know you don’t,” Bruce snaps back, frustration bleeding through control. “Which is why I didn’t tell you she was taken. Because we need a plan that keeps everyone who was captured safe—”

“At the risk she dies in the process?” Jason cuts in.

Then—he stills.

Something shifts. His hands loosen, falling away from Bruce’s cape as if the fabric has suddenly burned him. His gaze slides, sharp and intentional, and locks onto Tim.

“How long,” Jason says.

The question is steady. Solid. Frighteningly calm.

Tim swallows and flicks a glance at Bruce—a silent check, a plea, a habit Jason has seen a thousand times. Jason shoves Bruce’s hand aside and crosses the distance in two strides, grabbing Tim by the shoulders, fingers digging in through armor.

“Don’t,” Jason hisses, thumbs pressing hard, grounding, painful. “Don’t look at him.”

The words aren’t just for Tim. They’re for Jason too.

He vaguely registers Dick saying his name, Stephanie’s voice tight with panic somewhere behind him, but it all dissolves into a dull ringing as he stares down at Tim. Tim doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t pull away. He meets Jason’s gaze head-on.

“How long,” Jason repeats. “Where.”

Tim exhales, slow and controlled, the way he does when delivering bad news. “Two hours,” he says quietly. “Warehouse two blocks from Crime Alley. Behind that busted playground.”

Crime Alley.

The name echoes through the Cave like a curse, sinking into Jason’s chest and blooming outward, cold and malignant. Of course it’s there. Of course Joker chose that place—layers of history piled atop rot, a shrine built from other people’s pain.

Jason releases Tim slowly, hands trembling now, control finally beginning to crack.

Two hours.

Two hours of you alone with the man who taught Gotham how to laugh while it kills.

The Batcomputer hums on, indifferent. Gotham’s skyline glows faintly on the monitors—jagged towers under a bruised sky, rain finally starting to smear the camera feeds, streaking the city in gray. Somewhere out there, windows are broken. Somewhere out there, that cashmere scarf he wrapped and placed under your tree stays un-wrapped.

Jason understands then—with a clarity so sharp it almost feels merciful—that plans are a luxury meant for people who still believe time is something they own.

Time has never belonged to him.

Because you—you—aren’t alone. You’re trapped with seven other people. Four of them children, Bruce had said, like that word didn’t rearrange Jason’s insides completely. His mind does something traitorous then, something he hates himself for even acknowledging: it calculates. It knows how these things go. It knows Joker’s sense of theater, his appetite for cruelty, his fondness for leaving one survivor behind as punctuation.

And the last one standing is never the strongest.

It’s the smallest. 

You would be dying before those kids.

Jason’s breath stutters, just once.

“Jason,” Bruce says from the Batcomputer, voice tight, forced into calm the way it always is when he’s terrified. The blue glow paints him hollow, all sharp angles and restraint. “Don’t make me stop you. The cops are on their way. Joker just wants cash.”

For the first time since the harbor, the noise in Jason’s head goes quiet.

Not peaceful—focused.

Everything narrows down to Bruce. To the way his shoulders are squared like a barricade. To the way his hands hover, uncertain, like he’s trying to decide whether to reach out or brace for impact. Jason’s heart hammers so hard it hurts, louder than the waterfall, louder than any threat Batman could ever make.

“If you even try, Bruce,” Jason says.

He doesn’t look at him when he says it. He can’t. The name comes out wrong in his mouth—too raw, too intimate, scraped down to bone. Instead, he keeps his eyes on Tim, standing rigid in front of him, small in a way Jason suddenly can’t stop seeing. He hopes—distantly, uselessly—that he isn’t glaring at his little brother. Hopes Tim understands this isn’t anger.

Just pure desperation. His last attempt, his last shot.

“Ill fucking shoot myself. I’ll make sure you know it’s your fault,” Jason continues, voice low and shaking despite his effort to keep it steady. “I’ll use my gun. And if you tie me up today, I’ll wait until next week. If you lock me down for a week, I’ll wait a month. I’ll do it.”

He swallows.

Because that’s the only thing that’s ever worked. The only language Bruce Wayne never ignores.

Dick moves fast—too fast—grabbing Jason’s arm where it’s still braced near Tim, fingers digging in hard. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” he shouts, panic cracking straight through his anger.

Jason turns on him then, eyes blazing, voice breaking loose at last.

“Would you be this still?” Jason yells back. “If that was me with Joker again? If it was me instead of her—would you have left me there for the police to find? Again?”

The word hangs between them, heavy and damning.

Again.

Jason knows Dick well enough to see it land. To watch his brother’s grip falter, fingers loosening like they’ve forgotten what they were holding onto in the first place. Dick’s face goes pale, mouth parting uselessly, and Jason twists the knife—not because he wants to hurt him, but because he needs them to understand.

“This,” Jason snaps. “This is why none of you fucking knew about her.”

He looks at all of them now—really looks. At Bruce, frozen behind the console like a man staring down a live bomb. At Dick, wrecked with guilt.

“If you can’t even see me beyond a mistake you made,” Jason says, voice hoarse, “there was no way you wouldn’t have seen her as that too. And I love her too much for that.”

The words leave him hollowed out.

Then he’s gone.

The Cave swallows the echo of his footsteps, leaving only the roar of the waterfall and the hum of machines that suddenly feel pointless. No one moves to stop him. No one even tries.

It takes Tim a full minute to cross the platform and reach the Batcomputer, fingers hovering uselessly over keys he knows by heart.

It takes Cassandra four times as long to find a part of Bruce that still moves—some small, human place in his arm or shoulder that isn’t locked rigid like a man bracing for an explosion he knows is already ticking down.

Dick follows Jason’s trail almost immediately. And Damian follows Dick.

You don’t remember the last five hours.

They’re gone—hollowed out—like someone reached into your head and scooped the time away with a careless hand. The last thing you have is small and warm and ordinary: the coffee table between the couch and the window, set for two. Plates aligned just so. The new glasses you bought with Jason on that stupidly perfect thrift-store date, thin and elegant and impractical. You’d laughed about them, about how easy they’d be to break. Jason had pretended to scold you, fingers warm around yours as he tugged you toward the bookshelves, already stacking paperbacks in his arms like treasure.

You’d bought homeware. A vintage mirror with a gold edge, slightly warped, the kind that makes everything look softer than it is.

Jason always said you needed better locks. You realize it numbly.

He always said it gently, like a suggestion instead of a warning. Like he was talking about replacing a lightbulb or buying better coffee. You brushed him off every time, smiling, pressing a kiss into his shoulder, telling him Gotham wasn’t that bad. That you were fine. That you were safe.

And you were right. You always are.

Because an extra lock wouldn’t have stopped the man with the red smile.

It wouldn’t have stopped hands tangling in your hair, fingers tight and merciless as he dragged you across your rug, skin burning where it scraped against the fibers. It wouldn’t have stopped the way your mirror shattered when he slammed you against it, glass singing as it broke, your own reflection splintering into a hundred terrified pieces that stared back at you with wide, unbelieving eyes.

It wouldn’t have stopped the way he looked at you.

He crouched in front of you like this was intimate. Like this was a secret. His smile stretched too far, paint cracked and smeared, eyes bright with something wrong and delighted and ancient. 

Joker tilted his head, studying you the way a child studies an insect pinned to cork.

“Here’s the other lovebird,” he murmured, voice lilting, almost fond. “Ohhh… how cute you are.”

You remember thinking—absurdly, desperately—that Jason would hate that word. That he’d bristle at it, roll his eyes, pull you closer just to prove a point. You remember the ache of missing him hitting harder than the pain at first, your mind reaching for him the way it always does when the world goes wrong.

Jason would know what to do.

Jason would make this stop.

The thought is a comfort even now, curled tight in your chest, fragile but stubborn. You cling to it as the man stands, as one of the shadows behind him passes up an old, rusted crowbar. The metal is pitted and dark, flaking with age and something older still. It smells like iron and damp and rot.

It doesn’t take a lock to stop that.

It doesn’t take a security system to stop the sound your bones make when he brings it down.

The pain comes in blinding flashes—white-hot, nauseating, wrong. Your legs scream before you do, nerves lighting up in protest, your body trying to fold in on itself, trying to protect something already broken. You taste blood, copper and thick, your teeth chattering even as your throat burns raw from crying out.

Through it all, you think of Jason.

Of his hands—gentle despite their strength. Of the way he says your name like it’s something precious, something he’s afraid to drop. You think of his laugh, low and surprised, the way he softens when it’s just the two of you and Gotham can’t see him. You think of the books still stacked on the table, waiting to be read, of the glasses that shattered just like the mirror did.

Of how he warned you.

Of how he would be here already if he knew.

The room feels wrong—tilted, smeared with shadow, the air thick and sour. Blood pools where it shouldn’t, dark against your floor, soaking into the rug you picked out together. The city hums outside your broken windows, indifferent and vast, neon bleeding into the night like nothing is wrong at all.

You breathe when you can. You hold onto Jason’s name like a prayer you’re afraid to say out loud.

Because if he comes—when he comes—you need to believe there will still be something left of you for him to find.

Your consciousness returns in fragments, drifting in and out the same way you remember nights with him. Not clean breaks. Not mercy. Just gaps.

A void of sleep.

Jason easing your window open like the city might hear him, hands raised in mock surrender, voice low and careful. I didn’t mean to wake you… shh… go back to bed. The mattress dips, familiar weight settling beside you, warmth bleeding into your back.

A void of sleep.

Jason in your bathroom, the light too bright, the mirror fogged. Gotham’s blood and grime rinsed down the drain while he rubs his hair dry with one of your soft, ridiculous pink towels. He smiles at you through the doorway, sheepish and fond, promises he’ll be there in a second. He always is.

A void of sleep.

Jason shifting beside you, breath warm against the delicate skin beneath your ear. His arm tightens in his sleep, possessive without knowing it, like even unconscious he’s afraid the world might take you if he lets go. He murmurs your name—broken, reverent.

A void of sleep.

White hands. Cracked paint. Fingers threading through your hair, slick and tangled with blood. The touch is intimate in the worst way, scalp burning as he hums—no, sings—a childish tune about robins, voice lilting and wrong, laughter bubbling beneath it like rot under sugar.

A void of sleep.

Concrete tearing at your skin as you’re dragged, knees bouncing, spine jolting with every crack in the ground. A van door yawns open, metal teeth waiting. A child sobs near your ear, small and hiccuping. A woman screams at the child to shut up—panic sharp and desperate—until a gunshot rings out like punctuation. The woman goes silent. The child doesn’t. The word mommy repeats, thin and broken, drilling into your skull.

A void of sleep.

You wake choking on pain.

Your body is bound to a chair, wrists cinched tight, ankles screaming. Barbed wire coils around you like something alive, biting deep with every involuntary twitch. The metal is rusted, flaking, cruel—tearing skin open in ragged kisses that burn and throb and never quite stop bleeding. Your legs are numb in places, screaming in others. You can feel blood soaking into fabric, sticky and cooling as it trails downward.

He’s in front of you.

Smiling.

Head cocked, eyes bright with interest, like you’re a puzzle he’s just started enjoying. He steps closer, crouches until he’s eye-level with you, hands clasped together as if in prayer.

“You do love your sleep, don’t you?” he says, voice almost gentle.

Your vision swims. The room smells like iron and oil and damp concrete. Somewhere nearby, something drips steadily—water, or blood, or both. The walls feel too close, the shadows stretching and curling like they’re listening.

“The other birdy,” he continues, grinning wider, “wouldn’t even sleep if I cracked his skull. Such a shame.” He sighs theatrically, tapping the barbed wire with one gloved finger, delighted by the way you flinch. “I suppose I’ll have to find a way to keep you awake.”

Through the haze, through the pain, one thought stays stubbornly intact.

Jason is coming.

And you cling to that like a lifeline, even as the horror closes in, even as the night tries to peel you apart—because if you let go of that belief, if you let the void take everything—There will be nothing left for him to save.

You can’t see farther than four feet in front of you.

Anything beyond that dissolves into smears of color and motion, the edges of the room bleeding into one another. When you try to focus, your vision tilts violently, the world pitching sideways as warm blood slips down from your temple, sticky and insistent. It drips into your eye, blurring everything further, each blink making it worse. The ceiling swims. The walls breathe.

He notices.

Of course he does.

He steps into what little clarity you have left, face snapping into focus like a nightmare finally deciding to be seen. His hand comes up fast, fingers prying your jaw open with impatient familiarity. Something chalky presses against your tongue.

You gag immediately.

Your throat spasms around his fingers, saliva thick and useless as panic claws up your chest. Your head jerks instinctively, barbed wire biting deeper in protest, fresh pain flaring white-hot along your wrists and ankles. He doesn’t pull away. He shoves the pill back, past your tongue, past your resistance, until your body betrays you and swallows.

You choke.

Tears spill from your eyes, hot and humiliating, streaking through the grime on your cheeks. Your lungs burn as you suck in air in sharp, broken pulls.

Jason, you think, distantly, desperately. The name is a reflex now. A prayer you don’t dare say out loud.

His hand withdraws at last.

Then—

Smack.

Your head snaps to the side, vision exploding into sparks. Before you can react—

Smack.

The second strike lands harder, ringing through your skull, teeth clacking together as pain blooms anew. The world steadies just enough to be cruel about it.

“That’ll keep you awake, birdy,” he croons, pleased.

Your heart slams against your ribs, frantic and trapped. Already you can feel it—the way the haze pulls back just a little too much, the way your thoughts sharpen against your will. Your eyelids burn, heavy but refusing to close, nerves screaming as the drug seeps in and denies you even the mercy of darkness.

“Now.”

He leans back into his own chair like this is a rehearsal, like he’s bored of waiting for his cue. The legs scrape loudly against the concrete, the sound sharp enough to hurt. He reaches forward and adjusts the camera in front of you with careful precision. A small red light blinks every few seconds—steady, patient. Watching.

“We’re going to make a deal, okay?”

You don’t answer.

Your eyes refuse to cooperate, swimming uselessly as you blink through blood and tears. Every attempt to focus sends a wave of nausea through you, the room tilting, your pulse roaring in your ears louder than his voice. Your jaw trembles. Your tongue feels thick, wrong in your mouth.

“Okay?”

Nothing comes out.

The barbed wire strung cruelly across your throat digs in deeper with every breath you take, a quiet reminder that sound would cost you skin. Air hisses past your teeth in shallow pulls. You can feel your heartbeat there, fluttering and frantic against metal.

His smile thins.

He stands.

The rusty crowbar tightens in his grip as he rises from a stupid, bright orange folding chair—out of place, obscene against the filth of the warehouse. He steps into frame, then closer, until the camera, until you, are all that exist. He hooks two fingers under your chin and lifts your face, forcing your eyes up.

“Answer.”

You try.

Your mouth opens. Nothing happens.

All you can see is him—cracked white makeup creasing around his eyes, green hair greasy and limp, age showing in the lines around his mouth where smiles have lived too long. He smells like oil and metal and something sour beneath it all. The warehouse stinks of rust, damp concrete, old fuel. It crawls into your lungs.

And then—

You hear it.

A sound that doesn’t belong to him.

Crying.

Your head turns slowly, painfully, vertebrae protesting as the wire shifts against your throat. The movement costs you another sharp breath. Your vision blurs again—but this time, shapes resolve.

A cluster of bodies huddled together against a dented equipment container. Two teenage girls with their knees pulled tight to their chests, faces streaked with dirt and tears. Four little boys wedged between them, shaking, hands bound too tight, mouths open in silent sobs like they’ve already learned screaming doesn’t help.

Something in your chest caves in.

You don’t even see the crowbar move.

The impact comes out of nowhere—white-hot, brutal. The hooked end of the bar slams into your shoulder with a wet, tearing sound, metal biting deep as it pierces flesh. Pain detonates through you, ripping the air from your lungs. He yells as he does it, manic and delighted, like the violence startled even him.

Your body jerks against the restraints.

Barbed wire bites deeper. Blood spills warm and fast down your arm, soaking into your sleeve, dripping to the floor in thick, uneven drops. Your vision fractures, stars bursting behind your eyes.

You clamp your teeth down hard on your lip to keep from screaming.

You taste iron immediately—sharp and overwhelming—as skin breaks beneath your bite. Tears spill freely now, blurring everything, mixing with the blood already clinging to your lashes. It burns. It hurts. Your whole body shakes with the effort of staying quiet.

Behind you, the crying gets worse—fractured, panicked.

“Okay,” you choke out.

The word scrapes your throat raw on the way out, barely more than a breath. It tastes like blood and rust and surrender.

Immediately, the pressure is gone.

The crowbar pulls free with a wet sound that makes your vision white out, pain screaming down your arm as the hooked metal tears away from muscle and skin. You shudder hard, a broken gasp ripping out of you despite your best effort to swallow it down.

He steps back like a magician deciding on the next trick.

Then he leans in again—careful, deliberate—and pats at the wound where the bar pierced you. Not gentle. Never gentle. His palm presses just enough to make you flinch, fingers smearing warm blood across your torn clothes.

“See?” he says brightly, turning slightly so the camera gets a better angle. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

Your breath comes shallow and fast, chest stuttering against the wire. Every inhale sends a fresh bloom of pain through your shoulder, the edges of it pulsing in time with your heart.

His hands come up next.

Dry. Cracked. Too warm.

He grabs your face, fingers digging into your cheeks, thumbs pressing at your jaw as he tilts your head from side to side. The movement drags the skin of your neck against the barbed wire, a searing, intimate pain that makes your eyes flood instantly.

“What a dumb dumb birdy you are,” he croons, affectionate in the way predators are. “It’s okay. Joker can teach you.”

Your body trembles uncontrollably now. Your fingers spasm uselessly against the wooden arms of the chair, nails scraping shallow grooves into the surface. You can feel blood slicking your palm and you don't even want to think about how you got hurt there too.

He releases your face.

Pats your head once.

The gesture is almost worse than the violence.

“Now,” he says softly, pleasantly, “say thank you.”

Your vision swims. The room feels too loud, too close. Somewhere behind you, one of the children sobs so hard it turns into hiccupping gasps. You swallow around the wire, throat burning.

You look up at him with shaking eyes, lashes heavy with tears and blood. Your mouth opens. Your lips quiver.

“Thank—” Your voice breaks completely. You force it back together, dragging the word out of yourself like it’s being pulled through glass. “Thank you.”

His smile spreads slow and satisfied, stretching the cracks in his makeup wider.

“Good birdy,” he coos, pleased. “So much more compliant than your love bird already!”

“Now—” Joker announces, voice lifting into a theatrical lilt, like he’s stepped beneath a spotlight instead of flickering warehouse fluorescents. He turns toward the camera, gives it a jaunty little nod, then looks back at you, grin splitting wider. “I was gonna let you go for some cash. Thought your little boy bird might get scared shitless—just a fun little bonus, really—buttt—”

He drifts away from you, footsteps light, almost playful. You can’t turn your head far enough to see what he’s doing. The wire bites when you try. Your vision pulses, dark at the edges.

Then—

A scream.

Sharp. High. A girl’s voice.

It cuts off halfway through, collapsing into a thin, broken cry that echoes far too long in the hollow space of the warehouse.

Something in you fractures.

Joker reappears at your side, breath brushing your ear, laughter bubbling out of him like it’s a private joke the two of you share. “Got lucky with a rich bitch on the road,” he cackles, delighted. “Gotham really does keep on givin’.”

Your stomach twists violently. You taste bile. The crying behind you swells again, panicked and animal, and you can feel your own body trying to fold in on itself despite the restraints, like if you curl inward hard enough you might disappear. 

His hands slide to your throat and at the same time your eyes land onto his hands. Diamond earrings.

He ripped her earrings out of her ears. 

Before you can flinch at the sight of pieces of skin in his open hand, he yanks.

The chain snaps free with a sharp tug, metal biting into your skin as the necklace tears away. You gasp, the wire at your neck punishing you for it, and the sudden cold where the chain used to rest feels obscene—too exposed. You feel lucky that you took off your earrings when you were doing your hair.

He dangles it in front of the camera, letting it glint under the harsh light, gemstones smeared faintly red from your blood. “This could go for a couple hundred too!” he sings. “Ohhh, how delightful!”

He leans closer, eyes alight, savoring every tremor that runs through you. “At least one of the birdies knows how to decorate their nest. Found a few rings at your place as well.”

Joker pockets the necklace with a satisfied hum.

“Well, now that I don’t need the money,” he croons, voice lilting, playful, like he’s deciding which joke to tell next, “what should I do with you?”

His fingers drag along your cheek again, slower this time, the pad of his thumb pressing just hard enough to bruise. His touch leaves heat behind, a crawling sensation that makes your stomach revolt. You feel contaminated where he’s touched you, like your skin is remembering something it shouldn’t.

“…I’ll give you more,” you whisper. Your voice fractures around the word, splintering into something pitiful and thin. “However much you want—just—”

“Oh, I don’t need money.”

The change is instant. His tone drops, sharp and venomous, and when he leans in his eyes are blown wide and empty, pupils swallowing the green like oil slicks. A hawk spotting movement. A blade finding flesh.

“I was looking for some fun, love bird,” he hisses. “You can’t give me that?”

You whimper around the grip on your jaw as his fingers tighten, nails biting into your skin. The wire at your throat digs deeper when you gasp, its teeth kissing something vital. Pain blooms hot and bright, stars bursting behind your eyes.

“Jason— Jason will—”

He doesn’t even flinch at the name.

Maybe that’s mercy.

His fingers move higher, rough and invasive, smearing through the makeup you’d put on hours ago with careful hands. The eyeshadow burns as it’s ground into your skin, sweat and blood turning it into a dark, ugly paste. His thumb drags through the faint blush on your cheeks, erasing it like it was a mistake.

“How pretty you are,” he murmurs, almost tender. “I do makeup on myself too, you know.”

Then his hands leave you entirely.

He grabs his own face, fingers digging into the cracked greasepaint, stretching the red grin wider, tearing at the corners until the white creases and flakes. For a second you think you see real skin underneath—white, lined, angry. Horrid.

“Do you like mine?” he asks brightly. “Do you think I’m pretty?”

Your mind blanks.

Your eyes flick helplessly to the camera instead—the blinking red light pulsing steadily, patiently. Recording. Waiting. You try to speak, to say yes or no or anything that might stop what’s coming, but your throat locks around the wire and all that comes out is a wet, useless sound.

Then—

“Very pretty!”

The voice is behind you.

Too young.

A teenage girl, no older than seventeen. Her voice trembles, thin and frantic, the words tumbling over each other. “So—so pretty—”

You feel something inside you tear open.

She’s trying to survive. You can feel that hope radiate off of her. The hope of throwing words into the dark and praying it lands somewhere safe.

Joker’s head snaps toward her.

His eyes narrow, sharp and wrong, smile freezing into something predatory. “You think so?”

There’s a frantic nod you can hear more than see—the quick intake of breath, the shuddering little sob that follows.

Joker bends down.

The crowbar scrapes loudly as he lifts it, metal screaming against concrete. You catch a glimpse of it as he moves past you—rusted, pitted, darkened in places where it’s already been used tonight.

Then he’s gone from your line of sight.

The scream that follows is immediate and unbearable.

It’s not just pain—it’s shock, terror, the sound of someone realizing too late that they were wrong. The metal wall amplifies it, throws it back at itself until it feels like the warehouse is screaming with her.

There’s a wet, sickening crack.

A sound like meat hitting concrete.

“Why don’t we match?” Joker coos from behind you, voice light and delighted. “I did one side, now the other!”

The crowbar hits again.

You hear bone give this time—feel it in your teeth, in your chest. Her scream fractures into something animal, then into choking sobs, then into a raw, bubbling sound that makes bile rush up your throat.

Your own crying breaks free, ugly and uncontrollable. Your body jerks against the restraints, fingers cramping, nails tearing uselessly into the wood of the chair. Hot tears spill down your face, mixing with blood, dripping off your chin in thick, dark drops.

The camera’s red light blinks again.

Once.

Twice.

It taunts you by matching every sound that breaks out of you.

Every gasped sob, every wet, hitching breath. The camera’s red light blinks in time with your chest, like it’s learned your rhythm, like it’s decided to breathe with you instead of for you.

And then the Joker comes back.

You smell him before you see him—iron-thick blood, old rust, sweat gone sour. His hands are slick, red to the wrist, fingers shining under the warehouse lights. The crowbar hangs loose in his grip, darker now, clotted, strands of hair caught cruelly in its curve.

He crouches in front of you, bringing himself eye-level, like he’s talking to a child.

“Well,” he hums thoughtfully. “I can’t give you her look, can I?”

Your vision swims. You can’t stop shaking. Tears slide down your face in hot, unstoppable streams, carving clean paths through blood and grime. Your mouth opens, but nothing coherent comes out—just a broken, animal sound that folds back in on itself.

His smile twitches.

“What should I do with you?” he asks softly. “Hm?”

You don’t answer. You can’t. You just cry harder, chest stuttering against the wire, throat raw and burning.

That seems to irritate him.

He clicks his tongue, disappointed, and lifts the crowbar. The cold metal taps against your cheek once—tap—just enough to make you flinch violently. He pauses, head tilting.

“Oh—”

His eyes light up.

“Oh yes, that’s wonderful! Oh—” He erupts into laughter, sudden and explosive, clutching his stomach as if the joke is too much to bear. Spit flies from his mouth, warm and disgusting as it lands in your hair, streaking through blood-matted strands. “Oh, isn’t my brain just splendid?”

He straightens, still laughing, wiping his eyes like he’s genuinely amused. “You bats are all poetry, I say—pure poetry!”

Then he turns.

Walks away.

His footsteps fade, echoing hollowly through the warehouse, until there’s only the hum of the lights, the distant crying behind you—and the camera.

You’re alone.

One last sob claws its way out of your throat, wet and choking. Blood follows it, dribbling down your chin, splashing darkly against your chest. You force your eyes open, drag them upward, lock them onto the camera.

You don’t know who’s watching. You don’t know if anyone is.

Your voice comes out steadier than it has any right to be.

“How—”

“Shut up!” someone whisper-yells behind you, frantic and terrified. “There’s other men!”

Your mouth snaps shut.

And the red light keeps blinking.

The metal door slams open with a shriek of abused hinges, the impact shuddering through the warehouse floor and straight up your spine. Dust rains down from the rafters in a thin, dirty veil, catching in your hair and sticking to the blood already drying there.

He’s laughing before you even see him.

Not distant laughter—close. Moving. Each step accompanied by a wet, dragging sound, like something heavy being pulled across concrete. His cackle ricochets off the shipping containers, off the steel beams, off the low ceiling that traps the sound and forces it back into your skull.

A little boy cries out behind you as Joker passes him. A sharp, panicked sound that fractures into a sob and then cuts off abruptly, like someone clamped a hand over his mouth.

The air grows hotter.

Through the warped reflection in the camera lens, you see it clearly now: a long metal bar burning red-hot, so bright it hurts to look at directly. Heat ripples distort the image around it, the glow painting the walls in feverish streaks of crimson. The smell hits you next—burning iron, scorched metal, something faintly organic beneath it that makes bile crawl up your throat.

Joker taps the brand against the concrete behind you.

It doesn’t clang.

It hisses.

The sound is sharp and alive, like meat on a skillet. Tiny sparks spit outward where it kisses the floor, leaving blackened scars in the cement. The red glow doesn’t dull. Doesn’t cool. It stays furious and bright, as if fed by something endless.

Whatever fragile hope you were clutching evaporates in that moment, leaving you hollowed out, lungs burning as you exhale something that feels like your last prayer.

He’s behind you in the next second.

Joker’s hand comes out of nowhere, clamping over your mouth, palm slick and hot. The copper taste floods you as his fingers press into your cheeks, nails digging in just enough to hurt—just enough to remind you that restraint is a choice he’s making. Your head is forced back, neck screaming as the wire saws deeper, the barbs biting into tender skin.

“Would you like to match your birdy?” he murmurs.

His voice is serene. Gentle. Almost affectionate.

He angles the brand around the arm of the chair so you can see it clearly. The letter is unmistakable now, its edges glowing white-hot, heat radiating off it in suffocating waves.

A ‘𝙹’.

Your body reacts before your mind can—your stomach convulses, gagging against his hand, breath stuttering uselessly through your nose. Your skin feels too tight, like it’s already shrinking away from what’s coming.

“We’re going to make the deal now,” he coos.

In the camera’s reflection, you can see his eye—wide, bright, utterly focused on the blinking red dot. Performing. Enjoying the audience if there even is one.

“You either get a matching look…” The brand drifts closer, close enough that the heat kisses your cheek, nerves screaming in anticipation, sweat instantly breaking out along your spine. “…or you tell me who you hate.”

His hand peels away from your mouth.

Air rushes in too fast. You choke on it, coughing hard enough that the wire grinds into your throat, pain blooming hot and blinding. Your voice comes out shredded. “Who… who I hate?”

“Who put you here?” he hums thoughtfully, as if the answer delights him. “It wasn’t me.”

The brand pauses, hovering inches from your skin. You can feel the heat burrowing inward, like it’s already memorizing you.

“Why do you think I found you?” he continues lightly. “Do you know how sloppy he is?”

Silence stretches, thick and oppressive.

You stare at the glowing red letter, your mind drifting somewhere distant and numb to survive. Absurdly, irrationally, you think of Jason’s helmet—the same violent red, the same defiant color. You wonder if he’s thinking of you right now. If he can feel this, somehow.

“Tell me who you hate.”

The words don’t just reach you—they enter you, heavy and cold, sinking past bone and settling somewhere deep and irreversible. They press the air flat, make the warehouse feel smaller, closer, like the walls are leaning in to listen.

He stands before you in all his wrongness, and up close there is nothing theatrical left. The Joker’s makeup has melted into something corpse-like, white cracked and flaking into the grooves of his face as though his skin is trying to shed it. The red smile is no longer a grin so much as a wound, smeared unevenly, darker where blood has mixed in, the corners dragged downward by age and use. His hair hangs limp, green dulled to the color of mold, clinging to his scalp in greasy strands. His eyes are too bright—glass-bright, feverish—never still, never soft, reflecting the warehouse lights like knives.

The space around you hums with misery. The concrete beneath your feet is slick with blood and oil, cold seeping up through the chair and into your bones. Shipping containers loom like coffins, their metal sides scarred and rusted, shadows pooled so thick between them it feels like something could step out at any moment. The air reeks—burnt iron, old sweat, copper, rot—and every breath feels like inhaling something alive and hostile.

You look at the camera.

That red eye blinks steadily, rhythmically, a heart that isn’t yours. It sees the way your chest shudders, the way your fingers twitch uselessly against the bindings, the way your body is already bracing for pain it knows is coming. Your thoughts drift, slow and exhausted, slipping through your hands like water you can’t quite hold.

You think of Jason.

Not the helmet. Not the blood. But his hands—warm, callused, careful when they touch you. The way he looks at you like the world might soften if you stay. The way he says your name like it’s something solid.

You could say his name now.

You could offer it up like a sacrifice and pray that this monster believes in deals, that you might walk out of here broken but breathing. You could lie and hope he lets you go.

Or you could say Jason’s name and watch Joker’s smile vanish as he switches off the camera and kills you quietly, preserving this horror to show your sweet boy later.

Or you could stay silent and take the brand—feel your skin burn, your body marked, watch the ecstasy bloom in Joker’s eyes as he claims you like an object he’s improved.

None of them feel survivable.

Something inside you twists—not courage, not bravery, but love sharpened into something desperate and ugly and defiant. You gather what spit you can in your blood-wet mouth and turn your head as far as the wire allows.

You spit in his face.

It lands wet and unmistakable, dragging a slow line through the cracked white paint, cutting through the red smile like an insult carved in flesh.

For a heartbeat, everything freezes.

The Joker goes utterly still, his expression emptying out in a way that is far more frightening than his laughter. Then his eyes widen, pupils dilating, fury flaring bright and feral—pleased.

You lean forward, neck screaming as the wire bites deeper, and you whisper because your voice will not survive being louder.

“You know,” you murmur, breath shaking despite everything you do to steady it, “he’s never mentioned you before.”

His breath stutters.

“You must not have left quite an impression.”

It’s a lie. A reckless, transparent lie.

You have lived in Gotham long enough to know exactly what he is—his name written in blood across the city’s history—but lies can still cut, and you see it land. You see the way his smile stretches wider, hungry and thrilled.

You’ve given him a reason.

A reason to prove himself.

A reason to keep you alive.

A reason to make you hurt longer.

His hand tangles in your hair and yanks your head back violently. Your neck slams into the barbed wire, spikes tearing in with a wet, intimate sound that makes you sob despite yourself. Warm blood spills down your throat, choking you, slicking your chest.

Then the brand descends.

The heat is indescribable—ancient, total, a pain so vast it consumes thought itself. Your flesh screams as it burns, the smell of seared skin rising thick and sweet, smoke curling upward as the letter is carved into you slowly, deliberately. Your body arches uselessly against the restraints, every nerve on fire, and the sound that leaves you is not a scream so much as something torn out of your soul.

You hate that he hears it. And when that drug denies you the void of sleep you so desperately need, you allow yourself to think numbly as the man pulls it away that at least Jason can't dwindle his appearance anymore.

Your tears stripe down your cheeks, burning as they touch your skin.

We match. You think numbly, Atleast we match.

He strokes over the brand with more delicacy than he has ever had in this whole nightmare, mumbling, “This is going to hurt you a lot more than it hurts me.”

When you wake again, it’s to the weight of tears landing on your face—warm, uneven drops that pull you out of the dark in slow, reluctant pieces. For a moment you don’t know where you are. The world rocks gently, like it can’t decide whether to keep moving or stop altogether. There’s the low hum of an engine beneath you, vibration traveling through bone and bruised muscle, and the smell of old leather surrounds you—worn, familiar, grounding in a way that makes your chest ache.

Leather is good.

Leather is not acid.

Leather does not burn your lungs on the way in.

“Hurts,” you mumble, the word barely surviving the journey out of your throat. You offer it up like an apology, like a peace offering, half-expecting pain to answer you back.

Instead, the crying breaks harder.

It comes undone above you, raw and ugly, and through the haze you realize you aren’t lying flat on concrete, waiting for the Joker to press a cinder block to your stomach. Your body is stretched across someone, your legs draped over another set of knees, your weight distributed carefully, reverently, like something fragile that might shatter if shifted wrong. 

An arm is braced beneath your neck, steady and strong, keeping your head from lolling, and your cheek presses into a leather jacket that smells unmistakably like gun oil, sweat, rain—

Jason.

The knowledge hits softer than it should, cushioned by exhaustion and shock, and when your eyes finally manage to open, everything swims. Light smears at the edges, colors bleeding into one another, but his face is there anyway, hovering close, carved with terror and relief and something so naked it almost scares you more than the warehouse did.

“Am I in heaven?” you mumble.

He lets out a sound that isn’t quite a sob and isn’t quite a laugh, choking on it as his chin trembles. “You don’t even believe in heaven.”

“Well,” you murmur, trying—and failing—to pull your mouth into something that resembles a smile, “what else could you be?”

Your jaw burns when you speak. Everything burns. It feels like your body has been filled with broken glass and lit from the inside, and you’re dimly aware of warm liquid slipping from your mouth, darkening the leather beneath your cheek every time you breathe wrong. You hate that you’re staining him. You hate that you can’t stop.

“I’ll kill him,” Jason whispers, like a prayer he’s been holding onto with both hands. His fingers shake as they brush your hair back, careful to avoid places he knows are hurt. “I’ll kill him. I promise.”

“Can I have hot chocolate first?” you mumble. The words feel distant, like they belong to someone else. “I bought that expensive kind… from Finland. Asshole knocked it all over my carpet…”

Jason’s breath fractures completely at that. He nods too hard, tears spilling freely now, dropping onto your cheeks, your neck, your collarbone. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll buy you hot chocolate. I’ll buy you all of it.”

Somewhere near your feet, another voice cuts in, low and strained with concern. “Hey, Jay—breathe—”

Jason doesn’t hear them. Or maybe he does and simply can’t afford to listen. His chest is rising too fast beneath you, breaths sawing in and out like he’s drowning on dry land, his eyes glassy and unfocused, the green in them shifting with every frantic blink.

Or maybe that’s just your vision still failing you. That would make sense. The powder. The smoke. The way light hurts now.

“Stop crying,” you murmur weakly. “I can’t die with you looking like that.”

That breaks him.

His face crumples completely, grief spilling over into something fierce and desperate as he bends closer, forehead almost touching yours. “Good,” he chokes. “Fuck you. I’ll cry even more, so–so stay with me, yeah?”

“No,” you whisper, your voice scraping raw against your throat. “Wanna sleep.”

“You slept an awful lot,” he snaps, but there’s no anger in it—only terror wearing sharp edges, only love clawing its way out however it can.

“Well,” you murmur, your voice thin but soft, like you’re afraid of startling him, “You show up in my dreams an awful lot.”

That does it.

Whatever fragile control Jason had left fractures clean through. He folds over you instinctively, shoulders caving as he tries—fails—to hide the sound of it. His breath comes apart against your hair, his forehead dipping close to your temple like if he presses himself near enough, he can keep you here by force alone. You feel the tremor of him through your whole body, every hitch of his chest echoing in your ribs.

You smell blood on him then. Copper and iron, sharp beneath the leather and sweat and rain. For a distant, numb second you think it’s yours again—until the scent is too heavy, too layered.

Oh.

Was this—

“Did I interrupt family bonding?” you whisper.

Your lips barely move. The words slip out half-asleep, half-dreaming, and they earn you a startled huff from somewhere behind you. Jason doesn’t answer. He can’t. His arms tighten instead, one hand splayed carefully at your back like he’s afraid even breathing too hard might hurt you more.

A voice comes from the seat behind, dry and unimpressed, because Jason is currently incapable of speech and whoever has your legs resting in their lap is rubbing slow, grounding circles into his back.

“If this is what you think family bonding is, you’ll fit right in.”

“Damian, be quiet,” another voice snaps.

“She’s the one shamelessly flirting with him in front of all of us, Tim” Damian continues anyway, undeterred. “And Father isn’t even saying anything, so—”

“Well she’s the one dying!” Tim blurts, voice cracking sharp with fear.

Jason chokes on the words that come from Tim’s mouth, breath stuttering hard, and a deeper voice cuts in from the front seat—controlled, measured, holding itself together by sheer will.

“She’s not going to die, Tim.”

“I want hoya bellas on my grave,” you interrupt softly.

Jason lets out a broken sound that might have been a laugh in another universe. He shakes his head over you, forehead brushing your hair, and through your blurry vision you think you catch a gloved hand popping up behind him in a solemn thumbs-up.

“Got it.”

Another voice joins in from the front, exasperated and strained. “Cassandra, she’s not being serious.”

“I’m sorry,” Jason whispers, over and over, like a mantra, like something he’s trying to carve into reality. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” His thumb strokes your hair away from your forehead again, impossibly gentle, avoiding the places he knows hurt, the places he doesn’t want to know at all.

“I’m gonna sleep now,” you murmur. It takes effort to shape the words. The dark is getting heavier again, tugging at you, warm and deep. “Can one of you give Jason water?”

“Hey—” Jason breathes, panic flaring sharp as his voice cracks. “Hey, no—no, no, no, stay with me, come on—”

But you’re already slipping.

Your eyes flutter closed despite him, despite the warmth of his arms, despite the way his heart is racing beneath your ear like it’s trying to outrun fate itself. His glove comes off hurriedly and you feel his bare fingers press to your pulse, grounding himself in the steady beat there, in the fact that it’s still happening.

After a few minutes, Dick leans forward and taps Jason’s shoulder gently, offering a water bottle. His uniform is torn and scorched like the rest of them, a thin cut bright against his cheek, but his voice is soft when he speaks.

“Drink.”

Jason doesn’t look up. He doesn’t let go. He just nods once, tight and shaky, eyes fixed on you like if he looks away for even a second, the world might take you again.

He forces himself to take a full gulp of water, the plastic bottle crinkling loudly in the too-quiet car, his throat working like it has to remember how swallowing goes. His hands are still shaking when he passes it off to Tim.

“Hey, I don’t need any—”

Jason looks at him.

Not sharp. Not angry. Just steady in a way that leaves no room for argument, the kind of look that says do this or I will fall apart next.

Tim takes a long swig immediately. Somewhere in the background, Damian lets out a low, satisfied cackle.

The digital clock on the Batmobile reads 4:00 a.m.

The numbers glow cold blue against the dark interior, reflected faintly in the windshield like a second set of eyes staring back at them. Gotham outside is hollow and half-dead at this hour—streetlights flickering, rain-slick asphalt stretching endlessly, buildings slumped together like they’re exhausted too.

Bruce’s voice is calm as he calls Alfred, clipped and precise, already listing supplies like this is something he can control if he names enough of it out loud.

Jason doesn’t listen.

He keeps his focus on you.

On the shallow rise and fall of your chest. The warmth is still clinging stubbornly to your skin. On the way your weight settles into him like it belongs there, like it always has. One hand stays firm at your neck, holding you upright because you need it—because you need him steady, and that knowledge anchors him harder than anything Bruce could ever say.

You need him here. You need him present. You need him not to break.

He knows that, because once—once—that was all he ever wanted too.

And that’s the cruel part of it.

Because the weight of you in his arms has only ever meant safety. Home. Sleep curling warm and heavy in his bones. His body doesn’t know the difference between holding you safe and finally being allowed to rest.

Jason Todd passes out with his forehead dipping gently toward yours, his grip loosening only by a fraction, like even unconscious he’s afraid to let you go.

The last thing he hears before everything goes dark is Tim’s voice, sharp with panic and disbelief.

“Dude—what the fuck—”

“Hold his head up—don’t let him fall on her!” Bruce barks from the front, voice cracking sharp through the Batmobile like a snapped cable.

All at once, everyone moves.

Damian fists the back of Jason’s T‑shirt, knuckles white as he yanks him upright with a strength born of panic he’d never admit to. Dick stretches impossibly from the passenger seat, arm braced awkwardly as he cups the back of Jason’s head, careful, reverent, like he’s afraid one wrong angle will shatter him. Tim presses a steadying hand to Jason’s chest, feeling the uneven rise and fall beneath his palm, grounding him the way he’s learned to do with bombs and brothers alike.

Jason is dead weight. Heavy. Still clinging to you even in unconsciousness, his arm slack but stubborn around your shoulders, like muscle memory alone refuses to let you go.

The Batmobile hums on, tires slicing through wet streets, Gotham blurring past in streaks of sodium light and rain-slick concrete. The city feels distant now, muffled, like it’s holding its breath with them.

“…Did someone check if the Joker was—uh—breathing?” Stephanie asks from the back, her voice small in a way it rarely ever is.

She hadn’t stayed for the end. Her job had been triage—getting the kids out, shouting orders, dragging civilians through blood and broken glass while the rest of them stayed behind in the warehouse with the laughter and the screaming. She’d smelled the aftermath on them when they regrouped. She didn’t need details then but...

Bruce doesn’t look back. His hands tighten on the wheel.

“Jason didn’t hit any vital points,” he says quietly, like he’s reciting a report he’s already memorized. “Just… ah—”

“Carved his face like a jack‑o’‑lantern,” Damian supplies, entirely too calm. “Heated up a crowbar to do it too. Very effective.”

There’s a beat of silence.

The city lights flash over Bruce’s face—old stone and deep eyes that are hollowed by relief he doesn’t let himself feel yet.

“…Yeah,” Bruce exhales, short and rough. “That.”

The Batmobile keeps moving.

Jason breathes.

You breathe.

And for now, that’s enough to keep the night from swallowing them whole.

You wake up in bed.

Not the thin, borrowed kind your body has learned to tolerate at your apartment, but something deep and indulgent—clean sheets tucked tight, the mattress yielding just enough to cradle you instead of swallowing you whole. The pillow beneath your cheek feels stupidly expensive, cool and smooth, smelling faintly of detergent and something old and comforting, like cedar and money and quiet hallways that echo.

For a moment, you think you’re dreaming again.

Then you feel him.

Jason is asleep beside you, solid and unmistakable. You don’t need to move—you can’t really anyways—to know it’s him. The arm wrapped around your waist is heavy with familiar strength, protective even in unconsciousness. His hair brushes against your arm every time he breathes, soft, tickling your skin in a way that makes your chest ache.

He’s breathing.

That fact alone nearly undoes you.

God. You really need to raise your standards, you think hazily. You’re reduced to this—listening to him breathe, feeling the slow rise and fall of his chest, and already you want to curl into him and coo like nothing in the world has ever gone wrong.

Then you see Bruce.

He’s standing near the bed, still as a statue, watching you with the careful intensity of someone afraid to spook a wild animal. It takes effort to focus on his face, your vision dragging itself into clarity inch by inch.

When you try to lift your head—manners resurfacing before sense—your body protests sharply.

Bruce moves instantly.

“Hey, hey—no,” he murmurs, hands gentle but firm as he presses you back into the mattress. “Relax. It’s okay. You’re safe.”

Your head sinks back into the pillow, and the moment stretches. You swallow thickly before managing a small, hoarse sound of politeness.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Wayne. Jason—”

“Hasn’t told you much about me,” Bruce finishes for you, a faint, tired chuckle slipping out. “That’s alright. I just need you to sleep right now.”

You glance downward as best you can, feeling something sharp dig into your side.

“…I can’t sleep if your son’s elbow is in my ribs.”

Bruce blinks.

Actually blinks—surprised enough that it breaks through the carefully assembled calm. “Ah—” he starts, then reaches for Jason, trying to rearrange him with the same precision he uses on everything else.

It doesn’t work.

Jason huffs in his sleep, a low, irritated sound, and somehow manages to make it worse—his arm tightening, his leg hooking over yours possessively, like you’re something he’s afraid the world might steal back if he lets go.

Bruce freezes.

You mumble, exhausted but soft, “It’s alright. I’m sure he hasn’t slept… I’ve gotten quite a lot, so…”

Bruce looks like he wants to argue. His jaw tightens, then loosens, the fight draining out of him. He exhales and sits back in the chair by the bed, elbows on his knees, hands clasped tightly together.

“It’s the 26th,” he says quietly.

Oh.

You missed Christmas.

What a shame.

After a moment, Bruce speaks again, and his voice is heavier now—careful, deliberate, like every word costs him something.

“I… want to apologize to you.” His fingers interlace, knuckles whitening. “I knew you’d been taken. And I didn’t tell him. Possibly… he could have been there sooner. But I needed to make sure the others would be saved as well.”

“Well,” you murmur, the word barely more than breath, “I don’t exactly blame you for that.”

It isn’t forgiveness exactly—nothing so grand—but it’s honest, and it lands heavier than anger ever could.

Bruce doesn’t relax. If anything, his shoulders pull tighter, like he’s bracing for a blow that never quite comes. He’s spent his whole life learning how to de‑escalate men with guns, gods with vendettas, cities with teeth—but you unsettle him in a quieter, more dangerous way. You’re calm. You’re lucid. You’re something Jason had threatened to shoot himself for.

He clears his throat, trying to give you something solid, something measurable. Facts are safer.

“Jason… got him,” Bruce says carefully. “Badly. I think—” He hesitates, eyes flicking once toward Jason like he’s checking for movement. “I think the Joker may be blind now. Or at least permanently impaired.”

“You let him?” you ask.

Still no accusation. Just a soft, stunned curiosity, as if you’re piecing together a story you were never meant to survive.

Bruce nods. Once. The motion costs him. “I did,” he admits. “But I—”

“Then that’s enough,” you whisper, interrupting him gently, like you’re afraid the words themselves might hurt. “Jason will realize that too.” Your lashes flutter; exhaustion tugs at you like a tide. “I mean… he probably won’t. He’ll still try to kill him.” A faint, crooked exhale. “But you did everything you could yesterday.”

Your gaze drifts—not to Bruce, but to Jason. To the way his arm is still locked around you, even in sleep. To the stubborn set of his jaw, the crease between his brows that never fully smooths out anymore.

“Thank you,” you add quietly. “For finding me.”

That’s when Bruce goes still.

Not rigid. Not defensive.

Still.

Because he’s been looking at you, yes—but now you realize he hasn't been looking you in the eye while he speaks. His eyes have been caught in one place, drawn there again and again like a bruise you can’t help but press.

Your cheek.

The skin there is angry beneath the bandage’s edge—raw, faintly swollen, discolored in a way he winced at while he bandaged it. Bruce didn't let anyone else tend to it, not even Alfred. 

Because this was a wound he inflicted, one that he needed to tend to.

“It’s still fresh,” he says, softer now, stripped of the Bat and the rules and the fear. Just a man speaking carefully around something fragile. “I’ll get you better medicine. The pigment should fade.” A pause. His voice lowers. “I can’t promise about the texture.”

You don’t look away. You don’t flinch.

“That’s okay,” you say.

And Bruce doesn’t know if you mean the scar, or the pain, or the fact that you’ll carry this forever—but Jason shifts in his sleep then, brow tightening, arm drawing you closer like he sensed the weight of the moment and refused to let it settle on you alone.

Bruce watches that. Watches how Jason anchors himself to you without waking, how his breathing steadies when yours does, how it pauses even in sleep when yours hitches.

“He loves you a lot.” Bruce mumbles.

“...And you too Mr.Wayne.”

jason peter todd tag-list (check pinned post for info on how to be added .ᐟ ) :@justamarsbar, @peridotnature854, @nayy-a, @that-willowtree,

let me know what you think!

© shisuni all rights reserved

[owwllly]

gojo and his miiuse

[yesoryeseul]

“I asked Chat GPT—” well I asked Misaki Katsuo and they sent me like 15 voice messages on the subject

[shisuni]

ᯓ➤ matching for christmas ⊹܀˙

← ʙᴀᴄᴋ. ⋮ ⌞ jason todd ✘ reader ⌝ .ᐟ .ᐟ

ৎׅ ׄ synopsis ⋮ You get kidnapped and branded by the joker on christmas. The bat-family sees Jason unravel. word cnt. 14.6k

cw ›››› torture, branding, suicidal language, violence, blood, gore

Something is wrong.

Jason feels it like a pressure change—subtle, almost polite—but it crawls under his helmet and settles behind his eyes. It hasn’t clicked, not cleanly. Not yet. He hasn’t asked. Hasn’t said a word through the harbor sweep, through the cold iron stink of saltwater and oil and Christmas rot. A small job. The kind that should feel easy. The kind that still manages to choke the air out of his lungs anyway.

Everyone’s moving like the night might shatter if they stop.

Tim keeps choosing his words too carefully, syllables slowed and smoothed like he’s sanding down sharp edges. Dick’s doing that thing where he smiles first and speaks second—but the timing’s off, the warmth a fraction too late, like a recording lagging behind the video. Damian watches Jason more than the perimeter, eyes sharp, calculating, guarded. Stephanie hasn’t joked once. Not even a cheap jab to him, not even under her breath. That alone feels wrong enough to tilt the world sideways.

Bruce didn’t come.

That absence is loud. A hollow where a presence should be, echoing through comms and instinct alike. The Cave, he’d said. As if that explained anything. As if Bruce ever sits things out without a reason that claws.

Cassandra says nothing—but she’s closer. Close enough that Jason can feel her awareness like static along his spine. When the group splits, she falls into step beside him without discussion, without a glance. Just there. Solid. Protective in a way that feels less like trust and more like vigilance. As if she’s guarding him.

That’s when unease really sinks its teeth in.

Bruce didn’t need all of them.

Didn’t need six sets of boots scraping concrete, six heartbeats crowding the same dark. Dick alone could’ve dismantled this whole thing with half the effort. Hell, Jason himself could’ve wrapped it up fast and bloody and been home already. Instead, they’re stacked together, overlapping, slowing each other down like they’re afraid to let him out of their sight.

He agreed because no one argued about his presence. Because no one questioned whether he was needed. Because the silence around that decision felt intentional.

That should’ve been his first real warning.

Between two groups of thugs, he had ducked behind a row of shipping containers, Gotham’s lights bleeding gold across the black water. He had pulled out his phone and called you, already rehearsing the apology in his head. Late for presents. Again. You’d tease him, pretend to scold, maybe force him to wrap some gifts for your co-workers. 

You didn't answer.

Probably a bath, he told himself. You’d mentioned one. Candles. The fancy bath salts you bought. Something soft to push the cold out of your bones. The thought settles him, briefly. He sends a text instead—short, careful. An apology. An I love you so much that he doesn’t overthink, because with you, he never has to.

You always know what he means.

The phone stays quiet in his pocket.

No buzz. No vibration brushing against his thigh like it usually does, grounding him, tethering him back to something warm and real. He told himself it’s nothing. That you’re relaxed, distracted, asleep. That the night is just heavy, that Gotham is doing what Gotham always does—making ghosts out of shadows and dread out of coincidence.

Still.

When he looks back at the others, he notices the way Dick avoids his eyes now. The way Tim’s gaze flicks to Jason’s pocket and away again. The way Damian’s jaw tightens when Jason shifts his weight, like he’s bracing for impact. Cassandra meets his eyes once—just once—and there’s something there that twists low and sharp in his chest. Not fear. Not exactly.

Knowing. Jason doesn’t ask. He doesn’t press.

But the harbor feels too quiet, the night stretched thin and listening, and for the first time since he sent that text, a cold, irrational thought curls in his gut—

That whatever is wrong didn’t start here.

And that somewhere far from the water, far from the mission, something precious has already slipped out of reach.

“That was the last of them,” Jason says, voice rough through the helmet, as Tim finishes cinching zip-ties around the final goon and anchors him to a rust-flaked shipping container. The plastic bites down with a sharp click that echoes too loudly across the concrete. The man mumbled insanities through spit.

The harbor exhales around them—cold wind off the water, carrying brine and diesel and something rotten that’s been sitting too long. Sodium lights flicker overhead, casting everything in jaundiced gold and long, distorted shadows that stretch and tangle at their feet. The concrete is damp beneath Jason’s boots, slick with mist and old oil, the kind of surface that never really dries no matter how many ‘sunny’ days Gotham pretends to have.

“We should do another check around the harbor,” Dick says.

He’s already kneeling, already breaking the man's phone in half with practiced efficiency, grinding it into the concrete with his heel until the screen spider webs and dies. He doesn’t look up when he says it. Doesn’t grin. Doesn’t even sound casual about it.

Jason lifts an eyebrow, slow, deliberate. His gaze slides to Damian automatically—because Damian is usually the first to shoot an idea like that down, sharp and impatient and blunt as a blade.

Instead, Damian just mutters, “Tim could be wrong.”

Mumbles it. Like he’s afraid the words might carry.

That alone sends a small, unpleasant chill up Jason’s spine.

Tim doesn’t argue. Doesn’t bristle. He straightens from the goon and dusts his gloves together, eyes flicking—not to Jason—but to Stephanie. The movement is quick, practiced, like muscle memory.

“Do you want to take the gates with me?” Tim says, too smooth. Too rehearsed. “Jason and Dick could go along the—”

“What?” Jason cuts in before he can finish, blinking once. “You two were perched on the gates the entire op. What’re you talking about?”

The wind gusts harder, rattling loose chains and setting a tarp snapping somewhere down the dock. Water slaps against concrete pylons in a slow, hollow rhythm. 

Jason suddenly feels like the sound is counting something down.

“It wouldn’t hurt to double-check,” Tim says, rising to his feet.

He still won’t meet Jason’s eyes.

Jason’s jaw tightens. He shifts his weight, the concrete cold and unforgiving through the thinning soles of his boots, and for a split second his mind drifts—unbidden—to you. To the warmth of your kitchen lights. To the way you’d probably be halfway through setting out plates by now, humming something low and off-key, waiting for him in that way that makes him want to claw his soul out and hand it over to you. 

The thought lands soft, intimate, grounding—and then slips through his fingers when he remembers his phone, silent and heavy in his pocket.

“…You guys don’t need me for that,” Jason says, firmer now. There’s an edge to it, something protective and stubborn. He already has plans. A timeline. A promise he intends to keep. “Seriously. If you want to sweep again, even one person could—”

Dick finally looks up.

It’s just a glance, quick and loaded, the kind Jason’s learned to read over a lifetime of almosts and unsaids. Cassandra shifts closer at the same moment, her shoulder nearly brushing his, her presence steady and deliberate. Jason doesn't think she's ever willingly touched him in his life. Stephanie opens her mouth like she’s about to say something—anything—then closes it again.

The harbor feels tighter suddenly. Smaller. Like the stacks of containers have leaned in, hemming them closer, their corrugated sides looming like silent witnesses. The wind cuts sharper off the water, needling through the seams of Jason’s jacket, and somewhere deep in his chest, that pressure builds again.

Jason turns fully to Damian.

“Kid, I swear to God, tell me what—”

Damian snaps at the exact same moment Cassandra moves. Her hand closes around Jason’s shoulder, firm and sudden, fingers digging in through armor like she’s trying to anchor him to the concrete before he does something irreversible. The contact is intimate in a way that feels wrong, alarmed.

“How the hell should I know? They didn't tell me—” Damian bites back, voice sharp, flaring too fast, too hot.

“Damian!” Dick hisses, the sound cutting through the night like a blade dragged too quickly from its sheath. He’s already moving, stepping between them without quite committing to either side, hands up in a placating gesture that lands closer to panic than calm. He turns to Jason almost immediately, words tumbling over each other. “Come on, dude, let’s just go check the security towers and—”

“That’s going to take another hour,” Jason cuts in.

The words come out flat, but there’s steel underneath. He shrugs Cassandra’s hand off—not rough, but final—and reaches into his pocket. The harbor lights blur for a second as his fingers close around his phone, the familiar shape of something that connects him to you grounding him. It’s 10:20. He knows that without looking but checks anyway. He’s been counting the minutes since the mission dragged past its supposed end.

“I had plans,” he says, quieter now, but more dangerous for it. “Let me at least—”

The batarang whistles through the air.

Jason barely has time to register the movement—Damian’s arm snapping forward, wrist precise, expression tight and furious—before metal slams into his hand. The impact jars up his arm, sharp and biting, and the phone slips free, spinning once before it hits the concrete.

Crack.

The screen fractures instantly, a spiderweb of dead glass blooming beneath the sodium lights before the device skids to a stop near Jason’s boot. The harbor seems to hold its breath. Even the wind falters, the water’s slap against the pylons momentarily muted, as if the night itself is listening.

Jason stares down at it.

At the dark screen. On the way his reflection breaks apart in the shattered glass.

Jason’s gaze lifts slowly from the ruin at his feet.

It settles on Dick.

“Call Bruce.”

The words aren’t loud. They don’t need to be. They cut anyway—clean, controlled, edged with something that’s starting to slip. Dick falters under it, hand coming up to rub at the back of his neck, eyes flicking anywhere but Jason’s face. The harbor lights stutter overhead, one of them buzzing like it’s about to give out, bathing Dick in a sickly gold that makes him look younger. 

Guilty.

“What, you gonna tattle?” Dick says, trying for levity and missing it by miles. His laugh lands wrong, brittle against the cold. “C’mon, Damian's just in a mood. I was going to surprise you with burgers but I thought the kid would spill. I’ll buy you a new phone, okay? Just—”

“Call Bruce,” Jason repeats.

This time it’s a hiss, dragged out through clenched teeth, something feral and fraying around the edges. The wind picks up again, slicing between the containers, rattling loose metal and carrying the sharp tang of rain that never quite falls in Gotham. Jason turns his head, slow and deliberate, until his eyes find Cassandra.

She hasn’t moved. She’s watching him like she’s afraid he might break.

“…He’s busy,” Cass says.

Her voice is barely there. Smaller than usual. Soft enough that Tim, standing a good ten feet away, doesn’t hear it at all. The words dissolve into the night almost as soon as they leave her mouth, swallowed by wind and water and distance—but Jason hears them. Every syllable.

Busy.

Something inside him tightens, winding down to a thin, dangerous thread.

His hand comes up to his comm without conscious thought. He adjusts it once, fingers steady despite the way his pulse thuds too hard, too fast. The harbor seems to lean in again—the stacked containers looming like watchful giants, the river below churning black and endless. 

Gotham breathes around him, damp and unforgiving.

“B,” Jason says.

Sharp. Precise. A single syllable fired into the dark like a flare.

Static answers him. Wind whistling through steel corridors. The distant cry of something alive and miserable echoing off the water. No voice. No correction. No irritation crackling back through the line.

Just silence. It stretches. Pulls thin. Grows teeth.

Jason exhales through his nose, a humorless breath that fogs faintly in the cold air. He thinks of you again—too vividly now. The way your voice softens when you say his name. The way you always pick up, even when he thinks you shouldn’t. The way silence has never belonged between the two of you.

His jaw locks. Fuck this shit, I should be at home with her.

Jason moves before anyone can stop him—before anyone even realizes he’s decided something.

He’s across the concrete in three long strides, boots splashing through shallow puddles that mirror Gotham’s jaundiced lights in broken pieces. Damian doesn’t flinch when Jason grabs his comm. Doesn’t pull back. Doesn’t protest. That, more than anything, makes Jason’s teeth grind.

He clicks the emergency signal to the Batcomputer—once, twice, a break, two clicks hard enough that it hurts his thumb—then rips the comm free. His helmet follows, clattering against the concrete with a hollow, echoing crack that ricochets between the shipping containers. The sound feels too loud, too exposed. Jason presses the comm to his bare ear, cold metal biting into skin.

No one stops him.

Not Dick. Not Tim. Not Stephanie. Cassandra watches with that same quiet intensity, hands flexing like she’s bracing for impact. They stand there and let it happen, like this is how it was always meant to go—like they’ve already accepted that Jason finding out is inevitable, but telling him would be worse. Like this is some twisted test, or penance, or family tradition he never agreed to.

The harbor hums low and restless. Wind slides through steel corridors, rattling chains, carrying the stink of oil and brine and rain-soaked concrete. Gotham feels awake in that way it only does when something bad is already in motion.

“Robin?” Bruce’s voice cuts through the static, sharp and immediate. Too immediate. There’s an edge to it Jason hasn’t heard in years—tight, almost nervous, parental. “Robin, what’s wrong?”

Jason almost laughs.

Instead, his mouth twists.

“I’m going home, old man,” he hisses, already turning away from Damian. “What was this? Ya trying to tire me out, or did you get mind-controlled again? ‘Cause everyone here apparently likes you enough to not tell me the truth.”

“Jason—”

“Red Hood,” Jason snaps, the correction coming fast and mean. He bends, scoops his helmet up by the chin guard, and starts walking toward the exit between the containers where the harbor opens up to the road. “What happened to keeping hero names on comms? Or are you the only one allowed to break rules tonight?”

“Red Hood, just give me—”

“It’s a lousy gang!” Jason shouts, voice tearing loose now, bouncing off steel and concrete and dark water. “They don’t even crack the top twenty. Damian could’ve done this shit by himself.”

He doesn’t look back, but he knows they’re following him. He can feel it—the weight of their footsteps, the way they trail just close enough to intervene if he breaks. Later, it’ll hit him why Tim made sure every single goon was double zip-tied, wrists biting white beneath plastic. Insurance. 

Tim knew Jason would find out. 

Knew none of them would be coming back to clean this up.

“Red Hood—”

“Merry Christmas, B,” Jason cuts in, bitter and sharp as broken glass. “Please don’t call.”

“JASON—”

Bruce’s voice snaps through the comm like a gunshot, dragging Jason straight back into another life, another night, another version of himself that answered to that tone. “She’s in danger. And if you want any chance of seeing her again, get to the Batcave—”

The line goes dead.

Not static. Not interference.

Bruce cut it himself.

Jason stops, because there's only one person he could be talking about to send all five of them with him.

The harbor seems to lurch, the world tilting just enough to make his balance feel theoretical. The wind howls between the containers, louder now, like Gotham exhaling something foul and satisfied. Water slaps hard against concrete pylons below, relentless, counting seconds Jason no longer owns.

Slowly—too slowly—he turns.

He looks at them. At Dick’s pale face. At Tim’s clenched jaw. At Damian’s rigid stillness. At Stephanie, eyes bright with unshed panic. At Cassandra, whose gaze is already on him, steady and mournful, like she’s watching something crack.

They look at him like he’s glass.

Like he’s a bomb they’re waiting to defuse—or clean up after.

Jason doesn’t give them the chance.

“Fuck all of you,” he spits, the words coming out broken and small despite his best efforts.

Then he runs.

Out of the harbor. Out of the sodium lights and rust and the weight of too many eyes. Jason runs like Gotham itself is on his heels, boots striking concrete in a brutal rhythm that drowns out thought—or tries to. The city stretches around him in jagged silhouettes and wet stone, skyscrapers looming like blackened ribs against a low, churning sky. Clouds hang heavy and swollen, bruised purple and gray, threatening rain they never quite release. Gotham loves the anticipation of pain more than the act itself.

His blood is loud in his ears. Too loud. Every heartbeat punches through his ribs, frantic and unforgiving, as if his body already knows something his mind refuses to accept.

Toward the manor. Toward answers.

Toward the awful, creeping certainty settling into his bones that whatever Gotham has taken this time, it didn’t take lightly—and it didn’t take something he can afford to replace.

He takes the shorter way.

Fire escapes. Rooftops slick with mist. Narrow alleys that smell like old rain and older sins. He vaults gaps without slowing, coat snapping behind him like a torn banner, the city blurring into streaks of shadow and light. This route cuts close to your place. Too close. He doesn’t consciously choose it; his body does, muscle memory dragging him along a path his heart has memorized better than any map.

And then—

Mid-leap, suspended between one rooftop and the next, he sees it.

Your building sits quiet against the skyline, dark in a way it never is. Your lights are off. All of them. The windows—your windows—are shattered, glass glittering weakly under the city’s glow like fallen stars. The balcony rail is smeared with something darker than shadow.

Blood.

The word doesn’t form. Not fully. His brain skids around it, refuses to give it weight. At most, he tells himself, you’re hurt. Something small. A cut. A scrape. A stupid accident that looks worse than it is. You’ll laugh it off when he gets there, scold him for worrying, tell him he’s being dramatic again.

Because you’re untouchable.

That’s the rule his mind has always clung to. Gotham can drown him in filth and violence and rot, but you—you—are clean. Untarnished. Something soft the city hasn’t learned how to bruise yet. You exist outside its reach, outside its hunger. Gotham takes things like Jason. It breaks people like him. It doesn’t get to put its hands on you.

It can’t have you.

Because if you’re hurt—if you’re really hurt—then everything Jason has built inside himself caves in at once. Every fragile structure, every careful compromise, every promise he’s made to stay standing for you. There’s no version of the world where you’re broken and he survives it intact.

He lands hard, barely absorbing the impact before he’s running again, lungs burning, throat raw. The manor rises ahead of him through the trees like a dark monument, windows glowing warm and oblivious against the night. Too slow. The gates are too slow. The doors are too slow.

Jason doesn’t bother.

He barrels straight for a ground-floor window and drives his elbow through it without hesitation. Glass explodes inward, sharp and screaming, biting into skin. He doesn’t feel it—not really—until he’s inside, boots skidding onto the polished floor, breath tearing out of him in harsh, uneven pulls.

Blood runs freely down his forearm, drips onto the pale carpet in dark, blooming stains.

It looks wrong there. Violent. Out of place, just like the blood on your balcony.

Jason stares at it for half a second too long, chest heaving, and something in him splinters quietly—because now he knows. The city has already touched you and it has never, not once, let go without breaking something in return.

Jason doesn’t slow down in the Cave.

The platform is still lowering when he’s already moving, boots striking metal too hard, too fast, the sound ricocheting off stone and steel. The Batcave yawns around them—vast and echoing, all cold water and colder rock, computer screens throwing pale blue light across jagged walls. The waterfall roars like it’s trying to drown the night itself, a constant, punishing noise that usually steadies him.

Tonight it only sharpens the edges.

Bruce turns at the last possible second. His eyes flick first to Jason’s face, then to the blood smeared down his arm, dripping steadily onto the pristine metal floor. Bruce’s mouth tightens. Not in anger. In calculation. In fear he refuses to name.

Jason shoves him.

Hard.

Bruce’s back slams into the Batcomputer console, screens rattling, data stuttering for half a heartbeat. A lesser man would’ve been airborne. Bruce Wayne could have thrown Jason across the Cave without effort—could have ended this in a clean, controlled second.

He doesn’t.

Jason knows he won’t.

“Where is she,” Jason spits, the words tearing out of him raw and shaking. His hands fist in Bruce’s cape, knuckles white, trembling despite the strength coiled beneath them. The fabric bunches beneath his grip like it might rip if he pulls any harder. “Where is she?”

Bruce lifts his hands slowly, carefully—not in surrender, but in containment. Like approaching a live wire. His voice, when he speaks, is measured to the point of pain.

“…Jason.”

The name alone is an attempt. An anchor. Bruce is already running scenarios, already gauging angles and exits and how much damage Jason could do if this slips another inch. He knows Jason’s tells. Knows the way his breathing has gone uneven, the way his eyes are too bright, too fixed. Knows this isn’t rage yet.

This is terror.

“Don’t,” Bruce says quietly. Not commanding. Pleading, buried deep beneath control. “Just—listen to me.”

Jason laughs once, short and broken, the sound scraping his throat raw. “No. You don’t get to slow this down. You don’t get to prepare me.”

Bruce swallows. “…Joker—” he begins.

And the world fractures.

The word lands heavy and obscene between them, fouling the air of the cave like poison gas. Joker. The name crawls under Jason’s armor, past muscle and bone, straight into the place where you live inside him.

Suddenly, you’re not untouchable.

You’re not the one clean thing Gotham never got its hands on. Not the soft place Jason runs to when the city claws at him too hard. Not the warmth in his bed, the light in his kitchen, the voice that says his name like it belongs to something human.

You’re not safe.

You’re not distant.

You’re not protected by the simple, impossible belief that the worst things in the world know better than to touch you.

You’re real.

You’re fragile.

You’re reachable.

Jason’s grip tightens without him meaning to, breath hitching violently in his chest. His mind fills with images he refuses to finish forming—broken glass, blood on pale surfaces, your windows shattered open to the night the same way his chest feels split open now. He thinks of your hands. Your laugh. The way you look at him like he’s something worth keeping.

And now—

Now you’re the blood he’s already wearing.

The blood he’s going to feel soaking into his gloves tonight.

Bruce sees it happen. Sees the moment Jason slips past anger and into something far more dangerous. His own heart lurches, sharp and traitorous. This—this is what he’s been afraid of since the second he knew Joker was involved. Not Jason lashing out blindly.

Jason focused.

Emotional.

Unanchored.

“Jason,” Bruce says again, softer now, steady as bedrock despite the fear tightening his chest. “I need you to stay with me. I need you here. Because if you go out there like this—”

Jason’s eyes snap back to him, glassy and feral and devastatingly alive.

“If I don’t go,” Jason says hoarsely, “she dies.”

“If you go,” Bruce says, low and sharp, the words cutting through the roar of the Cave, “you die—and you could lose her at the same time.”

The Batcave hums around them, fluorescent light washing the rock walls in cold blue, computer screens flickering with restless data. The waterfall crashes endlessly behind Bruce, mist clinging to the air, dampening everything it touches. It feels like the Cave is breathing—slow, heavy, watchful.

Bruce moves closer and grips Jason’s jacket with both hands, fingers clutching the leather like it’s the last solid thing in the world. He holds on the way a man holds a ledge he’s already slipping from, hoping friction alone might be enough to keep someone from falling.

It isn’t.

“Where is she,” Jason says.

His voice is flat. Too controlled. His eyes have already left Bruce, already slid to the Batcomputer, to the glowing map littered with red and yellow pings like open wounds across Gotham’s body. Each marker pulses faintly, alive and accusing.

He doesn’t notice his siblings closing in—Dick’s careful steps, Tim’s rigid stillness, Damian hovering sharp and coiled like a drawn blade.

“She’s alive,” Bruce says quickly, desperately. “She wasn’t the only one—at least four other children and three women—”

Jason turns his head.

The look he gives Bruce is devastating in its emptiness. Eyes glassed over, jaw set too tight, brows drawn together like the world has narrowed to a single, unbearable point.

“Do you honestly think I give a damn about them right now?”

The words aren’t shouted. They don’t need to be. They land heavy, obscene in their honesty, and Bruce’s grip tightens reflexively, knuckles whitening against Jason’s jacket.

“I know you don’t,” Bruce snaps back, frustration bleeding through control. “Which is why I didn’t tell you she was taken. Because we need a plan that keeps everyone who was captured safe—”

“At the risk she dies in the process?” Jason cuts in.

Then—he stills.

Something shifts. His hands loosen, falling away from Bruce’s cape as if the fabric has suddenly burned him. His gaze slides, sharp and intentional, and locks onto Tim.

“How long,” Jason says.

The question is steady. Solid. Frighteningly calm.

Tim swallows and flicks a glance at Bruce—a silent check, a plea, a habit Jason has seen a thousand times. Jason shoves Bruce’s hand aside and crosses the distance in two strides, grabbing Tim by the shoulders, fingers digging in through armor.

“Don’t,” Jason hisses, thumbs pressing hard, grounding, painful. “Don’t look at him.”

The words aren’t just for Tim. They’re for Jason too.

He vaguely registers Dick saying his name, Stephanie’s voice tight with panic somewhere behind him, but it all dissolves into a dull ringing as he stares down at Tim. Tim doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t pull away. He meets Jason’s gaze head-on.

“How long,” Jason repeats. “Where.”

Tim exhales, slow and controlled, the way he does when delivering bad news. “Two hours,” he says quietly. “Warehouse two blocks from Crime Alley. Behind that busted playground.”

Crime Alley.

The name echoes through the Cave like a curse, sinking into Jason’s chest and blooming outward, cold and malignant. Of course it’s there. Of course Joker chose that place—layers of history piled atop rot, a shrine built from other people’s pain.

Jason releases Tim slowly, hands trembling now, control finally beginning to crack.

Two hours.

Two hours of you alone with the man who taught Gotham how to laugh while it kills.

The Batcomputer hums on, indifferent. Gotham’s skyline glows faintly on the monitors—jagged towers under a bruised sky, rain finally starting to smear the camera feeds, streaking the city in gray. Somewhere out there, windows are broken. Somewhere out there, that cashmere scarf he wrapped and placed under your tree stays un-wrapped.

Jason understands then—with a clarity so sharp it almost feels merciful—that plans are a luxury meant for people who still believe time is something they own.

Time has never belonged to him.

Because you—you—aren’t alone. You’re trapped with seven other people. Four of them children, Bruce had said, like that word didn’t rearrange Jason’s insides completely. His mind does something traitorous then, something he hates himself for even acknowledging: it calculates. It knows how these things go. It knows Joker’s sense of theater, his appetite for cruelty, his fondness for leaving one survivor behind as punctuation.

And the last one standing is never the strongest.

It’s the smallest. 

You would be dying before those kids.

Jason’s breath stutters, just once.

“Jason,” Bruce says from the Batcomputer, voice tight, forced into calm the way it always is when he’s terrified. The blue glow paints him hollow, all sharp angles and restraint. “Don’t make me stop you. The cops are on their way. Joker just wants cash.”

For the first time since the harbor, the noise in Jason’s head goes quiet.

Not peaceful—focused.

Everything narrows down to Bruce. To the way his shoulders are squared like a barricade. To the way his hands hover, uncertain, like he’s trying to decide whether to reach out or brace for impact. Jason’s heart hammers so hard it hurts, louder than the waterfall, louder than any threat Batman could ever make.

“If you even try, Bruce,” Jason says.

He doesn’t look at him when he says it. He can’t. The name comes out wrong in his mouth—too raw, too intimate, scraped down to bone. Instead, he keeps his eyes on Tim, standing rigid in front of him, small in a way Jason suddenly can’t stop seeing. He hopes—distantly, uselessly—that he isn’t glaring at his little brother. Hopes Tim understands this isn’t anger.

Just pure desperation. His last attempt, his last shot.

“Ill fucking shoot myself. I’ll make sure you know it’s your fault,” Jason continues, voice low and shaking despite his effort to keep it steady. “I’ll use my gun. And if you tie me up today, I’ll wait until next week. If you lock me down for a week, I’ll wait a month. I’ll do it.”

He swallows.

Because that’s the only thing that’s ever worked. The only language Bruce Wayne never ignores.

Dick moves fast—too fast—grabbing Jason’s arm where it’s still braced near Tim, fingers digging in hard. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” he shouts, panic cracking straight through his anger.

Jason turns on him then, eyes blazing, voice breaking loose at last.

“Would you be this still?” Jason yells back. “If that was me with Joker again? If it was me instead of her—would you have left me there for the police to find? Again?”

The word hangs between them, heavy and damning.

Again.

Jason knows Dick well enough to see it land. To watch his brother’s grip falter, fingers loosening like they’ve forgotten what they were holding onto in the first place. Dick’s face goes pale, mouth parting uselessly, and Jason twists the knife—not because he wants to hurt him, but because he needs them to understand.

“This,” Jason snaps. “This is why none of you fucking knew about her.”

He looks at all of them now—really looks. At Bruce, frozen behind the console like a man staring down a live bomb. At Dick, wrecked with guilt.

“If you can’t even see me beyond a mistake you made,” Jason says, voice hoarse, “there was no way you wouldn’t have seen her as that too. And I love her too much for that.”

The words leave him hollowed out.

Then he’s gone.

The Cave swallows the echo of his footsteps, leaving only the roar of the waterfall and the hum of machines that suddenly feel pointless. No one moves to stop him. No one even tries.

It takes Tim a full minute to cross the platform and reach the Batcomputer, fingers hovering uselessly over keys he knows by heart.

It takes Cassandra four times as long to find a part of Bruce that still moves—some small, human place in his arm or shoulder that isn’t locked rigid like a man bracing for an explosion he knows is already ticking down.

Dick follows Jason’s trail almost immediately. And Damian follows Dick.

You don’t remember the last five hours.

They’re gone—hollowed out—like someone reached into your head and scooped the time away with a careless hand. The last thing you have is small and warm and ordinary: the coffee table between the couch and the window, set for two. Plates aligned just so. The new glasses you bought with Jason on that stupidly perfect thrift-store date, thin and elegant and impractical. You’d laughed about them, about how easy they’d be to break. Jason had pretended to scold you, fingers warm around yours as he tugged you toward the bookshelves, already stacking paperbacks in his arms like treasure.

You’d bought homeware. A vintage mirror with a gold edge, slightly warped, the kind that makes everything look softer than it is.

Jason always said you needed better locks. You realize it numbly.

He always said it gently, like a suggestion instead of a warning. Like he was talking about replacing a lightbulb or buying better coffee. You brushed him off every time, smiling, pressing a kiss into his shoulder, telling him Gotham wasn’t that bad. That you were fine. That you were safe.

And you were right. You always are.

Because an extra lock wouldn’t have stopped the man with the red smile.

It wouldn’t have stopped hands tangling in your hair, fingers tight and merciless as he dragged you across your rug, skin burning where it scraped against the fibers. It wouldn’t have stopped the way your mirror shattered when he slammed you against it, glass singing as it broke, your own reflection splintering into a hundred terrified pieces that stared back at you with wide, unbelieving eyes.

It wouldn’t have stopped the way he looked at you.

He crouched in front of you like this was intimate. Like this was a secret. His smile stretched too far, paint cracked and smeared, eyes bright with something wrong and delighted and ancient. 

Joker tilted his head, studying you the way a child studies an insect pinned to cork.

“Here’s the other lovebird,” he murmured, voice lilting, almost fond. “Ohhh… how cute you are.”

You remember thinking—absurdly, desperately—that Jason would hate that word. That he’d bristle at it, roll his eyes, pull you closer just to prove a point. You remember the ache of missing him hitting harder than the pain at first, your mind reaching for him the way it always does when the world goes wrong.

Jason would know what to do.

Jason would make this stop.

The thought is a comfort even now, curled tight in your chest, fragile but stubborn. You cling to it as the man stands, as one of the shadows behind him passes up an old, rusted crowbar. The metal is pitted and dark, flaking with age and something older still. It smells like iron and damp and rot.

It doesn’t take a lock to stop that.

It doesn’t take a security system to stop the sound your bones make when he brings it down.

The pain comes in blinding flashes—white-hot, nauseating, wrong. Your legs scream before you do, nerves lighting up in protest, your body trying to fold in on itself, trying to protect something already broken. You taste blood, copper and thick, your teeth chattering even as your throat burns raw from crying out.

Through it all, you think of Jason.

Of his hands—gentle despite their strength. Of the way he says your name like it’s something precious, something he’s afraid to drop. You think of his laugh, low and surprised, the way he softens when it’s just the two of you and Gotham can’t see him. You think of the books still stacked on the table, waiting to be read, of the glasses that shattered just like the mirror did.

Of how he warned you.

Of how he would be here already if he knew.

The room feels wrong—tilted, smeared with shadow, the air thick and sour. Blood pools where it shouldn’t, dark against your floor, soaking into the rug you picked out together. The city hums outside your broken windows, indifferent and vast, neon bleeding into the night like nothing is wrong at all.

You breathe when you can. You hold onto Jason’s name like a prayer you’re afraid to say out loud.

Because if he comes—when he comes—you need to believe there will still be something left of you for him to find.

Your consciousness returns in fragments, drifting in and out the same way you remember nights with him. Not clean breaks. Not mercy. Just gaps.

A void of sleep.

Jason easing your window open like the city might hear him, hands raised in mock surrender, voice low and careful. I didn’t mean to wake you… shh… go back to bed. The mattress dips, familiar weight settling beside you, warmth bleeding into your back.

A void of sleep.

Jason in your bathroom, the light too bright, the mirror fogged. Gotham’s blood and grime rinsed down the drain while he rubs his hair dry with one of your soft, ridiculous pink towels. He smiles at you through the doorway, sheepish and fond, promises he’ll be there in a second. He always is.

A void of sleep.

Jason shifting beside you, breath warm against the delicate skin beneath your ear. His arm tightens in his sleep, possessive without knowing it, like even unconscious he’s afraid the world might take you if he lets go. He murmurs your name—broken, reverent.

A void of sleep.

White hands. Cracked paint. Fingers threading through your hair, slick and tangled with blood. The touch is intimate in the worst way, scalp burning as he hums—no, sings—a childish tune about robins, voice lilting and wrong, laughter bubbling beneath it like rot under sugar.

A void of sleep.

Concrete tearing at your skin as you’re dragged, knees bouncing, spine jolting with every crack in the ground. A van door yawns open, metal teeth waiting. A child sobs near your ear, small and hiccuping. A woman screams at the child to shut up—panic sharp and desperate—until a gunshot rings out like punctuation. The woman goes silent. The child doesn’t. The word mommy repeats, thin and broken, drilling into your skull.

A void of sleep.

You wake choking on pain.

Your body is bound to a chair, wrists cinched tight, ankles screaming. Barbed wire coils around you like something alive, biting deep with every involuntary twitch. The metal is rusted, flaking, cruel—tearing skin open in ragged kisses that burn and throb and never quite stop bleeding. Your legs are numb in places, screaming in others. You can feel blood soaking into fabric, sticky and cooling as it trails downward.

He’s in front of you.

Smiling.

Head cocked, eyes bright with interest, like you’re a puzzle he’s just started enjoying. He steps closer, crouches until he’s eye-level with you, hands clasped together as if in prayer.

“You do love your sleep, don’t you?” he says, voice almost gentle.

Your vision swims. The room smells like iron and oil and damp concrete. Somewhere nearby, something drips steadily—water, or blood, or both. The walls feel too close, the shadows stretching and curling like they’re listening.

“The other birdy,” he continues, grinning wider, “wouldn’t even sleep if I cracked his skull. Such a shame.” He sighs theatrically, tapping the barbed wire with one gloved finger, delighted by the way you flinch. “I suppose I’ll have to find a way to keep you awake.”

Through the haze, through the pain, one thought stays stubbornly intact.

Jason is coming.

And you cling to that like a lifeline, even as the horror closes in, even as the night tries to peel you apart—because if you let go of that belief, if you let the void take everything—There will be nothing left for him to save.

You can’t see farther than four feet in front of you.

Anything beyond that dissolves into smears of color and motion, the edges of the room bleeding into one another. When you try to focus, your vision tilts violently, the world pitching sideways as warm blood slips down from your temple, sticky and insistent. It drips into your eye, blurring everything further, each blink making it worse. The ceiling swims. The walls breathe.

He notices.

Of course he does.

He steps into what little clarity you have left, face snapping into focus like a nightmare finally deciding to be seen. His hand comes up fast, fingers prying your jaw open with impatient familiarity. Something chalky presses against your tongue.

You gag immediately.

Your throat spasms around his fingers, saliva thick and useless as panic claws up your chest. Your head jerks instinctively, barbed wire biting deeper in protest, fresh pain flaring white-hot along your wrists and ankles. He doesn’t pull away. He shoves the pill back, past your tongue, past your resistance, until your body betrays you and swallows.

You choke.

Tears spill from your eyes, hot and humiliating, streaking through the grime on your cheeks. Your lungs burn as you suck in air in sharp, broken pulls.

Jason, you think, distantly, desperately. The name is a reflex now. A prayer you don’t dare say out loud.

His hand withdraws at last.

Then—

Smack.

Your head snaps to the side, vision exploding into sparks. Before you can react—

Smack.

The second strike lands harder, ringing through your skull, teeth clacking together as pain blooms anew. The world steadies just enough to be cruel about it.

“That’ll keep you awake, birdy,” he croons, pleased.

Your heart slams against your ribs, frantic and trapped. Already you can feel it—the way the haze pulls back just a little too much, the way your thoughts sharpen against your will. Your eyelids burn, heavy but refusing to close, nerves screaming as the drug seeps in and denies you even the mercy of darkness.

“Now.”

He leans back into his own chair like this is a rehearsal, like he’s bored of waiting for his cue. The legs scrape loudly against the concrete, the sound sharp enough to hurt. He reaches forward and adjusts the camera in front of you with careful precision. A small red light blinks every few seconds—steady, patient. Watching.

“We’re going to make a deal, okay?”

You don’t answer.

Your eyes refuse to cooperate, swimming uselessly as you blink through blood and tears. Every attempt to focus sends a wave of nausea through you, the room tilting, your pulse roaring in your ears louder than his voice. Your jaw trembles. Your tongue feels thick, wrong in your mouth.

“Okay?”

Nothing comes out.

The barbed wire strung cruelly across your throat digs in deeper with every breath you take, a quiet reminder that sound would cost you skin. Air hisses past your teeth in shallow pulls. You can feel your heartbeat there, fluttering and frantic against metal.

His smile thins.

He stands.

The rusty crowbar tightens in his grip as he rises from a stupid, bright orange folding chair—out of place, obscene against the filth of the warehouse. He steps into frame, then closer, until the camera, until you, are all that exist. He hooks two fingers under your chin and lifts your face, forcing your eyes up.

“Answer.”

You try.

Your mouth opens. Nothing happens.

All you can see is him—cracked white makeup creasing around his eyes, green hair greasy and limp, age showing in the lines around his mouth where smiles have lived too long. He smells like oil and metal and something sour beneath it all. The warehouse stinks of rust, damp concrete, old fuel. It crawls into your lungs.

And then—

You hear it.

A sound that doesn’t belong to him.

Crying.

Your head turns slowly, painfully, vertebrae protesting as the wire shifts against your throat. The movement costs you another sharp breath. Your vision blurs again—but this time, shapes resolve.

A cluster of bodies huddled together against a dented equipment container. Two teenage girls with their knees pulled tight to their chests, faces streaked with dirt and tears. Four little boys wedged between them, shaking, hands bound too tight, mouths open in silent sobs like they’ve already learned screaming doesn’t help.

Something in your chest caves in.

You don’t even see the crowbar move.

The impact comes out of nowhere—white-hot, brutal. The hooked end of the bar slams into your shoulder with a wet, tearing sound, metal biting deep as it pierces flesh. Pain detonates through you, ripping the air from your lungs. He yells as he does it, manic and delighted, like the violence startled even him.

Your body jerks against the restraints.

Barbed wire bites deeper. Blood spills warm and fast down your arm, soaking into your sleeve, dripping to the floor in thick, uneven drops. Your vision fractures, stars bursting behind your eyes.

You clamp your teeth down hard on your lip to keep from screaming.

You taste iron immediately—sharp and overwhelming—as skin breaks beneath your bite. Tears spill freely now, blurring everything, mixing with the blood already clinging to your lashes. It burns. It hurts. Your whole body shakes with the effort of staying quiet.

Behind you, the crying gets worse—fractured, panicked.

“Okay,” you choke out.

The word scrapes your throat raw on the way out, barely more than a breath. It tastes like blood and rust and surrender.

Immediately, the pressure is gone.

The crowbar pulls free with a wet sound that makes your vision white out, pain screaming down your arm as the hooked metal tears away from muscle and skin. You shudder hard, a broken gasp ripping out of you despite your best effort to swallow it down.

He steps back like a magician deciding on the next trick.

Then he leans in again—careful, deliberate—and pats at the wound where the bar pierced you. Not gentle. Never gentle. His palm presses just enough to make you flinch, fingers smearing warm blood across your torn clothes.

“See?” he says brightly, turning slightly so the camera gets a better angle. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

Your breath comes shallow and fast, chest stuttering against the wire. Every inhale sends a fresh bloom of pain through your shoulder, the edges of it pulsing in time with your heart.

His hands come up next.

Dry. Cracked. Too warm.

He grabs your face, fingers digging into your cheeks, thumbs pressing at your jaw as he tilts your head from side to side. The movement drags the skin of your neck against the barbed wire, a searing, intimate pain that makes your eyes flood instantly.

“What a dumb dumb birdy you are,” he croons, affectionate in the way predators are. “It’s okay. Joker can teach you.”

Your body trembles uncontrollably now. Your fingers spasm uselessly against the wooden arms of the chair, nails scraping shallow grooves into the surface. You can feel blood slicking your palm and you don't even want to think about how you got hurt there too.

He releases your face.

Pats your head once.

The gesture is almost worse than the violence.

“Now,” he says softly, pleasantly, “say thank you.”

Your vision swims. The room feels too loud, too close. Somewhere behind you, one of the children sobs so hard it turns into hiccupping gasps. You swallow around the wire, throat burning.

You look up at him with shaking eyes, lashes heavy with tears and blood. Your mouth opens. Your lips quiver.

“Thank—” Your voice breaks completely. You force it back together, dragging the word out of yourself like it’s being pulled through glass. “Thank you.”

His smile spreads slow and satisfied, stretching the cracks in his makeup wider.

“Good birdy,” he coos, pleased. “So much more compliant than your love bird already!”

“Now—” Joker announces, voice lifting into a theatrical lilt, like he’s stepped beneath a spotlight instead of flickering warehouse fluorescents. He turns toward the camera, gives it a jaunty little nod, then looks back at you, grin splitting wider. “I was gonna let you go for some cash. Thought your little boy bird might get scared shitless—just a fun little bonus, really—buttt—”

He drifts away from you, footsteps light, almost playful. You can’t turn your head far enough to see what he’s doing. The wire bites when you try. Your vision pulses, dark at the edges.

Then—

A scream.

Sharp. High. A girl’s voice.

It cuts off halfway through, collapsing into a thin, broken cry that echoes far too long in the hollow space of the warehouse.

Something in you fractures.

Joker reappears at your side, breath brushing your ear, laughter bubbling out of him like it’s a private joke the two of you share. “Got lucky with a rich bitch on the road,” he cackles, delighted. “Gotham really does keep on givin’.”

Your stomach twists violently. You taste bile. The crying behind you swells again, panicked and animal, and you can feel your own body trying to fold in on itself despite the restraints, like if you curl inward hard enough you might disappear. 

His hands slide to your throat and at the same time your eyes land onto his hands. Diamond earrings.

He ripped her earrings out of her ears. 

Before you can flinch at the sight of pieces of skin in his open hand, he yanks.

The chain snaps free with a sharp tug, metal biting into your skin as the necklace tears away. You gasp, the wire at your neck punishing you for it, and the sudden cold where the chain used to rest feels obscene—too exposed. You feel lucky that you took off your earrings when you were doing your hair.

He dangles it in front of the camera, letting it glint under the harsh light, gemstones smeared faintly red from your blood. “This could go for a couple hundred too!” he sings. “Ohhh, how delightful!”

He leans closer, eyes alight, savoring every tremor that runs through you. “At least one of the birdies knows how to decorate their nest. Found a few rings at your place as well.”

Joker pockets the necklace with a satisfied hum.

“Well, now that I don’t need the money,” he croons, voice lilting, playful, like he’s deciding which joke to tell next, “what should I do with you?”

His fingers drag along your cheek again, slower this time, the pad of his thumb pressing just hard enough to bruise. His touch leaves heat behind, a crawling sensation that makes your stomach revolt. You feel contaminated where he’s touched you, like your skin is remembering something it shouldn’t.

“…I’ll give you more,” you whisper. Your voice fractures around the word, splintering into something pitiful and thin. “However much you want—just—”

“Oh, I don’t need money.”

The change is instant. His tone drops, sharp and venomous, and when he leans in his eyes are blown wide and empty, pupils swallowing the green like oil slicks. A hawk spotting movement. A blade finding flesh.

“I was looking for some fun, love bird,” he hisses. “You can’t give me that?”

You whimper around the grip on your jaw as his fingers tighten, nails biting into your skin. The wire at your throat digs deeper when you gasp, its teeth kissing something vital. Pain blooms hot and bright, stars bursting behind your eyes.

“Jason— Jason will—”

He doesn’t even flinch at the name.

Maybe that’s mercy.

His fingers move higher, rough and invasive, smearing through the makeup you’d put on hours ago with careful hands. The eyeshadow burns as it’s ground into your skin, sweat and blood turning it into a dark, ugly paste. His thumb drags through the faint blush on your cheeks, erasing it like it was a mistake.

“How pretty you are,” he murmurs, almost tender. “I do makeup on myself too, you know.”

Then his hands leave you entirely.

He grabs his own face, fingers digging into the cracked greasepaint, stretching the red grin wider, tearing at the corners until the white creases and flakes. For a second you think you see real skin underneath—white, lined, angry. Horrid.

“Do you like mine?” he asks brightly. “Do you think I’m pretty?”

Your mind blanks.

Your eyes flick helplessly to the camera instead—the blinking red light pulsing steadily, patiently. Recording. Waiting. You try to speak, to say yes or no or anything that might stop what’s coming, but your throat locks around the wire and all that comes out is a wet, useless sound.

Then—

“Very pretty!”

The voice is behind you.

Too young.

A teenage girl, no older than seventeen. Her voice trembles, thin and frantic, the words tumbling over each other. “So—so pretty—”

You feel something inside you tear open.

She’s trying to survive. You can feel that hope radiate off of her. The hope of throwing words into the dark and praying it lands somewhere safe.

Joker’s head snaps toward her.

His eyes narrow, sharp and wrong, smile freezing into something predatory. “You think so?”

There’s a frantic nod you can hear more than see—the quick intake of breath, the shuddering little sob that follows.

Joker bends down.

The crowbar scrapes loudly as he lifts it, metal screaming against concrete. You catch a glimpse of it as he moves past you—rusted, pitted, darkened in places where it’s already been used tonight.

Then he’s gone from your line of sight.

The scream that follows is immediate and unbearable.

It’s not just pain—it’s shock, terror, the sound of someone realizing too late that they were wrong. The metal wall amplifies it, throws it back at itself until it feels like the warehouse is screaming with her.

There’s a wet, sickening crack.

A sound like meat hitting concrete.

“Why don’t we match?” Joker coos from behind you, voice light and delighted. “I did one side, now the other!”

The crowbar hits again.

You hear bone give this time—feel it in your teeth, in your chest. Her scream fractures into something animal, then into choking sobs, then into a raw, bubbling sound that makes bile rush up your throat.

Your own crying breaks free, ugly and uncontrollable. Your body jerks against the restraints, fingers cramping, nails tearing uselessly into the wood of the chair. Hot tears spill down your face, mixing with blood, dripping off your chin in thick, dark drops.

The camera’s red light blinks again.

Once.

Twice.

It taunts you by matching every sound that breaks out of you.

Every gasped sob, every wet, hitching breath. The camera’s red light blinks in time with your chest, like it’s learned your rhythm, like it’s decided to breathe with you instead of for you.

And then the Joker comes back.

You smell him before you see him—iron-thick blood, old rust, sweat gone sour. His hands are slick, red to the wrist, fingers shining under the warehouse lights. The crowbar hangs loose in his grip, darker now, clotted, strands of hair caught cruelly in its curve.

He crouches in front of you, bringing himself eye-level, like he’s talking to a child.

“Well,” he hums thoughtfully. “I can’t give you her look, can I?”

Your vision swims. You can’t stop shaking. Tears slide down your face in hot, unstoppable streams, carving clean paths through blood and grime. Your mouth opens, but nothing coherent comes out—just a broken, animal sound that folds back in on itself.

His smile twitches.

“What should I do with you?” he asks softly. “Hm?”

You don’t answer. You can’t. You just cry harder, chest stuttering against the wire, throat raw and burning.

That seems to irritate him.

He clicks his tongue, disappointed, and lifts the crowbar. The cold metal taps against your cheek once—tap—just enough to make you flinch violently. He pauses, head tilting.

“Oh—”

His eyes light up.

“Oh yes, that’s wonderful! Oh—” He erupts into laughter, sudden and explosive, clutching his stomach as if the joke is too much to bear. Spit flies from his mouth, warm and disgusting as it lands in your hair, streaking through blood-matted strands. “Oh, isn’t my brain just splendid?”

He straightens, still laughing, wiping his eyes like he’s genuinely amused. “You bats are all poetry, I say—pure poetry!”

Then he turns.

Walks away.

His footsteps fade, echoing hollowly through the warehouse, until there’s only the hum of the lights, the distant crying behind you—and the camera.

You’re alone.

One last sob claws its way out of your throat, wet and choking. Blood follows it, dribbling down your chin, splashing darkly against your chest. You force your eyes open, drag them upward, lock them onto the camera.

You don’t know who’s watching. You don’t know if anyone is.

Your voice comes out steadier than it has any right to be.

“How—”

“Shut up!” someone whisper-yells behind you, frantic and terrified. “There’s other men!”

Your mouth snaps shut.

And the red light keeps blinking.

The metal door slams open with a shriek of abused hinges, the impact shuddering through the warehouse floor and straight up your spine. Dust rains down from the rafters in a thin, dirty veil, catching in your hair and sticking to the blood already drying there.

He’s laughing before you even see him.

Not distant laughter—close. Moving. Each step accompanied by a wet, dragging sound, like something heavy being pulled across concrete. His cackle ricochets off the shipping containers, off the steel beams, off the low ceiling that traps the sound and forces it back into your skull.

A little boy cries out behind you as Joker passes him. A sharp, panicked sound that fractures into a sob and then cuts off abruptly, like someone clamped a hand over his mouth.

The air grows hotter.

Through the warped reflection in the camera lens, you see it clearly now: a long metal bar burning red-hot, so bright it hurts to look at directly. Heat ripples distort the image around it, the glow painting the walls in feverish streaks of crimson. The smell hits you next—burning iron, scorched metal, something faintly organic beneath it that makes bile crawl up your throat.

Joker taps the brand against the concrete behind you.

It doesn’t clang.

It hisses.

The sound is sharp and alive, like meat on a skillet. Tiny sparks spit outward where it kisses the floor, leaving blackened scars in the cement. The red glow doesn’t dull. Doesn’t cool. It stays furious and bright, as if fed by something endless.

Whatever fragile hope you were clutching evaporates in that moment, leaving you hollowed out, lungs burning as you exhale something that feels like your last prayer.

He’s behind you in the next second.

Joker’s hand comes out of nowhere, clamping over your mouth, palm slick and hot. The copper taste floods you as his fingers press into your cheeks, nails digging in just enough to hurt—just enough to remind you that restraint is a choice he’s making. Your head is forced back, neck screaming as the wire saws deeper, the barbs biting into tender skin.

“Would you like to match your birdy?” he murmurs.

His voice is serene. Gentle. Almost affectionate.

He angles the brand around the arm of the chair so you can see it clearly. The letter is unmistakable now, its edges glowing white-hot, heat radiating off it in suffocating waves.

A ‘𝙹’.

Your body reacts before your mind can—your stomach convulses, gagging against his hand, breath stuttering uselessly through your nose. Your skin feels too tight, like it’s already shrinking away from what’s coming.

“We’re going to make the deal now,” he coos.

In the camera’s reflection, you can see his eye—wide, bright, utterly focused on the blinking red dot. Performing. Enjoying the audience if there even is one.

“You either get a matching look…” The brand drifts closer, close enough that the heat kisses your cheek, nerves screaming in anticipation, sweat instantly breaking out along your spine. “…or you tell me who you hate.”

His hand peels away from your mouth.

Air rushes in too fast. You choke on it, coughing hard enough that the wire grinds into your throat, pain blooming hot and blinding. Your voice comes out shredded. “Who… who I hate?”

“Who put you here?” he hums thoughtfully, as if the answer delights him. “It wasn’t me.”

The brand pauses, hovering inches from your skin. You can feel the heat burrowing inward, like it’s already memorizing you.

“Why do you think I found you?” he continues lightly. “Do you know how sloppy he is?”

Silence stretches, thick and oppressive.

You stare at the glowing red letter, your mind drifting somewhere distant and numb to survive. Absurdly, irrationally, you think of Jason’s helmet—the same violent red, the same defiant color. You wonder if he’s thinking of you right now. If he can feel this, somehow.

“Tell me who you hate.”

The words don’t just reach you—they enter you, heavy and cold, sinking past bone and settling somewhere deep and irreversible. They press the air flat, make the warehouse feel smaller, closer, like the walls are leaning in to listen.

He stands before you in all his wrongness, and up close there is nothing theatrical left. The Joker’s makeup has melted into something corpse-like, white cracked and flaking into the grooves of his face as though his skin is trying to shed it. The red smile is no longer a grin so much as a wound, smeared unevenly, darker where blood has mixed in, the corners dragged downward by age and use. His hair hangs limp, green dulled to the color of mold, clinging to his scalp in greasy strands. His eyes are too bright—glass-bright, feverish—never still, never soft, reflecting the warehouse lights like knives.

The space around you hums with misery. The concrete beneath your feet is slick with blood and oil, cold seeping up through the chair and into your bones. Shipping containers loom like coffins, their metal sides scarred and rusted, shadows pooled so thick between them it feels like something could step out at any moment. The air reeks—burnt iron, old sweat, copper, rot—and every breath feels like inhaling something alive and hostile.

You look at the camera.

That red eye blinks steadily, rhythmically, a heart that isn’t yours. It sees the way your chest shudders, the way your fingers twitch uselessly against the bindings, the way your body is already bracing for pain it knows is coming. Your thoughts drift, slow and exhausted, slipping through your hands like water you can’t quite hold.

You think of Jason.

Not the helmet. Not the blood. But his hands—warm, callused, careful when they touch you. The way he looks at you like the world might soften if you stay. The way he says your name like it’s something solid.

You could say his name now.

You could offer it up like a sacrifice and pray that this monster believes in deals, that you might walk out of here broken but breathing. You could lie and hope he lets you go.

Or you could say Jason’s name and watch Joker’s smile vanish as he switches off the camera and kills you quietly, preserving this horror to show your sweet boy later.

Or you could stay silent and take the brand—feel your skin burn, your body marked, watch the ecstasy bloom in Joker’s eyes as he claims you like an object he’s improved.

None of them feel survivable.

Something inside you twists—not courage, not bravery, but love sharpened into something desperate and ugly and defiant. You gather what spit you can in your blood-wet mouth and turn your head as far as the wire allows.

You spit in his face.

It lands wet and unmistakable, dragging a slow line through the cracked white paint, cutting through the red smile like an insult carved in flesh.

For a heartbeat, everything freezes.

The Joker goes utterly still, his expression emptying out in a way that is far more frightening than his laughter. Then his eyes widen, pupils dilating, fury flaring bright and feral—pleased.

You lean forward, neck screaming as the wire bites deeper, and you whisper because your voice will not survive being louder.

“You know,” you murmur, breath shaking despite everything you do to steady it, “he’s never mentioned you before.”

His breath stutters.

“You must not have left quite an impression.”

It’s a lie. A reckless, transparent lie.

You have lived in Gotham long enough to know exactly what he is—his name written in blood across the city’s history—but lies can still cut, and you see it land. You see the way his smile stretches wider, hungry and thrilled.

You’ve given him a reason.

A reason to prove himself.

A reason to keep you alive.

A reason to make you hurt longer.

His hand tangles in your hair and yanks your head back violently. Your neck slams into the barbed wire, spikes tearing in with a wet, intimate sound that makes you sob despite yourself. Warm blood spills down your throat, choking you, slicking your chest.

Then the brand descends.

The heat is indescribable—ancient, total, a pain so vast it consumes thought itself. Your flesh screams as it burns, the smell of seared skin rising thick and sweet, smoke curling upward as the letter is carved into you slowly, deliberately. Your body arches uselessly against the restraints, every nerve on fire, and the sound that leaves you is not a scream so much as something torn out of your soul.

You hate that he hears it. And when that drug denies you the void of sleep you so desperately need, you allow yourself to think numbly as the man pulls it away that at least Jason can't dwindle his appearance anymore.

Your tears stripe down your cheeks, burning as they touch your skin.

We match. You think numbly, Atleast we match.

He strokes over the brand with more delicacy than he has ever had in this whole nightmare, mumbling, “This is going to hurt you a lot more than it hurts me.”

When you wake again, it’s to the weight of tears landing on your face—warm, uneven drops that pull you out of the dark in slow, reluctant pieces. For a moment you don’t know where you are. The world rocks gently, like it can’t decide whether to keep moving or stop altogether. There’s the low hum of an engine beneath you, vibration traveling through bone and bruised muscle, and the smell of old leather surrounds you—worn, familiar, grounding in a way that makes your chest ache.

Leather is good.

Leather is not acid.

Leather does not burn your lungs on the way in.

“Hurts,” you mumble, the word barely surviving the journey out of your throat. You offer it up like an apology, like a peace offering, half-expecting pain to answer you back.

Instead, the crying breaks harder.

It comes undone above you, raw and ugly, and through the haze you realize you aren’t lying flat on concrete, waiting for the Joker to press a cinder block to your stomach. Your body is stretched across someone, your legs draped over another set of knees, your weight distributed carefully, reverently, like something fragile that might shatter if shifted wrong. 

An arm is braced beneath your neck, steady and strong, keeping your head from lolling, and your cheek presses into a leather jacket that smells unmistakably like gun oil, sweat, rain—

Jason.

The knowledge hits softer than it should, cushioned by exhaustion and shock, and when your eyes finally manage to open, everything swims. Light smears at the edges, colors bleeding into one another, but his face is there anyway, hovering close, carved with terror and relief and something so naked it almost scares you more than the warehouse did.

“Am I in heaven?” you mumble.

He lets out a sound that isn’t quite a sob and isn’t quite a laugh, choking on it as his chin trembles. “You don’t even believe in heaven.”

“Well,” you murmur, trying—and failing—to pull your mouth into something that resembles a smile, “what else could you be?”

Your jaw burns when you speak. Everything burns. It feels like your body has been filled with broken glass and lit from the inside, and you’re dimly aware of warm liquid slipping from your mouth, darkening the leather beneath your cheek every time you breathe wrong. You hate that you’re staining him. You hate that you can’t stop.

“I’ll kill him,” Jason whispers, like a prayer he’s been holding onto with both hands. His fingers shake as they brush your hair back, careful to avoid places he knows are hurt. “I’ll kill him. I promise.”

“Can I have hot chocolate first?” you mumble. The words feel distant, like they belong to someone else. “I bought that expensive kind… from Finland. Asshole knocked it all over my carpet…”

Jason’s breath fractures completely at that. He nods too hard, tears spilling freely now, dropping onto your cheeks, your neck, your collarbone. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll buy you hot chocolate. I’ll buy you all of it.”

Somewhere near your feet, another voice cuts in, low and strained with concern. “Hey, Jay—breathe—”

Jason doesn’t hear them. Or maybe he does and simply can’t afford to listen. His chest is rising too fast beneath you, breaths sawing in and out like he’s drowning on dry land, his eyes glassy and unfocused, the green in them shifting with every frantic blink.

Or maybe that’s just your vision still failing you. That would make sense. The powder. The smoke. The way light hurts now.

“Stop crying,” you murmur weakly. “I can’t die with you looking like that.”

That breaks him.

His face crumples completely, grief spilling over into something fierce and desperate as he bends closer, forehead almost touching yours. “Good,” he chokes. “Fuck you. I’ll cry even more, so–so stay with me, yeah?”

“No,” you whisper, your voice scraping raw against your throat. “Wanna sleep.”

“You slept an awful lot,” he snaps, but there’s no anger in it—only terror wearing sharp edges, only love clawing its way out however it can.

“Well,” you murmur, your voice thin but soft, like you’re afraid of startling him, “You show up in my dreams an awful lot.”

That does it.

Whatever fragile control Jason had left fractures clean through. He folds over you instinctively, shoulders caving as he tries—fails—to hide the sound of it. His breath comes apart against your hair, his forehead dipping close to your temple like if he presses himself near enough, he can keep you here by force alone. You feel the tremor of him through your whole body, every hitch of his chest echoing in your ribs.

You smell blood on him then. Copper and iron, sharp beneath the leather and sweat and rain. For a distant, numb second you think it’s yours again—until the scent is too heavy, too layered.

Oh.

Was this—

“Did I interrupt family bonding?” you whisper.

Your lips barely move. The words slip out half-asleep, half-dreaming, and they earn you a startled huff from somewhere behind you. Jason doesn’t answer. He can’t. His arms tighten instead, one hand splayed carefully at your back like he’s afraid even breathing too hard might hurt you more.

A voice comes from the seat behind, dry and unimpressed, because Jason is currently incapable of speech and whoever has your legs resting in their lap is rubbing slow, grounding circles into his back.

“If this is what you think family bonding is, you’ll fit right in.”

“Damian, be quiet,” another voice snaps.

“She’s the one shamelessly flirting with him in front of all of us, Tim” Damian continues anyway, undeterred. “And Father isn’t even saying anything, so—”

“Well she’s the one dying!” Tim blurts, voice cracking sharp with fear.

Jason chokes on the words that come from Tim’s mouth, breath stuttering hard, and a deeper voice cuts in from the front seat—controlled, measured, holding itself together by sheer will.

“She’s not going to die, Tim.”

“I want hoya bellas on my grave,” you interrupt softly.

Jason lets out a broken sound that might have been a laugh in another universe. He shakes his head over you, forehead brushing your hair, and through your blurry vision you think you catch a gloved hand popping up behind him in a solemn thumbs-up.

“Got it.”

Another voice joins in from the front, exasperated and strained. “Cassandra, she’s not being serious.”

“I’m sorry,” Jason whispers, over and over, like a mantra, like something he’s trying to carve into reality. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” His thumb strokes your hair away from your forehead again, impossibly gentle, avoiding the places he knows hurt, the places he doesn’t want to know at all.

“I’m gonna sleep now,” you murmur. It takes effort to shape the words. The dark is getting heavier again, tugging at you, warm and deep. “Can one of you give Jason water?”

“Hey—” Jason breathes, panic flaring sharp as his voice cracks. “Hey, no—no, no, no, stay with me, come on—”

But you’re already slipping.

Your eyes flutter closed despite him, despite the warmth of his arms, despite the way his heart is racing beneath your ear like it’s trying to outrun fate itself. His glove comes off hurriedly and you feel his bare fingers press to your pulse, grounding himself in the steady beat there, in the fact that it’s still happening.

After a few minutes, Dick leans forward and taps Jason’s shoulder gently, offering a water bottle. His uniform is torn and scorched like the rest of them, a thin cut bright against his cheek, but his voice is soft when he speaks.

“Drink.”

Jason doesn’t look up. He doesn’t let go. He just nods once, tight and shaky, eyes fixed on you like if he looks away for even a second, the world might take you again.

He forces himself to take a full gulp of water, the plastic bottle crinkling loudly in the too-quiet car, his throat working like it has to remember how swallowing goes. His hands are still shaking when he passes it off to Tim.

“Hey, I don’t need any—”

Jason looks at him.

Not sharp. Not angry. Just steady in a way that leaves no room for argument, the kind of look that says do this or I will fall apart next.

Tim takes a long swig immediately. Somewhere in the background, Damian lets out a low, satisfied cackle.

The digital clock on the Batmobile reads 4:00 a.m.

The numbers glow cold blue against the dark interior, reflected faintly in the windshield like a second set of eyes staring back at them. Gotham outside is hollow and half-dead at this hour—streetlights flickering, rain-slick asphalt stretching endlessly, buildings slumped together like they’re exhausted too.

Bruce’s voice is calm as he calls Alfred, clipped and precise, already listing supplies like this is something he can control if he names enough of it out loud.

Jason doesn’t listen.

He keeps his focus on you.

On the shallow rise and fall of your chest. The warmth is still clinging stubbornly to your skin. On the way your weight settles into him like it belongs there, like it always has. One hand stays firm at your neck, holding you upright because you need it—because you need him steady, and that knowledge anchors him harder than anything Bruce could ever say.

You need him here. You need him present. You need him not to break.

He knows that, because once—once—that was all he ever wanted too.

And that’s the cruel part of it.

Because the weight of you in his arms has only ever meant safety. Home. Sleep curling warm and heavy in his bones. His body doesn’t know the difference between holding you safe and finally being allowed to rest.

Jason Todd passes out with his forehead dipping gently toward yours, his grip loosening only by a fraction, like even unconscious he’s afraid to let you go.

The last thing he hears before everything goes dark is Tim’s voice, sharp with panic and disbelief.

“Dude—what the fuck—”

“Hold his head up—don’t let him fall on her!” Bruce barks from the front, voice cracking sharp through the Batmobile like a snapped cable.

All at once, everyone moves.

Damian fists the back of Jason’s T‑shirt, knuckles white as he yanks him upright with a strength born of panic he’d never admit to. Dick stretches impossibly from the passenger seat, arm braced awkwardly as he cups the back of Jason’s head, careful, reverent, like he’s afraid one wrong angle will shatter him. Tim presses a steadying hand to Jason’s chest, feeling the uneven rise and fall beneath his palm, grounding him the way he’s learned to do with bombs and brothers alike.

Jason is dead weight. Heavy. Still clinging to you even in unconsciousness, his arm slack but stubborn around your shoulders, like muscle memory alone refuses to let you go.

The Batmobile hums on, tires slicing through wet streets, Gotham blurring past in streaks of sodium light and rain-slick concrete. The city feels distant now, muffled, like it’s holding its breath with them.

“…Did someone check if the Joker was—uh—breathing?” Stephanie asks from the back, her voice small in a way it rarely ever is.

She hadn’t stayed for the end. Her job had been triage—getting the kids out, shouting orders, dragging civilians through blood and broken glass while the rest of them stayed behind in the warehouse with the laughter and the screaming. She’d smelled the aftermath on them when they regrouped. She didn’t need details then but...

Bruce doesn’t look back. His hands tighten on the wheel.

“Jason didn’t hit any vital points,” he says quietly, like he’s reciting a report he’s already memorized. “Just… ah—”

“Carved his face like a jack‑o’‑lantern,” Damian supplies, entirely too calm. “Heated up a crowbar to do it too. Very effective.”

There’s a beat of silence.

The city lights flash over Bruce’s face—old stone and deep eyes that are hollowed by relief he doesn’t let himself feel yet.

“…Yeah,” Bruce exhales, short and rough. “That.”

The Batmobile keeps moving.

Jason breathes.

You breathe.

And for now, that’s enough to keep the night from swallowing them whole.

You wake up in bed.

Not the thin, borrowed kind your body has learned to tolerate at your apartment, but something deep and indulgent—clean sheets tucked tight, the mattress yielding just enough to cradle you instead of swallowing you whole. The pillow beneath your cheek feels stupidly expensive, cool and smooth, smelling faintly of detergent and something old and comforting, like cedar and money and quiet hallways that echo.

For a moment, you think you’re dreaming again.

Then you feel him.

Jason is asleep beside you, solid and unmistakable. You don’t need to move—you can’t really anyways—to know it’s him. The arm wrapped around your waist is heavy with familiar strength, protective even in unconsciousness. His hair brushes against your arm every time he breathes, soft, tickling your skin in a way that makes your chest ache.

He’s breathing.

That fact alone nearly undoes you.

God. You really need to raise your standards, you think hazily. You’re reduced to this—listening to him breathe, feeling the slow rise and fall of his chest, and already you want to curl into him and coo like nothing in the world has ever gone wrong.

Then you see Bruce.

He’s standing near the bed, still as a statue, watching you with the careful intensity of someone afraid to spook a wild animal. It takes effort to focus on his face, your vision dragging itself into clarity inch by inch.

When you try to lift your head—manners resurfacing before sense—your body protests sharply.

Bruce moves instantly.

“Hey, hey—no,” he murmurs, hands gentle but firm as he presses you back into the mattress. “Relax. It’s okay. You’re safe.”

Your head sinks back into the pillow, and the moment stretches. You swallow thickly before managing a small, hoarse sound of politeness.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Wayne. Jason—”

“Hasn’t told you much about me,” Bruce finishes for you, a faint, tired chuckle slipping out. “That’s alright. I just need you to sleep right now.”

You glance downward as best you can, feeling something sharp dig into your side.

“…I can’t sleep if your son’s elbow is in my ribs.”

Bruce blinks.

Actually blinks—surprised enough that it breaks through the carefully assembled calm. “Ah—” he starts, then reaches for Jason, trying to rearrange him with the same precision he uses on everything else.

It doesn’t work.

Jason huffs in his sleep, a low, irritated sound, and somehow manages to make it worse—his arm tightening, his leg hooking over yours possessively, like you’re something he’s afraid the world might steal back if he lets go.

Bruce freezes.

You mumble, exhausted but soft, “It’s alright. I’m sure he hasn’t slept… I’ve gotten quite a lot, so…”

Bruce looks like he wants to argue. His jaw tightens, then loosens, the fight draining out of him. He exhales and sits back in the chair by the bed, elbows on his knees, hands clasped tightly together.

“It’s the 26th,” he says quietly.

Oh.

You missed Christmas.

What a shame.

After a moment, Bruce speaks again, and his voice is heavier now—careful, deliberate, like every word costs him something.

“I… want to apologize to you.” His fingers interlace, knuckles whitening. “I knew you’d been taken. And I didn’t tell him. Possibly… he could have been there sooner. But I needed to make sure the others would be saved as well.”

“Well,” you murmur, the word barely more than breath, “I don’t exactly blame you for that.”

It isn’t forgiveness exactly—nothing so grand—but it’s honest, and it lands heavier than anger ever could.

Bruce doesn’t relax. If anything, his shoulders pull tighter, like he’s bracing for a blow that never quite comes. He’s spent his whole life learning how to de‑escalate men with guns, gods with vendettas, cities with teeth—but you unsettle him in a quieter, more dangerous way. You’re calm. You’re lucid. You’re something Jason had threatened to shoot himself for.

He clears his throat, trying to give you something solid, something measurable. Facts are safer.

“Jason… got him,” Bruce says carefully. “Badly. I think—” He hesitates, eyes flicking once toward Jason like he’s checking for movement. “I think the Joker may be blind now. Or at least permanently impaired.”

“You let him?” you ask.

Still no accusation. Just a soft, stunned curiosity, as if you’re piecing together a story you were never meant to survive.

Bruce nods. Once. The motion costs him. “I did,” he admits. “But I—”

“Then that’s enough,” you whisper, interrupting him gently, like you’re afraid the words themselves might hurt. “Jason will realize that too.” Your lashes flutter; exhaustion tugs at you like a tide. “I mean… he probably won’t. He’ll still try to kill him.” A faint, crooked exhale. “But you did everything you could yesterday.”

Your gaze drifts—not to Bruce, but to Jason. To the way his arm is still locked around you, even in sleep. To the stubborn set of his jaw, the crease between his brows that never fully smooths out anymore.

“Thank you,” you add quietly. “For finding me.”

That’s when Bruce goes still.

Not rigid. Not defensive.

Still.

Because he’s been looking at you, yes—but now you realize he hasn't been looking you in the eye while he speaks. His eyes have been caught in one place, drawn there again and again like a bruise you can’t help but press.

Your cheek.

The skin there is angry beneath the bandage’s edge—raw, faintly swollen, discolored in a way he winced at while he bandaged it. Bruce didn't let anyone else tend to it, not even Alfred. 

Because this was a wound he inflicted, one that he needed to tend to.

“It’s still fresh,” he says, softer now, stripped of the Bat and the rules and the fear. Just a man speaking carefully around something fragile. “I’ll get you better medicine. The pigment should fade.” A pause. His voice lowers. “I can’t promise about the texture.”

You don’t look away. You don’t flinch.

“That’s okay,” you say.

And Bruce doesn’t know if you mean the scar, or the pain, or the fact that you’ll carry this forever—but Jason shifts in his sleep then, brow tightening, arm drawing you closer like he sensed the weight of the moment and refused to let it settle on you alone.

Bruce watches that. Watches how Jason anchors himself to you without waking, how his breathing steadies when yours does, how it pauses even in sleep when yours hitches.

“He loves you a lot.” Bruce mumbles.

“...And you too Mr.Wayne.”

jason peter todd tag-list (check pinned post for info on how to be added .ᐟ ) :@justamarsbar, @peridotnature854, @nayy-a, @that-willowtree,

let me know what you think!

© shisuni all rights reserved

[torupng]

⭑ 𓂃 SFW | jason todd’s super sexy dad bod.

#drabble.ᐟ ⸝⸝ dadbod!jason ⸝⸝ fluff ⸝⸝ body praise ⸝⸝ sfw .

✦ masterlist　╱　dc masterlist　𓏼 ͜͜

The couch dips under Jason's weight, and he's already reaching for you before he's even fully settled. It's unconscious and routine at this point—the way his arm finds the back of the couch behind your shoulders, the way his thick, muscular thigh presses against yours like he's making sure you're still there.

You are. You've been here for an hour, pretending to read, mostly just watching him doze. As if you’d miss out on a chance to dote on him when he’s like this.

His head tips back against the cushion. Eyes closed. Mouth slightly open. The line of his jaw is soft like this, unguarded in a way he'd hate if he caught you looking. His henley has ridden up just enough to expose a strip of skin above his waistline. Not muscle there—well, not all of its muscle at least. There’s something softer. Something that shifts when he breathes.

You close your book. You’ve been on the same line for maybe ten or fifteen minutes now and you don’t even remember to put a bookmark in. Too entranced by how hot your boyfriend looks all comfortable like this.

"Jay."

Nothing.

You poke his side. His eyes crack open, bleary and suspicious as he groggily eyes you.

"Mm… what."

"You're comfortable," you say.

"That's not a crime."

"No." You turn onto your side, facing him fully. Your hand lands on his stomach before you think about it. Palm flat and fingers spread. The fabric is warm from his body heat, and underneath it, there's the sexiest pudge you’ve ever seen on a man. A soft layer that yields to your touch before meeting the solid wall of what he used to be beneath.

Jason looks down at your hand. Then up at you. "You're doing that thing again."

"What thing."

"The thing where you look at me like I'm a stray dog you found in an alley."

"A very handsome stray dog."

He snorts. It's not an attractive sound. You love it.

"You're ridiculous," he grumbles, but he doesn't move your hand. Doesn't even pull away. If anything, his stomach rises a little more against your palm as he takes in a a deeper breath, deliberate or not. It’s a soft sigh. One that tells you what his words won’t. He loves being here.

"You have a belly," you tell him.

Jason blinks. "I have—okay. Sure. Thank you for that." He rolls his eyes, throwing a beefy arm over his eyes.

"It's not an insult." You trace a slow circle around his navel through the shirt before reaching out to pull his arm off his eyes. It’s heavy. Big. Just like everything else about him. His abdominal muscles twitch underneath, instinctive, but the softness stays. That's what gets you. The way he's still undeniably him—broad, strong, capable of breaking things without so much as trying—but there's this now. This evidence of rest. Of takeout eaten on weeknights. Of sleeping through alarms. Of a normal life where he’s not running himself into the damn ground every single hour of every single day.

"I like it," you say with that cheeky smile of yours.

"You like—" He stops. Rubs a hand over his face. "It's just weight. I've been eating like garbage and I haven't been running as much. It's not—that's not a thing you like. It's just a thing that is."

You lean in and kiss the corner of his mouth. He freezes. You kiss his cheek, the hinge of his jaw, the spot just below his ear that makes him shiver every time. Every damn time. A weak spot, if you will.

"Liking it," you murmur against his skin.

Jason exhales. Slow. A little shaky at the end because—sure, he’s used to this—but it still gets him hot. His hand comes up to rest on the back of your neck, not pushing you away, not pulling you closer. He just holds you there, fingers gently brushing the nape. Like he's trying to steady himself.

"You're weird," he says quietly.

"You've mentioned."

"Yeah, well." His thumb continues to brush the baby hairs at your nape. "It bears repeating."

You pull back just enough to look at him. His face is flushed—not from embarrassment, exactly. Something closer to disbelief. Like he's waiting for you to reveal the punchline.

You don't have one. He should know this already.

You push his henley up, just a few inches. His stomach tenses on instinct, but you shush him like you're calming a spooked animal, and he lets you, because fuck it, right? He secretly loves the attention anyway. The skin underneath is pale, a roadmap of old scars, and softer than anywhere else on him. You press your lips to the spot just above his waistband.

Jason makes a sound. Not a word. Just a breath punched out of him. A little bit of a groan maybe. Why must you torture him so?

"You're so warm," you say.

"That's—" He clears his throat because if he doesn’t, his voice will definitely crack in a way he would rather it not. "That's generally how bodies work."

"Yours is special."

"It's really not."

You kiss his stomach again. Then again, an inch to the left. Then right where the softest part gives way to muscle underneath. Jason’s not fat—never has been, never really could be with the way he moves, the way he fights, the way his body remembers things yours doesn't. Like years of brutal training and patrol and other shit he had to do, being Red Hood and all. But there's padding now. A layer of proof that he gets to sit down. That he stays. That he isn't running himself ragged every single night.

Jason's hand tightens on your neck. Just a little bit. He’s careful not to crush it—and he definitely could.

"You're gonna give me a complex," he sighs, peeking at you from the corner of his eyes.

"Good. It'll match the others."

That earns a laugh. It's rough, startled out of him, and his stomach jumps under your lips. You smile against his skin and chuckle.

"I'm serious," you say, propping your chin on his belly so you can look up at him. You’re lying in between his legs and even though the position’s pretty compromising when you’re pressed up against him like that. His eyes are soft. His mouth is doing something unreadable, somewhere between a smirk and something a little more fragile. "I love this. I love you. Every part."

Jason stares at you for a long moment. Then he hauls you up by your armpits like you weigh nothing—because to him, you basically do—and places you against his side, sandwiched between him and the back of the couch, with his arm around your shoulders.

"You're annoying," he says, lips pressing against the top of your head. He breathes in your shampoo like he’s trying to commit it to memory. Old habits from when he wasn’t sure if he’d be coming home. But he’s got you forever now.

"You love it anyway." You give his side a squeeze and he groans, grabbing your hand, then your wrist and forces your arm around his waist instead.

"I guess," he agrees quietly.

His hand then drops yours and finds your hip. His thumb rubs back and forth over the bone. His stomach rises and falls against your ribs, soft and warm and alive, and you press your face into his shoulder so he doesn't see you smile too wide.

He knows. He pretends not to notice anyway.

You stay there until the light shifts and the room goes dark, and neither of you moves to turn on a lamp. Too lazy. Too comfortable. And probably asleep by now.

© nagumolvr , you do not have permission to translate, steal, repost, or feed my work to ai.

[fairycosmos]

imagine hating me and it’s just me in my room evil and mean and deserving of your loath

[mitchythedrawer]

Bad puppy

[poupon]

Wow thanks for the ingot man let me just inspect the quality real quick

Dude come on

[halondrus]

[gracerecs]

jason todd fic recs

✧.* fluff ⋆ | ˚꩜｡ series | ⚠︎ angst | ✪ g's star reads | 18+ below the cut

@njghtiee

✧.* do you wanna make out? jason is busy minding his own businesses, you're not even sure what he's doing, but whatever that is, it's taking a lot of time and you're bored. so you decide to simply ask him "wanna make out?" and you can bet your ass he wants to. ⚠︎ you die laughing joker kidnaps you, jason's girlfriend, and take his revenge on jason and the bats. he wants to see jason suffer and after all he's gone through, his only weak spot now is you. ✧.* you're freezing jason running hot with a partner who runs cold, both of you seeking each other out before you even started dating. needing each other more than the other realizes. can't go more than a day without each others touch

@oncasette

⚠︎ Meet You There the one where you call jason during a panic attack.

@cipheress-to-k-pop

✧.* daddy j.t. Despite the title i swear this is an innocent fic

@bloomcissa

✧.* Meet...crash? In which you hit a vigilante with your car

@er-osion

⚠︎ Fights Like These Reader and Jason get into a fight which causes Jason to storm out, in the separation, both you and Jason begin to fear the worst

@frogsnknightlilies

✧.* making an ass of u & me Jason didn’t mean to keep your existence secret from his family—really! At first, it was for his and your own protection more than anything, his double life wasn’t just for any average person after all. But, even after the whole marriage and settling down thing, he may have just—honest to god—forgot to mention it?

@kthologue

✧.* the bet ✪ it’s harder to keep your relationship with jason a secret from the world's greatest detectives than you thought. (3 times each wayne family member tries to prove that you and jason are together and 1 time they actually do.)

@iydiamartinx

✧.* RIDDLE ME THIS, HOODS GOT A GIRL? ✪ The Bats need information, Jason has an informant...who might also be more.

@fluentmoviequoter

⚠︎ That's All It Took? ✪ Gotham's newest it girl makes the mistake of going after something that's yours: Jason Todd. It takes two failed plans to learn what it takes to deal with her and your jealousy.

@amoebadue

✧.* Wear whatever you want, I can fight “You’re uh,” you clear your throat, “You’re okay with me wearing this?”

@cosmicfireheart

˚꩜｡ Do you love me? ✪ you just discovered you got pregnant from your ‘casual’ sort of boyfriend. Jason just knows you’re hiding something from him, can’t blame the poor guy for thinking the worst.

@annaevermore

✧.* I'm so lovesick After complaining about the lack of founding, Gotham's library gets a donation.

@ifyouweremine

✧.* I Prefer You Your wedding is coming up. Dick goes to great lengths for Jason’s bachelor party, but he… simply doesn’t want to stay.

@amoreselli

🔞 PROVE IT when a rant about her disappointing date turned into a challenge, jason realized just how thin the line between best friends and something far messier really was. she asked him to prove it—and jason never did anything halfway.

@rskdoll

🔞 blow her mind Jason wants to push his girlfriend to achieve a specific thing he’s seen in porn videos.

@sweetpogue

🔞 STILL OBSESSED Motherhood looked good on you.

banners by @saradika-graphics

[njghtiee]

you die laughing

plot! joker kidnaps you, jason's girlfriend, and take his revenge on jason and the bats. he wants to see jason suffer and after all he's gone through, his only weak spot now is you. 7,2k words

warnings: contains violence, torture, kidnapping, mention of blood and injuries. real angst with happy ending. hurt/comfort. don't read if uncomfortable!

a/n: thanks for the request sweetie i love angst and my poor boy's been through so much. hope y'all enjoy!

part two

The Joker had been watching Jason Todd for weeks.

Not in the obvious way, no flashing teeth in the alleys, no maniacal laughter echoing across rooftops. No, Joker was smarter than that when it came to the Bats.

He knew how to get under the skin of the family. And Jason Todd, oh, Jason… the boy with too much fire in him, the one who came back from death with scars so deep they bled through every word he spoke.

Joker didn’t need to kill him again.

No, no, no. He needed to make him remember.

And when Joker learned about you, Jason’s girlfriend, the one he hadn’t exactly paraded around but hadn’t exactly hidden either, it was like a gift wrapped in bloodstained ribbon. You weren’t famous, not a cape, not a cop, not someone with the city at your back. Just someone Jason had let too close. Joker knew the type: quiet, grounded, the kind of person who looked at Jason and didn’t see Robin or a mistake, but a man worth loving.

The perfect target.

It started on an ordinary night. You left Jason’s apartment after a rare evening in: Chinese takeout containers stacked on the coffee table, his jacket tossed over the arm of the couch. He’d kissed you hard at the door, that mix of reckless affection and unspoken apology for every bruise he carried.

You didn’t see the white van until it was too late.

The alley shortcut, the one Jason always told you not to take, had been baited.

A flicker of movement—then the strike.

A rag reeking of chemicals pressed over your mouth. Struggling, scratching, the burn of chloroform in your lungs.

The last thing you saw before the dark took you was a painted smile glowing in the shadows.

When you woke, it wasn’t in a cell. It was worse.

An abandoned amusement park, long condemned, half-eaten by rust. The Joker’s stage. You were tied to a chair bolted to the cracked concrete floor of an old funhouse. The air smelled of mold, iron, and greasepaint. The lights flickered, casting warped reflections in shattered mirrors.

And then you heard him.

“Rise and shine, sweetheart!” Joker’s voice sang from the darkness. He clapped his hands, the sound echoing sharp and hollow. “Oh, don’t look so gloomy. You’re the guest of honor! Well—second guest. The real star of the show will be along soon enough.”

You tried to speak, but the gag cut into your mouth. Blood tickled your tongue where it rubbed raw against your teeth.

Joker leaned in close, his breath sour with chemicals. His painted smile stretched unnaturally wide.

“Now, now. Don’t waste your strength. You’ll need it when your lover boy arrives. See, I thought about just sending him a card, maybe a gift basket. But our Jason doesn’t deserve a Hallmark moment. No, no. He deserves a memory. One that sticks. One that hurts. And trust me, this is going to hurt"

And it began with the crowbar. Of course it did.

“Tradition, tradition, tradition!” Joker sang, spinning the rusted metal like a baton. He tapped it against your legs, your ribs, the chair.

“Did you know your darling Jaybird and I had a dance once? Ohhh, it was beautiful. I hit him, he screamed, I laughed, he bled. Like music. And when I was done—well, let’s just say he had a little nap. Six feet under, HAHAHAHHA!”

The first strike cracked against your ribs, knocking the air from your chest. You bit down against the scream, but the gag muffled it anyway. Another strike followed, then another. Pain flared white-hot, flooding every nerve.

Joker crouched in front of you, tilting his head like a curious child.

“Hmm. Strong one, aren’t you? I see what he likes. Oh, Jason always did have a thing for the stubborn ones. But stubborn breaks. Everything breaks.”

He pulled the gag loose just long enough to force words into your ears.

“Tell me, do you think he’ll come for you? Or do you think he’ll hesitate? Mmmm, I bet he’s terrified, isn’t he? You remind him of everything he couldn’t save. His mommy, his daddy, his little self. And when he sees you broken—oh, he’ll hate himself more than he hates me. And that is the joke.”

Then he went to work again, slashes of a knife across your arms, shallow enough to sting, to bleed, to paint. He laughed with each line, each drop. He wanted you alive. He wanted Jason to see.

Jason knew the second something was wrong. You hadn’t answered your phone. Not once, not twice, not after three calls. He told himself you were asleep, that you’d forgotten to text. But the itch at the back of his skull wouldn’t let him rest.

By the time he checked the alley near your route home and found your dropped keys, his heart was already in his throat.

“Bruce—he’s got her. It’s him.” His voice was gravel over the comm.

“Jason—”

“Don’t say it. I know it’s Joker. I’m not waiting.”

And he didn’t. Not for orders, not for backup.

Back in the funhouse, Joker leaned against the wall, crowbar still dripping faintly.

“You know what I love about Jason?” he purred. “He’s predictable. Punch first, brood later. Oh, he’ll storm in here, guns blazing, eyes blazing. But when he sees this—” he gestured to your bloodied body, “—ohhh, it’ll be just like old times. I’ll watch his face crack. That’s the real masterpiece. Death is boring. Suffering? That’s art.”

He crouched, forcing your chin up with the crowbar’s tip. His green eyes glittered, mad and bright.

“Don’t worry, darling. You’re not going to die. Not yet. You’re just the punchline.”

Joker was a conductor, and you were his broken instrument. He paced around you, humming a carnival tune off-key, twirling a crowbar sticky with dried blood and your fresh one.

The torture didn't stop.

Joker cackled, planting the crowbar against your shoulder with mock tenderness before yanking it away and cracking it against your shin. Pain ricocheted through your body; your scream ripped raw from your throat. Joker laughed, doubling over like it was the best joke he’d ever heard.

“He cares. Isn’t that hilarious? A Bat who actually lets people in. The others brood and sulk, but Jason? Oh, he opens his door, he lets someone close, he loves. That’s his big mistake! See, love makes you weak. And weakness—” he dragged the crowbar slowly up your arm, leaving a smear of red, “—is my favorite color.”

He shoved a camera in your face, a cheap handheld camcorder duct-taped together, blinking red. He crouched, grinning too wide, and spoke directly to the lens.

“Smile, sweetheart Say cheese! This is going straight to your boyfriend. Let’s see if he laughs as hard as I do.”

Jason hadn’t slept. His helmet sat discarded on the Batcomputer console, his hair sticking damp to his forehead as he leaned over the screen. His fists were bloody from punching walls, his throat raw from shouting at empty air.

“Where the hell is he?!” Jason’s voice cracked, fury and panic blurring.

“We’re tracking what we can" Oracle’s calm voice filtered through the comm, her fingers racing across keys. “He wiped out half the traffic cams in Old Gotham—”

“Because he’s there! He’s in the goddamn amusement district, I know it!” Jason slammed a hand on the desk. His whole body trembled.

Bruce stood behind him, silent, grim.

“Jason,” he said at last, low and heavy. “We will find her. But if you go in blind—”

“I don’t care! She’s out there with him!” Jason whirled, his eyes bloodshot, his chest heaving. “Do you get it, Bruce? It’s happening again! He’s doing it again—and it’s my fault. If I’d been there—” His voice broke. He gritted his teeth hard enough to taste copper.

Before Bruce could answer, a sharp buzz hit the comm line.

Every monitor in the cave flickered.

Static bloomed, then resolved into a grainy video feed: you, bound to the chair in the funhouse, blood soaking your shirt, your face scraped.

Jason froze. His lungs stopped working.

Joker’s painted face leaned into frame, far too close, his grin splitting wide.

“Helloooo, Bats and birdies! Guess who I found wandering all alone? Oh, don’t look so cross, she’s been excellent company! Well—screaming company, but I like variety.”

He yanked your head up by the hair, forcing your face toward the camera.

“Say hi to Jaybird, sugarplum. He’s watching. Ohhh, look at those eyes. He looks like he might cry.”

Jason staggered back a step, his chest caving in. His hands curled into claws.

“I’m going to kill him.”

“Jason-” Bruce’s voice cut sharp.

“Don’t you—don’t you dare tell me not to! Look at her!” Jason jabbed at the screen, his voice shattering into a raw scream. “LOOK WHAT HE’S DOING!”

On screen, Joker tapped your face with the crowbar, leaving a streak of blood.

“You know what’s great about déjà vu? It never gets old! Last time, it was poor little Robin, and Batsy never made it in time. Ohhh, but this time—it’s even juicier. Because now Jason gets to watch! Isn’t that poetic?”

He raised the crowbar high. The camera caught the brutal swing as it smashed into your side. Your scream echoed through the cave speakers. Jason flinched like he’d been shot, a strangled noise tearing from his throat.

Joker bent down, breathing heavy with excitement.

“Oopsie! Did that hurt, darling? Don’t worry. I’m saving the grand finale for when your lover boy arrives. I want him to see your last smile.”

The feed cut to static.

Jason stood rooted, his whole body shaking, every vein alive with rage and guilt. His vision blurred red.

“I swear to God—” His voice was a rasp, broken glass and smoke. He grabbed his helmet, slamming it down over his head. “If he kills her, it’s on me. I’m not letting it happen again. I’ll put a bullet in his brain, I don’t care what you say.”

Bruce moved into his path, stern, immovable.

“Killing him won’t save her.”

“It’ll be justice!” Jason roared, shoving Bruce back, chest heaving. “You didn’t stop him then, and you’re not stopping me now! She’s all I’ve got, Bruce! She’s all I’ve fucking got!”

For a second, the cave was silent but for Jason’s ragged breathing.

Then Alfred’s voice, soft, steady, but cutting deep:

“And what will she wake to, Master Jason, if she survives, and the man she loves has become what that monster always wanted him to be?”

Jason froze, helmet tilted down, his shoulders trembling. His voice came out small, broken.

“I can’t lose her. Not like that. Not like me.”

Back in the funhouse, Joker set the camera down, angling it perfectly to catch every angle of your pain. He paced in front of you, manic energy vibrating through every twitch of his body.

“You know, sweetheart, I almost feel bad for you. Almost! Because deep down, you know it, don’t you? He’s broken. He’s not like the others. He’ll never forgive himself for this. And that guilt, mmm, that’s better than blood.”

He slammed the crowbar across your back. You cried out, the sound tearing from you before you could stop it. Joker clapped like a delighted child.

“Ahhh, music to my ears! Don’t worry, lovebird. Jason’s on his way. He always is. And when he comes, I’ll give him the same choice I gave Batsy once upon a time. Save the girl—or catch the clown. Either way…” He leaned in, whispering against your ear, his breath rancid. “You die laughing.”

Jason’s helmet fed him the faint buzz of Oracle’s voice through the comm, tinny, urgent, cutting through the static of his panic. “Jason—I found it. He’s in the old Monarch Theater. Heat signatures confirm—at least two. One’s moving, the other’s… barely.”

Barely.

The word shredded him. Jason didn’t even respond; he was already vaulting across the Gotham rooftops, heart hammering in his throat. The Monarch.

Of course it was the Monarch. Joker loved irony, loved stages, loved memories soaked in blood. Jason hit the pavement hard, boots skidding against wet asphalt as he tore down the block, every muscle wired, every breath jagged and sharp.

He pushed through the shattered double doors and the theater swallowed him whole—dark, hollow, dust clinging to the air. Somewhere in the back, a faint metallic clink echoed. The smell hit him before the sight did—iron, copper, blood. Too much blood.

“Please be alive” his voice cracked inside the helmet, though he wasn’t speaking to anyone.

He followed the sound down into the funhouse maze Joker had built in the theater’s bowels. Mirrors warped his reflection into grotesque shapes, laughter tracks from a busted speaker looped and warped into static. Jason ripped his helmet off, couldn’t stand the distortion. He needed to see with his own eyes.

And then he did.

You were slumped in the chair, arms bound to rusted metal, face a mess of bruises and blood, your lips cracked and trembling with shallow breath. Your chest rose—barely—but it rose. Jason’s knees buckled so hard he stumbled, catching himself on the edge of the frame. His chest felt like it had been hollowed out with a crowbar.

“Fuck—fuck” his voice came out strangled as he sprinted forward, dropping to his knees in front of you. His gloves shook so bad he could barely untie the ropes cutting into your wrists.

“Baby, hey, hey—it’s me, it’s me, you’re okay, I got you, I got you…” He pressed his forehead against your shoulder for half a second, just long enough to ground himself before he forced his shaking hands to keep working.

You made a sound then—soft, broken, a whimper of his name that hit him harder than any bullet ever could.

Jason’s throat closed, eyes burning, tears stinging hot behind his lashes. He cupped your face gently, terrified of hurting you, but needing you to know. “I’m here, sweetheart. I’m here, I swear to god, I’m not leaving you with that fucking clown. I should’ve been here sooner—I should’ve—fuck, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry…”

He got the last rope free and you collapsed forward into his chest. He caught you instantly, holding you so tight his arms ached, but still terrified you’d slip away if he let go even for a second. Your blood soaked through his suit, warm and wet against his skin. His breath hitched, ragged, desperate, pressing shaky kisses against your hair, your temple, whispering like a prayer: “Stay with me, please stay. Don’t do this, don’t leave me, I can’t—I can’t lose you too.”

From the shadows, a faint echo of laughter drifted, bouncing through the funhouse walls. Joker was gone. Of course he was. The bastard had staged it perfectly—left just enough life in you for Jason to find, just enough pain to make the memory sear. Jason’s head snapped toward the sound, his jaw clenched so tight it hurt. Every cell in his body screamed at him to hunt Joker down, to put a bullet in his skull and watch the blood spill.

But then your fingers twitched weakly against his chest, clutching his suit with what little strength you had. Jason froze, then grabbed your hand, pressing it to his lips.

The rage burned, white-hot, begging to be unleashed, but he forced it down, swallowed it whole.

You came first. Only you.

“Okay. Okay, I’ve got you.” His voice cracked again, rough and broken but steady enough to hold onto. He slid one arm beneath your knees, the other bracing your back, lifting you gently but quickly into his arms. You were so light it terrified him. Too light. His vision blurred as he looked down at you, your head lolling weakly against his chest. “Fuck, you’re gonna be okay, you hear me? Don’t you fucking quit on me.”

He bolted out of the funhouse, through the ruined theater, his boots pounding the cracked floor. He didn’t care about stealth, didn’t care about backup, didn’t care about Joker’s games. All that mattered was getting you out.

The night air hit his face as he crashed through the doors, sprinting across the empty street. He fumbled with the comm in his ear, his voice breaking. “Oracle—I’ve got her—I’ve got her but she’s bad, she’s real bad, call in a fucking ambulance right now, do you hear me? Now!”

“Jason—” Oracle’s voice cut in, controlled but urgent.

“Don’t fucking argue, Babs, I need a med team here and now!” His voice cracked into a sob on the last word, his throat raw. He ducked into the alley, your body trembling faintly in his arms.

He lowered his head, whispering against your ear, every word ragged, desperate: “Just hang on, baby, please, don’t you dare leave me. You’re stronger than this, you’ve always been stronger. Just a little longer, okay? Stay with me. For me.”

Your lips moved weakly, whispering his name again, almost inaudible. Jason’s whole body shook, and he pressed his face against your hair, choking out a laugh that wasn’t really a laugh at all. “That’s it. That’s it, I’m right here. I’ve got you. I’m not letting go.”

The faint wail of sirens grew in the distance. Jason held you tighter, rocking you slightly, his whole body a shield. He could still hear Joker’s laughter in the back of his skull, still feel the phantom weight of the crowbar, but it didn’t matter. Not now. Joker could live another night. Because right now, the only thing that mattered was keeping you breathing.

Jason burst through the ER doors like a storm, boots squealing on the tiles, your limp form cradled tight against him. Nurses and orderlies gasped, rushing forward, their hands reaching, their voices sharp and professional. Oracle had called a trusted medical team, people Bruce had learnt to trust.

“We need to take her—”

“No! No, don’t touch her!” Jason barked, clutching you tighter, panic flashing behind his eyes. His voice cracked, wild. “She needs me—she needs—”

A doctor met his eyes squarely, firm but not unkind. “If you want her to live, you have to let go. Right now.”

Jason froze. Every muscle in his body locked, screaming against the order, but the sight of your blood dripping onto the sterile floor broke him. His breath hitched, his arms trembling violently as he slowly, so slowly, eased you into the stretcher. His hands lingered, desperate, fingers tracing your cheek one last time before the nurses whisked you away. He staggered forward a step, but they blocked him, pulling him back. The doors slammed shut with a brutal finality, leaving him staring at the small window, your form already swallowed by white coats and machines.

And then the silence.

Jason’s chest heaved, his bloodied hands hovering uselessly in the air. Without you in them, he felt like he was collapsing inward. He dropped to his knees on the polished tile, his helmet clattering to the ground beside him. His hands shook uncontrollably, smearing red across his face as he dragged them through his hair.

“Fuck—fuck, this is my fault—” his voice cracked, raw and jagged, bouncing off the sterile walls. “I should’ve been there, I should’ve known—he took her because of me, because of me!”

“Jason.”

The voice was steady, familiar. Jason looked up through blurred vision to see Dick standing there, already crouching beside him. Behind him, Tim, Barbara, Damian, and Bruce hovered like shadows, their faces drawn tight with worry.

Jason’s whole body shook with anger and grief. He shoved Dick’s hand off his shoulder. “Don’t—don’t fucking comfort me. You saw her—did you see what he did to her? That’s on me! I let her walk home alone, I let her—” His voice broke again, ragged. “I swore I’d never let that bastard take someone from me again. And now—”

Bruce stepped forward, his voice low, even, but heavier than steel. “Jason. This is not your fault.”

Jason’s laugh was sharp, ugly, broken.

“Not my fault? He only went after her because of me! Because she matters to me! Don’t you get it? Joker doesn’t give a shit about her—she’s just another way to get at me. And I handed him the knife.” He slammed his fist into the wall beside him, the sound echoing. Blood smeared across the tile. His forehead pressed against the wall, shoulders trembling. “I should’ve killed him when I had the chance.”

“Then she’d be here alone” Dick’s voice was soft but firm, cutting through Jason’s spiral. He crouched closer, his hand hovering just above Jason’s back like he wanted to ground him but wasn’t sure he’d be allowed. “You got her out. She’s alive because of you. That’s the only reason she’s still breathing in there.”

Jason’s breath caught, a sob tearing through his chest before he could choke it down. He buried his face in his hands, his voice muffled, broken.

“She was so fucking cold, Dick. She could barely say my name. I thought—” His throat closed, his body curling forward, folding in on itself. “I thought I was gonna lose her right there in my arms”

Tim, hovering just behind, shifted uncomfortably, his voice quieter than usual but clear. “She’s in surgery. She’s in the best hands in the city. They’ll do everything they can.”

Jason snapped his head up, his eyes bloodshot, wild. “That’s not good enough! You didn’t see her—you didn’t hear her! She was begging—” His voice broke off, collapsing into another sob. He dragged both hands down his face, streaking blood and tears across his skin. “I can’t do this again. I can’t bury another person I love because of him.”

Barbara’s voice cut in from behind, calm but steady like steel wrapped in velvet. “You’re not alone, Jason. You don’t have to carry this by yourself.”

Jason shook his head violently, his hands tugging at his hair. “Yes I do! Because it’s always me, Babs! It’s always my fuck-ups that get people hurt. She’s lying on that table right now because I wasn’t there, because I let my guard down. What if she doesn’t—” His voice cracked again, breaking into silence. He pressed his back against the wall, sliding down until he was sitting on the floor, his knees pulled tight to his chest.

For once, Damian broke the silence, his tone sharp but not cruel. “She is strong. Stronger than most. If she chooses to fight, she will win.” His eyes narrowed at Jason. “But she will not forgive you if you give up on her now.”

Jason blinked at him, startled. The words dug under his skin, raw and sharp, because he knew Damian was right. He let out a shaky laugh that turned into a sob, burying his face in his arms.

Bruce moved closer, crouching so he was eye-level with Jason. His voice was low, almost a whisper. “You can’t carry this blame, Jason. Joker chose this. Not you.”

Jason’s head snapped up, his eyes burning with unshed tears, his jaw clenched. “Then why does it feel exactly like it did when you left me there?!” The words exploded out of him, venom and grief intertwined. The room went still. Jason’s chest heaved, his eyes wide, like he hadn’t meant to say it but couldn’t stop it. His voice cracked, smaller now, breaking apart. “It feels the same. Cold. Helpless. Like I was too late.”

The silence stretched heavy.

Then Dick finally sat down beside him, shoulder pressing firmly against Jason’s, grounding him without asking permission. “But this time’s different,” Dick said quietly. “This time, you got there in time”

Jason didn’t answer. Couldn’t. He just let the tears spill, silent and raw, his body shaking as he pressed his bloodied hands to his face. And for once, he didn’t fight them when Dick stayed by his side, when Tim lingered close, when Barbara’s presence steadied the air, when Damian’s quiet stare held no judgment, only truth, and when Bruce remained crouched, silent, unmovable, like the anchor Jason had spent his whole life both needing and resenting.

The waiting room was too bright, too clean. Every second the fluorescent lights hummed above him felt like another nail driving into his skull. Jason paced like a caged animal, his boots pounding a restless rhythm against the tile. Every so often, his bloodstained hands curled into fists until his knuckles whitened. The others sat scattered across the room — Dick with his elbows on his knees, Tim cross-legged in a chair with his phone forgotten in his hands, Barbara leaning against the wall, Damian stiff and silent in the corner. Bruce hadn’t moved from where he stood, arms crossed, his gaze fixed on the swinging double doors that led deeper into the ER.

Hours. Hours since they’d taken you from him. Hours since the last time he saw you, broken and bleeding, whispering his name like it was your last breath.

Every time he blinked, he saw it again.

The bruises. The blood. The way your body had felt so light in his arms, terrifyingly light.

Jason slammed his hand against the vending machine, the crash echoing through the sterile space. “What the fuck is taking so long?!” His voice cracked, raw with panic. “They’ve had her in there for hours — what if she doesn’t—”

“Jason.” Dick’s voice was steady, but Jason caught the tightness behind it. “They’re doing everything they can.”

Jason spun on him, eyes wild. “Yeah? And what if it’s not enough, huh? What if I walked in there too late? What if all I did was give her a couple more hours of pain before she dies in a fucking hospital bed?!” His voice shattered at the end, a raw sound caught between a sob and a scream.

The room went still. Even Damian’s sharp tongue stayed quiet.

Jason dragged both hands down his face, streaking dried blood across his skin. His chest heaved like he couldn’t catch air. “God, I can’t—” His voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. “I can’t lose her. Not again. Not like this. Not because of him.”

Barbara’s voice was calm, firm, cutting through the storm. “Jason, listen to me. She’s strong. She made it this far. That’s because of you.”

Jason laughed bitterly, shaking his head.

“Because of me? No, Babs, she’s in there because of me. She’s bleeding out on some fucking table right now because I was stupid enough to think I could have something normal. Something good.” He dropped into the chair beside him, elbows braced on his knees, head hanging low. His voice cracked again, small, broken. “She’s paying the price for loving me.”

Bruce finally spoke, his voice low, steady, and heavy with something Jason didn’t want to name. “That’s not true.”

Jason snapped his head up, his eyes burning. “Yes it is! Don’t you get it, Bruce? Everyone close to me gets hurt. Everyone. And now she’s—” His voice strangled off. He buried his face in his hands, shoulders trembling. “I swore I’d protect her. That’s all I had to do. And I fucking failed.”

For once, Tim’s voice broke the silence, quieter than usual but clear. “You didn’t fail. You got her out. She’s alive because of you.”

Jason looked up at him, eyes wet, voice hoarse. “For how long, Tim? How long before she realizes being with me is just a fucking death sentence?”

The words hung heavy in the air. Nobody answered.

Hours dragged on. Jason refused to sit still, pacing until Dick finally grabbed his arm. Jason yanked away, but Dick held firm. “She’s fighting in there. Don’t you dare give up on her out here.”

Jason’s jaw clenched, his throat tight. He pressed his palm to his face, swiping away tears angrily. “I’m not giving up on her. I’m giving up on me. Don’t you get it? I can’t be near her anymore. I can’t—if she wakes up and I’m still there, what’s stopping him from trying again? He knows. He knows she’s my weak spot now. He’ll never stop.” His voice cracked. “And she’ll never be safe.”

Dick shook his head, his voice sharp but full of something almost pleading. “Don’t do that. Don’t you put this on yourself and walk away. She loves you, Jason. That’s not weakness. That’s the only thing keeping you human.”

Jason’s laugh was hollow, painful. He slumped back against the wall, sliding down until he was on the floor, head tipped back, staring at the ceiling like he was begging it for answers. His voice was raw, a rasp. “Love is what Joker feeds on. It’s what he rips apart. And I gave him the perfect fucking target.” His breath hitched. “I should’ve killed him when I had the chance. I should’ve—” His voice broke, tears slipping silently down his face. “But I didn’t. And she’s paying for it.”

The double doors finally swung open. A doctor stepped out, pulling down his mask. Every head in the room snapped toward him.

Jason was on his feet instantly, stumbling forward like his legs barely worked. “Is she—?” His voice cracked hard. “Is she alive?”

The doctor’s gaze softened. “She’s alive. She lost a lot of blood. Multiple fractures, significant internal injuries. But she made it through the surgery. She’s stable for now.”

Jason’s chest collapsed, the air rushing out of him in a broken sob. He grabbed the edge of the nurse’s desk to stay upright, his head bowed, shoulders shaking with relief and grief all tangled together. His voice came out small, wrecked. “Thank God… thank God…”

But then the doctor continued, gentle but firm. “She’s in a medically induced coma. We need to give her body time to heal. It could be hours, or days. There are no guarantees.”

Jason’s head snapped up, his face streaked with tears.

“A coma?” His voice rose, cracking. “You mean she’s—she’s not—” He couldn’t finish. His body folded in on itself again, both hands gripping the back of his neck as he staggered away from the group, his voice a hoarse whisper. “I almost lost her. I almost fucking lost her.”

Bruce reached for him, but Jason shoved past, pacing hard, his boots squealing against the floor. “Don’t you see? This is exactly what I’m talking about! She’s in a coma because of me! Because she let me love her!” He pressed both hands against the wall, head bowed, tears dripping onto the tile. “I can’t—I can’t stay near her. If she wakes up and sees me, all she’s gonna see is pain. All she’s gonna see is what Joker did to her because of me.”

Dick stepped closer, his voice low, tight. “And what do you think she’ll see if she wakes up and you’re not there? You think she won’t notice? She fought to stay alive because of you, Jason. Because she wanted to see you again. Don’t you dare take that away from her.”

Jason froze, his back to the group, every muscle strung tight. His breath came in ragged, uneven bursts.

Finally, his voice cracked out, soft, desperate. “What if she doesn’t wake up at all?”

The silence was deafening. Nobody had an answer.

Jason’s hands pressed harder into the wall, his forehead against the cold surface. His voice was barely audible, but the words cut deep. “I can’t lose her. I’ll break if I do. I don’t come back from that.”

And in that sterile hospital hallway, with his family behind him and you fighting for your life behind closed doors, Jason Todd: bloody, guilty, terrified, felt the walls closing in. He loved you so much it was killing him, and all he could see was the cruel possibility that Joker had already won.

The room was sterile white, filled with the low hum of machines and the quiet beeps that measured life in tiny intervals. You had been under for hours, you had no idea how many, fighting a battle no one could help you with but yourself. The surgeries had been long and brutal; Joker hadn’t left much of you untouched.

Jason had spent that entire time pacing hallways like a caged animal, fists raw from punching concrete walls, refusing food, refusing rest. His eyes were bloodshot, his voice hoarse from yelling at doctors every time they told him to “be patient.”

But when you finally stirred, eyelids fluttering open with painful effort, you weren't met with Jason.

Barbara sat by your side, Oracle having stationed herself in the chair since the first surgery ended, her hand wrapped gently around your bruised one. Even if Jason was scared about you seeing him, he had to know you were okay, he thought it was better like that but no one believed it.

Her voice was soft, almost motherly, when she leaned forward.

“Hey… hey, easy. You’re safe. You’re in Gotham General.”

Your throat was too dry to speak much. Every movement was agony, your ribs protesting, the bandages tight, IV lines tugging at your arms. But you managed a breath, a whisper that was barely audible.

“…Jason?”

Barbara’s heart clenched. She had expected it, she knew Jason’s name would be the first word, maybe the only one, on her lips. Babs stroked your hand carefully, keeping her voice calm even though she was already turning toward the door in her mind.

“He’s here. He’s been here the whole time. I’ll get him.”

Out in the hallway, Jason was sitting on the floor against the wall, head buried in his hands, staring blankly at his boots like they held the answers to every mistake he’d ever made. Bruce stood nearby, stoic but tense, while Dick leaned against the opposite wall, arms crossed, watching Jason carefully. Tim sat beside him with a cup of coffee he hadn’t touched. Damian was perched further down, silent as ever, though his sharp eyes never left Jason’s broken posture.

When Barbara stepped into the hall, Jason’s head snapped up instantly.

“She’s awake” Barbara said, voice firm but warm. “And she asked for you.”

Jason froze. For a split second, he looked like someone had just gutted him again: disbelief and fear flooding his features all at once.

“She… what?” His voice cracked, rough from hours of silence.

“She wants to see you, Jason”

He was on his feet before the sentence ended, his heart hammering like it was trying to break his ribs apart. But something stopped him in his tracks, his own damn guilt. He hovered, fists clenched at his sides, jaw tight.

“She shouldn’t” he muttered, shaking his head, voice harsh to cover the break in it. “She shouldn’t want me. Look what happened because of me. Joker knew. He knew I’d lose it if he touched her. He went after her because of me.”

“Jason,” Barbara cut in, firm now. “She asked for you. That’s all that matters right now.”

Bruce’s deep voice followed, calm but weighted. “Go”

Jason looked up at him, almost as if searching for an excuse to be told no. But Bruce just held his gaze, silent, steady, like he always did when the lesson was obvious.

Jason swallowed hard, turned, and shoved through the door.

The moment he stepped into the room, the machines seemed too loud, the air too heavy. He hadn’t seen you conscious since Joker had taken you. Seeing you like this, pale, battered, but alive, nearly knocked the air out of his lungs.

You turned your head weakly, eyes struggling to focus, but when they landed on him, your lips curled just slightly.

“…hey” you rasped.

Jason froze halfway between the door and her bed, his throat burning, his chest tight. He looked like he might fall apart just standing there.

“Jesus Christ…” His voice cracked, and he moved forward, slow like you might vanish if he rushed. He took the chair Barbara had left and dropped into it, his big frame hunched forward, elbows on his knees, hands shaking when he finally reached out and brushed your fingers carefully.

“You shouldn’t…” His jaw clenched, eyes wet. “You shouldn’t be asking for me. You should be telling me to get the fuck out. That I ruined your life. That I dragged you into my shit and nearly got you killed.”

Your weak fingers squeezed his, barely there, but enough to shut him up. Your voice was quiet, raw.

“...you’re the only one I want here”

Jason sucked in a shaky breath, eyes squeezing shut as he ducked his head to hide it. A tear slipped down anyway, dripping onto the sheets. His other hand came up to cover yours, holding you so gently it looked like he was afraid you might break apart under his touch.

“God, sweetheart…” His voice cracked again, lower now, full of the weight he couldn’t hide anymore. “I thought I lost you. You don’t know—fuck—you don’t know what that did to me.”

You tried to smile again, weak and pained, but soft. “..guess I’m too stubborn to let him win”

Jason let out a wet laugh that was half a sob, bowing his head until his forehead rested lightly against the back of your bandaged hand.

“I’m so sorry” he whispered, voice breaking open now, raw and desperate. “I should’ve stopped him. I should’ve known. I swore I’d never let him touch anyone I—” He cut himself off, chest shaking, before forcing it out. “Anyone I love. And he still got to you.”

Your eyes, heavy but clear, stayed on him. Your whisper was almost nothing, but it carried enough to stop him in his spiral.

“…i love you too.”

Jason’s breath hitched, and for the first time in what felt like forever, something other than guilt cracked through his chest. His shoulders shook as silent tears ran down his face, his hand trembling as he brushed his thumb across yours.

“You don’t get it,” he muttered, his voice trembling hard. “You’re it for me. You’re all I’ve got. If I lost you, there’s nothing left. Nothing. And I can’t—” His voice broke into silence, the words strangled in his throat.

You gave the faintest smile, eyes barely able to stay open. “..but you didn’t lose me.”

Jason leaned closer, pressing a kiss to your bandaged hand, clinging to you like a lifeline. “I’m not letting you out of my sight again. Not for a second. He’ll never—never—touch you again. I swear it.”

The fluorescent lights in the hospital wing hummed faintly, the only sound was the rhythmic beeping of the heart monitor.

Jason hadn’t moved from your bedside since the moment the doctors had allowed him to see you.

He was still in his gear, helmet discarded on the floor, chest armor peeled off with shaking hands hours ago, but the rest of him was a mess: blood on his gloves that wasn’t his, bruises spreading purple along his knuckles from punching every damin wall in the hospital.

But he wouldn’t leave. Not even for a second.

You had fallen asleep again, weak and still fragile after the surgeries that had stretched through the night. Jason sat slouched in the chair beside your bed, his head leaning close to your arm, one of his large hands wrapped around your smaller one like if he loosened his grip you might slip away again. Every time the heart monitor beeped too slow, his whole body tensed.

Every time you stirred, he was instantly awake, whispering to you in that low, rough voice that cracked with things he’d never admit aloud.

Sometime near dawn, your fingers shifted in his palm, brushing weakly against his skin. Jason’s bloodshot eyes flicked open. You whispered his name, and he bent closer, forehead pressed briefly against your knuckles.

“I’m right here, sweetheart” he rasped, voice hoarse from hours of silence and swallowed sobs. “Not going anywhere. You scared the shit outta me, y’know that?” His thumb brushed over your bandaged knuckles gently, careful not to hurt you. “But you’re tough. Always were.”

Your lips curved faintly, too weak to laugh, but the intention was there. And Jason, who’d been a storm of violence and fury for days, melted instantly, his whole body curving in to shield her from everything—even the memory of Joker.

It was well past sunrise when exhaustion finally overtook him. Still holding your hand, Jason’s head dropped onto the thin mattress at your side, eyes sliding shut. The chair creaked under his weight, but he didn’t move, and soon he was asleep, his cheek resting against the blanket where your arm lay.

You woke first the next morning. The sun filtered pale through the blinds, spilling across Jason’s broad shoulders where he was hunched uncomfortably in the chair, his hand still clasped around yours even in sleep.

You turned your head slowly, every muscle aching, and just looked at him for a long moment. His dark hair was mussed, face slack in sleep but still tense around the edges, like even unconscious he was bracing himself for another fight.

The sound of the door opening drew your attention. Bruce stepped inside, his presence filling the room instantly. He didn’t say anything at first. Just stood at the foot of the bed, hands clasped behind his back, his face unreadable as he took in the scene: Jason slumped in the chair, you awake and watching silently.

Finally, Bruce’s gaze shifted to you. His deep voice was quiet but firm, carrying weight that made her throat tighten.

“I’m glad you’re still with us” he said simply. It wasn’t flowery, not warm in the way someone else might have phrased it—but it was Bruce. Which meant it was heavy with meaning. Relief. Gratitude. Even guilt.

You nodded faintly, too weak to respond, but your eyes softened. Bruce’s jaw tightened, and after a pause he stepped closer, resting one gloved hand carefully on the railing of the bed. “You’ve been through enough. Focus on healing. We’ll handle the rest.”

It was his way of promising you that you didn’t need to carry the weight alone, that he wouldn’t let Jason shoulder it alone, either.

Your eyes flicked down to Jason, still asleep and refusing to let go of your hand. Bruce followed your gaze, and something softened in his expression. His voice dropped, almost to a whisper.

“He hasn’t left your side.”

Your lips curved faintly, your heart monitor beeping a little faster. You knew. You had felt it in every brush of his thumb against your skin, in every whispered word through the haze of pain.

Bruce lingered a moment longer, silent in the way only he could be, communicating volumes without saying anything at all, before stepping back.

“Rest,” he said finally, and turned toward the door. But before leaving, he paused, his eyes on Jason again. “He needs this as much as you do.”

And then Bruce was gone, the door hissing shut softly behind him, leaving you in the quiet once more. You turned your head back toward Jason, watching him sleep, and though your body hurt, there was a deep calm in her chest now.

Because he was there. And he wasn’t going anywhere.

[mostly-imagines]

So This Is Love

jason todd x fem!reader

aka you show each other what love is supposed to be like

4 in 1 blurbs

warnings: section 1: close-call panic attack for j, mentions of ptsd for j // section 2: implied sexual activity // section 3: mild angst w comfort // section 4: implied ptsd for j

He feels like his heart might burst through his chest.

The nightmare wasn’t anything unusual for him, but it did feel particularly vivid tonight. It was more of a memory than anything, though. That same one that plays on a loop in his head throughout the night the more he tries to push it away during the day. It was the last thwack of the crowbar that had him jolt awake in bed.

You shift in your spot next to him, opening your eyes to see his rattled state. If he’d been in a clearer frame of mind he would’ve lied to you. He would’ve expertly leveled his breathing and told you everything was fine and to go back to sleep.

But instead, he looks over at you with wide eyes, chest heaving and shaking like he might start hyperventilating at any moment.

You shoot up from the bed, instantly on alert. This isn’t the first time he’s had one of these nightmares around you, so it’s not hard for you to guess where this is coming from.

“Jay? What’s—what do you need?” You know better than to try and touch him unprompted right now, you’ve panicked enough yourself to know that sudden contact only makes it worse.

“I—I can’t, I—” Now he really looks like he’s about to lose all control of his breathing.

You sit up further, moving onto your knees. “Here, let me—can I see your hand?” you ask gently, holding your own out.

He extends it to you without question, a tiny act of vulnerability that he couldn’t have dreamed of doing in this state before he met you.

You flip his hand over, palm-up and start tracing lines over it in the moonlight. You’re looking at his hand quite intently like there’s something very important on it. It’s enough to make him question what the hell you’re doing. 

“I can read palms.” You tell him, simply. 

“What?” His voice almost breaks, like he’s right at the edge of tears. 

“Yeah, my friend taught me. I can tell the future and everything.” You look up at him, fingers not stopping their trailing. “Do you wanna hear yours?”

All he can do is nod.

You smile and start to inspect his hand carefully, tracing over calluses and a few tiny scars. You draw your finger across the short, deep line parallel to his fingers.

“This one…see the way it curves upwards right there?” He nods. “That means you’re very resourceful and ambitious. Like a leader.” His breathing starts to slow as he watches you, trying to focus on what you’re showing him in the dim light from the window.

“And this one,” you trace the line that curves downwards in the middle, “This one says that you’re strong and stubborn, which I can confirm,” he huffs out a laugh. It’s little but it’s genuine. “But it also means that you’re resilient. You’re built to overcome things and bounce back even stronger because of them. Which I can also confirm.”

He leans forward, resting his forehead against yours. He takes in a deep breath, watching you draw patterns across the base of his palm.

The sensation soothes him in a way that he frankly didn’t know he could be soothed. He figures he usually can’t, except when it’s you. He tries to match your breathing, syncing up with you. If anyone else tried to get this close to him when he was on the verge of a panic attack they’d get punched, at best.

But you…you always know how to help him. He’s considered in the past that he did something really right somewhere down the line and you were sent to him as reward. He’d racked his mind for hours of every good thing he’d ever done, trying to find one that could explain your presence in his life. For anything that could explain why he deserved you. He poured and poured over every memory he could dig up but couldn’t find any good he’d ever done that surmounted to a single piece of the good in your heart.

There was a time when he would’ve thought—when he did think that you were only in his life to be taken away as soon as he felt safe. That would certainly be in line with previous experiences. But you showed him quickly that you have this way about you…it makes those loud thoughts in the back of his head shut up and just listen. Listen to your words, your breathing, your footsteps, your laugh…anything he could. Because it turns out, when he listens, he feels safe. 

He’s quiet for a long time, contentedly watching you work. He notices that at some point you’d stopped tracing the lines and began drawing designs instead. 

He breaks the silence after several minutes, softly commenting, “You don’t know how to read palms.”

“No, I do not.” 

But you continued to leave your invisible art on the palm of his hand just the same, both of you taking comfort in the sound of the other's breathing and the soothing feeling of each other’s skin.

The radio plays lightly in the background, surrounding your night with soft ambience. You’re working at the cutting board with tomatoes as Jason leans against the counter next to you, having just finished getting the pasta set up on the stove.

His hands find your hips, resting them there as he watches you work over your shoulder.

“Watch your thumb.” He comments when the knife gets a little too close for his liking.

You shrug him off, “I know how to do it.”

He eyes the way the knife stutters as you cut through the tomato, slicing through not very cleanly at all. “Doesn’t look like it.”

You ignore him, elbowing him gently in the abdomen. He’s joking, but he’s not. The skill level you’re displaying is only above Bruce and slightly below Tim, which is not great.

“Will you let me do it?” he asks you when he realizes there’s going to be no improvement. 

“Fine.” You relent with faux annoyance. 

You switch over to the stovetop, keeping a careful eye on the pasta as it cooks. It’s quiet for a moment as he works, chopping with much more efficiency than you had.  

“You didn’t have to stay here tonight, you know.” You say quietly, still intently watching the stove.

In spite of the music, your low volume does nothing to faze him as he continues his actions, “Why wouldn’t I?”

You stir the contents of the saucepan around. “Well, I know Roy wanted you to go out…”

“Not missing much.” He mumbles, opening up the above cabinet to get out plates.

You lull your head to the side, “Come on, he’s your best friend.”

Jason frowns. “He’s not my best friend.”

You turn your head towards him, “No?”

He meets your gaze, frown consistent. “No. You are.” He says it like he’s confused that you don’t know that. 

“Oh.” You smile, “You’re my best friend too.”

His eyes soften at that, a light smile gracing his lips. He knew that, and he knew you’d say it, but hearing it out loud just…does something to him.

You flick the stove top off, prompting him to on instinct reach for the Marinara jar and crack it open for you. He hands it to you and you accept with a smile, twisting it open the rest of the way as you turn back to the stove. The jar sputters as you open, spitting out sauce.    

“Oh, shit.” You hiss, when the splatter hits your shirt.

He takes one glance at the mess on your shirt and pulls his own shirt off his back. He’s tugging yours off just as fast, replacing it with his. You’ve barely processed what happened as he scans your body, eyes lingering on where his shirt stops at your thighs. “Can you wear this to bed tonight?” He asks, hands running over your waist.

You laugh, “Really?”

He meets your eyes, face serious. “Yes.” He squeezes your hip, “You look good.”

“In your shirt.” You say with a knowing smile.

“In my shirt.” He confirms.

You turn back to the stove to dish out the salsa, his hands skimming around your thighs as you do. He watches you as you work, though rather than watching your hands he’s fixated on the size of his shirt over you and how fucking good you look right now. 

“Or…” He sweeps his eyes over your legs before looking back up at you again. “Did’ya turn the stove off?”

You tilt your head at him, “I did…?”

He grins at you, lifting you up by your thighs til you’re a head above him. “Good.” He maneuvers you over to the counter, setting you on top. He brings your wrist up to his mouth to press a delicate kiss before dropping to his knees.

You’ve been laying in bed for at least three hours, bordering on sleep but never quite falling in. You and Jason had a little spat, though nothing insurmountable, it was still the biggest fight you’ve had to date. You’d tried going out (at night) to see your friend that was having a hard time, and yeah, you should’ve told Jason you were going. It was only five blocks, give or take, but in Gotham at eleven o’clock at night, it’s a risk to say the least.

You should’ve told Jason, you know. But he wouldn’t have let you go or would’ve insisted on putting hold on patrolling to accompany you. You always feel bad when he does that—people could be getting hurt somewhere because you needed your boyfriend to walk you down the street. Unfortunately, it didn’t matter in the end because he caught you red handed before you’d even made it a full block away. Of all the nights for him to come home early, it had to be this one.

He dropped down from the rooftop behind you and scared the absolute hell out of you, and you didn’t even have time to be relieved that it was just him because he was on you in a flash. 

“What the hell are you doing out here?” His voice was hard through the modulator, a rare tone for him to use with you.

“I just—my friend—” he sounded tired and angry, sure signs that he’d really not had a good night so far which was probably all the more reason that you shouldn’t have been out by yourself in the middle of the night.

“What are you—no! Go home. Now.” You would’ve, you really would’ve, but your friend called you crying about her boyfriend cheating on her again and she needed the in person support. 

“Ja—” You’d cut yourself off, “It’s down the street, it’s fine—” He dropped his shoulders in a huff and faced you dead-on. You didn’t need him to take his helmet off to know exactly how he was looking at you.

He dropped down and hooked his arm around the back of your legs, lifting you off the ground with no discernible effort. “Wha—”

He started walking before you were even fully planted on his shoulder, arm wrapping around your legs to hold you in place. 

“Hood! I am so fucking serious, put me down!” You swatted at his back and struggled in his grip, though in the back of your mind you knew it was a pointless effort. Even if you were a match in size, whatever mood he’d been pushed in was enough to guarantee that you had no chance. 

He ignored you, not even pretending that you were giving him any difficulty with your squirming. He marched you back down the block to your apartment, not stopping until you’re outside your door. He set you down in between him and the entrance, digging into his pocket for his key.

He kicked the door shut behind him, finally letting you go. He wordlessly grabbed one of his spare guns and two cartridges of ammo from inside the closet by the door and turned back to you with a firm stance. “Stay here.”

You immediately tried to push past him again, at that point more angry about him dragging you back here than about having to duck out on your friend. He stopped you, holding you by the arms, which led you to respond by raising your voice at him, “Jason!” 

But he didn’t waste any time letting you know how it is, “I will lock you in this fucking apartment. Stay. Here.” Him cursing at you like that was very rare and not a particularly good sign, so through your anger you’d made the decision that it was better to relent, for now. Your posture dropped and you frowned at him resentfully, a visible cue that you were giving in without you having to say it. 

He stayed true to his word and locked the door on his way out, though knowing you could easily unlock it from the inside. You’d trudged into your bedroom, slamming the door behind you.   

Now you lay on Jason’s usual side of the bed, partially because you do miss him, partially because the bed feels a little less empty when you can’t see all the empty space. You know he was just trying to keep you safe after what was probably a rough start to the night, so you feel less than great that you’d yelled at him.

Your dwelling over the memory is interrupted by a quiet creak of the bedroom door. You blink up at him blearily, “Jay?” You sit up, furrowing your brow. You didn’t even hear him come home. “What’s wrong?” You figure he must be hurt to come in here—it’s not unknown for him to sleep on the couch if he feels like he did something wrong or upset you.   

Your eyes attempt to adjust to the darkness, scanning over him for any injuries. He’s out of his armor and in his regular clothes which means he must have showered already. And you know from dozens of nights patching him up that he always tends to his injuries before showering.

This leaves you confused, as you look up at him, waiting for an answer. “I can’t…I don’t want to sleep without you.” He whispers, eyes on the floor. 

You shuffle back into your usual spot near the wall and hold your hand out to him expectantly. You’re still a bit cross with him, but you miss him too much to care right now.

It takes him a second to move, but he eventually lingers away from the door and makes his way to the bed. He takes your hand as he climbs onto the bed, letting go only when you lay down after him, staring up at the ceiling next to him. 

You weren’t entirely expecting him to wrap his arms around you and tug you into his chest. Somewhere in the back of your mind you’d assumed he would lay on his side and you on yours and that would be enough for him to fall asleep with. Instead, he tightens his arms and buries his face into the crook of your neck. You lay there in silence for a couple minutes, both thinking.

“You’re mad.” He mumbles into your shoulder after a while. You know he feels badly about the dispute, you knew it while it was still happening. As hard as he tries, he’s not very good at hiding his emotions. Not with you, anyways.

You shrug slightly. “Barely. I’ll get over it. This is more important.”

He picks his head up to look at you, “I love you. You know that?”

You wiggle out of his grip a bit, making him frown. You use the new space to flip over to face him, before placing his arm back around your waist. You peek up at him, looking him in the eyes, “I do. You know I love you. Even when we fight.”

He looks at you like he’s a bit thrown off by your words. “I’m sorry. It was just…it was a rough night…I—I’m sorry.” He tells you dolefully.  

You shake your head, frowning. “Don’t be. I should’ve texted you.”

“It—yeah. Please. I just worry about you.” He looks so sad and it makes you feel somehow worse.

“I know,” you whisper, “I’m sorry.”  

“Don’t be.” He kisses your forehead, not moving away after.

You feel like you can finally relax and your tense body doesn’t take long to slacken in his hold. Soon after, he does the same, both of you closing your eyes. You feel your heart slow and your mind starts to find a space of peace.    

Jason didn’t get it at first.

Honestly, he didn’t really realize that you noticed things about him that even he didn’t see.

Your neighbor was having their place remodeled and you knew there would be construction going on near your apartment all day.

Jason didn’t really care, planning to bury his head under the pillow and trying to sleep through it. You however, seemed very adamant about getting out of the apartment that day. You’d left hours before the construction crew had even gotten there, telling him it was a nice day out.

It was an alright day, but he let you have your way.

You held his hand as you walked down the street, looking into shop windows and commenting on things you think he’d like.

You led him into a book store excitedly, telling him about how the author he’d been binging had just published something new. He didn’t even know that.

You were browsing the sections, flipping through books as you went. You peered across the shop at a kid holding an absolutely massive pile of books, who was clearly struggling to keep them in his arms.

His mother tried to help him but he shook his head and strided away independently, albeit very slowly. The weight of the books though, did get the best of him, and you could tell by the quivering in his arms that he was going to drop them.

“Loud noise.” You said quickly, seemingly out of the blue. Jason turned to you, confused, before seeing the stack the books splat flat onto the ground. It was indeed a loud noise.

He tilts his head at you, though you’re still busy watching the little boy as he throws his head back in frustration.

“What was that?”

You look at him, “He dropped his books.”

“Yeah, I saw. But why—”

His question gets cut off by the kid bursting into tears, wailing. You turn back to look at him, your gaze getting caught by the new book you’d been telling him about. “Ooh!”

You grab his hand and pull him over with you, smiling widely when you have the book in your hands. The sight of you makes him feel so warm so fast that he forgets about the odd interaction all together.

A couple hours later, you sit outside a cafe and eat lunch together, his back to the road, you sitting diagnal to him.

He’s telling you about the shit Damian got in trouble for at school last week, holding your hand with his right hand and eating with his left.

“He thinks he’s not going to get expelled for pulling shit like that every other week, it’s ridiculous.” He says, tossing his napkin down on the table.

Your smile is wavers as your eyes move past his shoulder looking down the block before widening, “Car—”

The sudden noise startles him enough to make him visibly jump, hand flying to where his holster would be. He looks over at the fender bender, shoulders relaxing.

He turns back to you to find your eyes looking far more worried than they should. You seem to be scanning his face, looking for something and he’s about to ask you what’s wrong when it sinks in.

He does get scared by unexpected loud sounds, doesn’t he? He never really thinks of it until it happens, but his mind is trained to expect gunshots or crowbars making impact.

It doesn’t happen often, but it noticeably takes a little piece out of him when it does.

“You…” he tries, but falters. He’s not even sure he’s processing this right.

He’s never seriously tried to fathom that you love him half as much as he loves you, though love doesn’t feel like a strong enough word. He lives and breathes for you, you’ve become a lifeline he’d been stranded without for most of his life. But now you're here and you’re everything, you’re in his head all the time, in every emotion he feels.

He thinks he’s here for you, that he was brought back from the dead because of you. You can’t possibly understand how much his heart is full of you, he doesn’t understand it himself.

He knows you love him, he’s gotten that through his head. But he can’t get a grasp on the idea that he’s equally matched in the who loves who the most battle.

Do you really care that much about him to go out of your way to keep track of things that might startle him? He knows there’s a million things about you that are in the back of his mind at any given time, but surely you don’t operate that same way with him?

Do you?

There’s this burning in his heart that aches and it only gets stronger when he sees you looking at him like that. So genuine. With care, with love.

He squeezes your hand, “I love you. More than anything.”

The look on your face sinks back into that sweet, adorable look that he’s so used to and it makes him want to scream.

You smile that bright smile and it sends his heart rocketing into oblivion. “I love you.” You squeeze his hand back, “More than everything.”

He feels like his heart might burst through his chest.

[mostly-imagines]

Careless Accidents

jason todd x fem!reader

aka you get hurt and jason’s pissed

warnings: reader’s wrist is accidentally sprained from being grabbed too hard

You could hear scuttling from somewhere else in the garden, an estate more than sizable enough than the game afoot.

You were under the distinct impression though that the bats and birds are playing with you similar to how they would a child. Slower, weaker, and less experienced than the big kids. You weren't complaining though. Because, frankly, it was stressful. They tend to operate more like they’re in a warzone than a game, you felt like you were about to be sniped out at any second.

Rightfully so, apparently, seeing how silently Stephanie had crept up on you.

“Hey,” Stephanie hissed, ignoring the way you jumped. “We’re doing alright for ourselves,” she said smugly. 

“Yeah,” you’d nodded, like you agreed with her more than you probably did. 

“Okay listen, I think the flag—” what flag? “—is by the fountain so, I think because there’s three of us and two of them, we should bait-and-switch.”

“We’re on teams?” you asked, no longer completely sure you know what you’re playing. 

“We are now!” she smiled, starting to run. “I’ll bait!”

She stopped briefly in her tracks and turned back to you hissing, “Don’t trust Cass,” before scurrying away.

Rather than sit around and wait there for…something?...to happen, you jumped up darting in the opposite direction with little to no indication whether this is a good move.

What you didn’t see is Cass rapidly approaching from your rear. 

What you also didn’t see was Dick crouched down in a row of shrubbery, which gave him the perfect opportunity to snatch your arm up and yank you down with him. You’d mewled a bit as your wrist made contact harshly with the grass, immediately buckling under you.

Cass was keen to your pain immediately, slowing her sprint to a stroll as she observed you.

“Are you okay?” she signs.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m good.” 

The response was instinctual and you didn’t actually have time to register whether or not you were okay by the time you gave it. 

You pushed up on your elbows, trying to figure out whether Dick is even on your team, but the way the others approached had you halting consideration. They’re savvy to the situation at a speed in which you can only attribute to their vigilantism, looking at you with concern. 

“You good?” Tim asked, approaching languidly.

“That looked like it hurt,” Cass commented, crouching down next to you to see your wrist better.

Dick shook his head, “No, she’s okay.” He turned to you, prodding, “You’re okay.”

“Yeah, I’m, um…” you winced, looking at your wrist. “It hurts a little.”

Cass examined it closely, tilting it gently to the side. “It might be sprained.”

Dick paled. 

“No.”

Tim pointed a thumb back towards the manor, “We can get it wrapped upstairs.”

“No.”

You were only then able to clock the barely contained grin on Stephanie’s face, begging to break.  

“Ooooh. He’s gonna kill you.”

Cass had then kindly offered to take you inside and wrap it up for you, which you accepted, unexpecting of the plus-one of Dick trailing behind you like a guilty puppy all the while.

“You know I didn’t mean to grab you that hard right? I—” 

Cass laughs quietly as she wraps the bandage around your wrist, amused by Dick’s now-third explanation/apology for the incident. 

“I know, Dick,” you say, trying to appease him. 

“I’m sorry,” he tells you genuinely, but you can tell there’s more there that he isn’t verbalizing.

You nod, “I know, Dick. It’s okay. It was just an accident.”

Cass pins the wrapping in place securely and with a smile, signs to you that she’s all done. 

You rotate your arm a bit, testing your movement under the wrap. As Cass leaves with the first aid kit, Dick remains sat at your side, leg thumping up and down.

He takes a deep breath, “What if…what if you avoid him until it heals?”

“Dick.”

He takes your uninjured hand in his with urgency in his eyes.

He looks down at your jointed hands before loosening his already mild grip significantly.

“Are you going to tell him?” he asks, looking like he’s bracing for bad news.

You shake your head sympathetically, “No. I can’t guarantee you that he won’t find out, but I won’t tell him.”

Dick takes a deep breath, looking at the ground with intense focus. “Okay. Okay.” He stands, “I need to go.”

You watch in amused bewilderment as he staggers out the door, looking around frantically. 

Within the next few minutes, he creates and enacts his plan A. He walks into the living room, sitting down next to a very disinterested Tim, eyes forward and serious.

“I’ll give you two grand right now if you tell him it was you.”

Tim barks out, “Absolutely not.” He looks at his brother, still laughing. “No fucking way.”

Dick breaks the serious facade immediately, looking at him. “Five.”

A deadpan from Tim. 

“You don’t have five thousand dollars.”

Dick throws his head back, back thudding against the couch. “Dude, please! He’ll kill me!”

Tim scoffs, “He’d kill me!”

Dick huffs, “No, it’s different for me! Do you have any idea how many times he told me not to do that?” 

“Well then it sounds like you fucked up,” Tim sneers.

“Oh my God.”

He takes off again, combing through different rooms in the house with hope of finding a quick but effective hiding place for, say, the next twenty years?

He bursts through the study, unwittingly interrupting Bruce and Alfred having a discussion over tea.

The latter sits up with a tense brow, “Master Dick?”

The former turns around in his seat, “What’s the matter?”

Dick struggles for a second before confessing, “I accidentally sprained someone's wrist.” 

Bruce scans his face slowly, nodding. “Alright…you’ll have to take responsibility for their patrol duties—”

Dick cuts him off with a sharp breath, “Said person doesn’t have any patrol duties to be affected...”

Bruce processes for a moment before shaking his head.

“I can’t help you.”

Dick’s panic takes over again, prompting him to continue his scurry through the room, towards the other door.

Alfred interrupts his process with a very logical argument, “You don’t think running away will make this worse, Master Dick?”

“I—I don’t know!” Dick whines, stopping in his tracks. “I don’t know what to do!”

Bruce purses his lips, gesturing, “Dick, when you make a mistake…you have to submit to the consequences, you know that.”

Dick gapes, “This is not a normal consequence!”

Meanwhile, you’ve busied yourself with fiddling with the knick knacks and mementos lining the shelves of Jason’s childhood bedroom. 

You’re admiring a picture of him and Alfred from when he was young as the door creaks open behind you. 

“Sweetheart?” Your boyfriend calls out, head barely poked in through the crack.

“Hey, Jay,” you smile, setting the picture frame back on the shelf.

He enters fully, covered in motor oil and grease, and smiles his sweet, easy smile when he sees you. 

Moving onto the next trinket on the shelf, you pick up a stuffed animal placed intentionally at the front. Your gaze finds the mirror, watching his reflection as he pulls the stained shirt off his back. 

You smile to yourself, noticing the way his back muscles flex as he adjusts. “How’s the bike?”

“Better than it was this morning,” he sighs. “Where’ve you been?”

He turns around to look at you, taking easy steps towards you. 

You return the toy elephant to its place, moving to face him. “Uh, we were outside, playing…at least three separate games at once.”

The second you’re in proximity, your hands join like it’s second nature. 

He nods, all too familiar with the family’s unique methods of gamefair.

“Did th—” He looks down at your intertwined hands, brow furrowing as soon as he spots the bandage wrapped around your wrist. “What happened?”

You glance down, shrugging. “Overexerted myself playing tag.”

He looks at you skeptically, but says nothing about it.

He turns your hand over gently, asking, “Is it sprained?”

You nod, relaxed. “Yeah. Cass said it’s mild.”

“Does it still hurt?”

“No,” you say, sweeping his hair back with your other hand. “Barely hurt then.”

He nods, but he doesn’t look satisfied with the conversation.

Regardless, he turns away again, shuffling through a drawer for a clean shirt. 

“You, uh, you wanna stay for dinner tonight?” he asks, pulling his arms through, his head following. 

“Yeah,” you say gaily. “Alfred said he’s making his ‘special spaghetti’, apparently it’s a household favorite?”

He wavers, halfway to between decisions. “Yeah…”

He huffs quietly, turning back to face you fully. “Can I see it?”

You nod, happy to ease his mind. 

You start to unwrap the bandaging, him doing half the work for you. The work is done silently until your wrist is exposed, revealing your bruised skin.

You both see it at the same time—the hand-shaped bruise wrapped around your wrist.

You’re both quiet for a second—him putting pieces together and you waiting for the shoe to drop.

He takes off suddenly, clearly having come to a likely very accurate conclusion about what had happened.

“Fucking idiot—”

You try for his hand but he’s out of reach before you can grab it.

“I’ll be right back,” he grumbles behind him.

“Jason—” you sigh, “At least help me wrap it back up first.”

He hesitates, halfway to the door, ultimately returning to you in defeat. He takes your forearm gently, scanning it over again before beginning to wrap it.

You watch his face closely, noting the clear vexation. “It was just an accident,” you tell him. 

He scoffs, “It better have been.”

You drop your shoulders and lull your head to the side. “Jason. I’m not made of glass, you can’t expect other people to act like it.”

“I don’t. I expect him to mind his own strength, and if he can’t do that, he needs to keep his fucking hands to himself.”

You sigh, “Just don’t do anything harsh. Please. I think he’s worried you’re gonna punch him.”

“He should be,” he says shortly. He finishes off the wrapping, pinning it in place firmly. 

You grab onto his forearm before he can pull away, “You’re not going to. Right?”

He doesn’t answer so you try to make his gaze meet yours, “Right?”

His eyes roll, “Yeah, fine.”

You smile, holding his face. “I love you.”

He huffs as though he’s inconvenienced, but confesses the obvious truth nonetheless. “I love you.”

He looks you in the eye, face serious. “You promise me it doesn’t hurt?”

“I promise,” you nod, brushing your fingers against his palm.

“Dick!”

The angry voice bellows through the tall halls of the manor, heavy footsteps thudding.

He stomps into the living room, Tim, Cass, and Stephanie watching the entryway with wide eyes. 

“Where is he?”

Unwitting shoulders shrug and heads shake. Truthfully, at that. Dick, smartly, did not tell anyone where he was hiding. 

Jason scans the trios faces, looking for any sign of apprehension.

He clocks the grin shamelessly plastered across his sister's face quickly. “Stephanie?”

“I don’t know,” she says honestly. “But let me know when you find him, I wanna see—”

But Jason’s moving onto the next room before she can get the last words out.

He enters the dining room, looking right to left before finding his target, halfway to stuffing himself behind the fine china cabinet in the corner.

There’s a brief, tense moment in between where the pair realize what they’re seeing and when Dick sets off in a sprint towards the kitchen, Jason quick on his tail. 

“Really? Really?” Jason shouts. 

“It was an accident! It was a fucking—” 

He narrowly dodges a swipe from Jason, then ducking before a ladle could make contact with his head.

“Are you stupid? Are you the dumbest motherf—”

Dick rounds the kitchen island as fast as possible, Jason testing him on the other side.

Dick takes a breath, “Dude, it’s fine now, it’s not that big of a—”

Jason recoils, “‘It’s not a big deal’? Come here. Let me sprain your wrist, asshole!”

He circles the counter quicker than the elder boy can think to move away and lunges at him. 

Dick throws his hands up in front of him, “Wait, wait, wait! Truce! Truce! Truce?”

Jason drops his shoulders, leveling his older brother with a look. “You can’t call a truce if you’re the only one who did anything wrong.”

“I…” It doesn’t take him long to piece together that his defense makes no sense, so he resorts to his last option. 

“Please?” Dick asks, nothing short of imploring. 

Jason relents—slightly—upon hearing his brother's tone, but still finds it in him to shove him, though not nearly as hard as he’d been planning to. 

“I told you a hundred fucking times not to grab her so hard—” 

Dick nods heavily, waving a hand. “I know, I know—”

“Clearly you fucking don’t!” Jason shouts. He huffs, running a hand over his face. “You sprained her wrist. You’ve been doing this vigilante shit for fifteen years, how do you still not fucking know how to control your own strength?”

Dick grimaces, “I do! I do, I just screwed up, I’m sorry!”

“Don’t—” Jason narrowly holds back a scowl, “Did you apologize to her?”

 “Yeah, of course I did!”

For a split second, Jason looks ready to keep arguing before purposefully dropping the anger from his body. 

The resulting relief almost drowns Dick.

It only lasts a moment though, before Jason looks at him again, sneering, “Idiot,” before pushing him once more. 

“Jason.”

Your voice has Jason dropping all turbulence in an instant. He and Dick both whip their heads towards the door, equally unexpecting of the interruption. 

You tilt your head at your boyfriend with a knowing but disappointed stare.

He looks back at you like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar, lips parted.

“I didn’t hit him.”

⭐️ your options are: (1) reblog fics or (2) be a little bitch ⭐️

[shisuni]

ᯓ➤ matching for christmas ⊹܀˙

← ʙᴀᴄᴋ. ⋮ ⌞ jason todd ✘ reader ⌝ .ᐟ .ᐟ

ৎׅ ׄ synopsis ⋮ You get kidnapped and branded by the joker on christmas. The bat-family sees Jason unravel. word cnt. 14.6k

cw ›››› torture, branding, suicidal language, violence, blood, gore

Something is wrong.

Jason feels it like a pressure change—subtle, almost polite—but it crawls under his helmet and settles behind his eyes. It hasn’t clicked, not cleanly. Not yet. He hasn’t asked. Hasn’t said a word through the harbor sweep, through the cold iron stink of saltwater and oil and Christmas rot. A small job. The kind that should feel easy. The kind that still manages to choke the air out of his lungs anyway.

Everyone’s moving like the night might shatter if they stop.

Tim keeps choosing his words too carefully, syllables slowed and smoothed like he’s sanding down sharp edges. Dick’s doing that thing where he smiles first and speaks second—but the timing’s off, the warmth a fraction too late, like a recording lagging behind the video. Damian watches Jason more than the perimeter, eyes sharp, calculating, guarded. Stephanie hasn’t joked once. Not even a cheap jab to him, not even under her breath. That alone feels wrong enough to tilt the world sideways.

Bruce didn’t come.

That absence is loud. A hollow where a presence should be, echoing through comms and instinct alike. The Cave, he’d said. As if that explained anything. As if Bruce ever sits things out without a reason that claws.

Cassandra says nothing—but she’s closer. Close enough that Jason can feel her awareness like static along his spine. When the group splits, she falls into step beside him without discussion, without a glance. Just there. Solid. Protective in a way that feels less like trust and more like vigilance. As if she’s guarding him.

That’s when unease really sinks its teeth in.

Bruce didn’t need all of them.

Didn’t need six sets of boots scraping concrete, six heartbeats crowding the same dark. Dick alone could’ve dismantled this whole thing with half the effort. Hell, Jason himself could’ve wrapped it up fast and bloody and been home already. Instead, they’re stacked together, overlapping, slowing each other down like they’re afraid to let him out of their sight.

He agreed because no one argued about his presence. Because no one questioned whether he was needed. Because the silence around that decision felt intentional.

That should’ve been his first real warning.

Between two groups of thugs, he had ducked behind a row of shipping containers, Gotham’s lights bleeding gold across the black water. He had pulled out his phone and called you, already rehearsing the apology in his head. Late for presents. Again. You’d tease him, pretend to scold, maybe force him to wrap some gifts for your co-workers. 

You didn't answer.

Probably a bath, he told himself. You’d mentioned one. Candles. The fancy bath salts you bought. Something soft to push the cold out of your bones. The thought settles him, briefly. He sends a text instead—short, careful. An apology. An I love you so much that he doesn’t overthink, because with you, he never has to.

You always know what he means.

The phone stays quiet in his pocket.

No buzz. No vibration brushing against his thigh like it usually does, grounding him, tethering him back to something warm and real. He told himself it’s nothing. That you’re relaxed, distracted, asleep. That the night is just heavy, that Gotham is doing what Gotham always does—making ghosts out of shadows and dread out of coincidence.

Still.

When he looks back at the others, he notices the way Dick avoids his eyes now. The way Tim’s gaze flicks to Jason’s pocket and away again. The way Damian’s jaw tightens when Jason shifts his weight, like he’s bracing for impact. Cassandra meets his eyes once—just once—and there’s something there that twists low and sharp in his chest. Not fear. Not exactly.

Knowing. Jason doesn’t ask. He doesn’t press.

But the harbor feels too quiet, the night stretched thin and listening, and for the first time since he sent that text, a cold, irrational thought curls in his gut—

That whatever is wrong didn’t start here.

And that somewhere far from the water, far from the mission, something precious has already slipped out of reach.

“That was the last of them,” Jason says, voice rough through the helmet, as Tim finishes cinching zip-ties around the final goon and anchors him to a rust-flaked shipping container. The plastic bites down with a sharp click that echoes too loudly across the concrete. The man mumbled insanities through spit.

The harbor exhales around them—cold wind off the water, carrying brine and diesel and something rotten that’s been sitting too long. Sodium lights flicker overhead, casting everything in jaundiced gold and long, distorted shadows that stretch and tangle at their feet. The concrete is damp beneath Jason’s boots, slick with mist and old oil, the kind of surface that never really dries no matter how many ‘sunny’ days Gotham pretends to have.

“We should do another check around the harbor,” Dick says.

He’s already kneeling, already breaking the man's phone in half with practiced efficiency, grinding it into the concrete with his heel until the screen spider webs and dies. He doesn’t look up when he says it. Doesn’t grin. Doesn’t even sound casual about it.

Jason lifts an eyebrow, slow, deliberate. His gaze slides to Damian automatically—because Damian is usually the first to shoot an idea like that down, sharp and impatient and blunt as a blade.

Instead, Damian just mutters, “Tim could be wrong.”

Mumbles it. Like he’s afraid the words might carry.

That alone sends a small, unpleasant chill up Jason’s spine.

Tim doesn’t argue. Doesn’t bristle. He straightens from the goon and dusts his gloves together, eyes flicking—not to Jason—but to Stephanie. The movement is quick, practiced, like muscle memory.

“Do you want to take the gates with me?” Tim says, too smooth. Too rehearsed. “Jason and Dick could go along the—”

“What?” Jason cuts in before he can finish, blinking once. “You two were perched on the gates the entire op. What’re you talking about?”

The wind gusts harder, rattling loose chains and setting a tarp snapping somewhere down the dock. Water slaps against concrete pylons in a slow, hollow rhythm. 

Jason suddenly feels like the sound is counting something down.

“It wouldn’t hurt to double-check,” Tim says, rising to his feet.

He still won’t meet Jason’s eyes.

Jason’s jaw tightens. He shifts his weight, the concrete cold and unforgiving through the thinning soles of his boots, and for a split second his mind drifts—unbidden—to you. To the warmth of your kitchen lights. To the way you’d probably be halfway through setting out plates by now, humming something low and off-key, waiting for him in that way that makes him want to claw his soul out and hand it over to you. 

The thought lands soft, intimate, grounding—and then slips through his fingers when he remembers his phone, silent and heavy in his pocket.

“…You guys don’t need me for that,” Jason says, firmer now. There’s an edge to it, something protective and stubborn. He already has plans. A timeline. A promise he intends to keep. “Seriously. If you want to sweep again, even one person could—”

Dick finally looks up.

It’s just a glance, quick and loaded, the kind Jason’s learned to read over a lifetime of almosts and unsaids. Cassandra shifts closer at the same moment, her shoulder nearly brushing his, her presence steady and deliberate. Jason doesn't think she's ever willingly touched him in his life. Stephanie opens her mouth like she’s about to say something—anything—then closes it again.

The harbor feels tighter suddenly. Smaller. Like the stacks of containers have leaned in, hemming them closer, their corrugated sides looming like silent witnesses. The wind cuts sharper off the water, needling through the seams of Jason’s jacket, and somewhere deep in his chest, that pressure builds again.

Jason turns fully to Damian.

“Kid, I swear to God, tell me what—”

Damian snaps at the exact same moment Cassandra moves. Her hand closes around Jason’s shoulder, firm and sudden, fingers digging in through armor like she’s trying to anchor him to the concrete before he does something irreversible. The contact is intimate in a way that feels wrong, alarmed.

“How the hell should I know? They didn't tell me—” Damian bites back, voice sharp, flaring too fast, too hot.

“Damian!” Dick hisses, the sound cutting through the night like a blade dragged too quickly from its sheath. He’s already moving, stepping between them without quite committing to either side, hands up in a placating gesture that lands closer to panic than calm. He turns to Jason almost immediately, words tumbling over each other. “Come on, dude, let’s just go check the security towers and—”

“That’s going to take another hour,” Jason cuts in.

The words come out flat, but there’s steel underneath. He shrugs Cassandra’s hand off—not rough, but final—and reaches into his pocket. The harbor lights blur for a second as his fingers close around his phone, the familiar shape of something that connects him to you grounding him. It’s 10:20. He knows that without looking but checks anyway. He’s been counting the minutes since the mission dragged past its supposed end.

“I had plans,” he says, quieter now, but more dangerous for it. “Let me at least—”

The batarang whistles through the air.

Jason barely has time to register the movement—Damian’s arm snapping forward, wrist precise, expression tight and furious—before metal slams into his hand. The impact jars up his arm, sharp and biting, and the phone slips free, spinning once before it hits the concrete.

Crack.

The screen fractures instantly, a spiderweb of dead glass blooming beneath the sodium lights before the device skids to a stop near Jason’s boot. The harbor seems to hold its breath. Even the wind falters, the water’s slap against the pylons momentarily muted, as if the night itself is listening.

Jason stares down at it.

At the dark screen. On the way his reflection breaks apart in the shattered glass.

Jason’s gaze lifts slowly from the ruin at his feet.

It settles on Dick.

“Call Bruce.”

The words aren’t loud. They don’t need to be. They cut anyway—clean, controlled, edged with something that’s starting to slip. Dick falters under it, hand coming up to rub at the back of his neck, eyes flicking anywhere but Jason’s face. The harbor lights stutter overhead, one of them buzzing like it’s about to give out, bathing Dick in a sickly gold that makes him look younger. 

Guilty.

“What, you gonna tattle?” Dick says, trying for levity and missing it by miles. His laugh lands wrong, brittle against the cold. “C’mon, Damian's just in a mood. I was going to surprise you with burgers but I thought the kid would spill. I’ll buy you a new phone, okay? Just—”

“Call Bruce,” Jason repeats.

This time it’s a hiss, dragged out through clenched teeth, something feral and fraying around the edges. The wind picks up again, slicing between the containers, rattling loose metal and carrying the sharp tang of rain that never quite falls in Gotham. Jason turns his head, slow and deliberate, until his eyes find Cassandra.

She hasn’t moved. She’s watching him like she’s afraid he might break.

“…He’s busy,” Cass says.

Her voice is barely there. Smaller than usual. Soft enough that Tim, standing a good ten feet away, doesn’t hear it at all. The words dissolve into the night almost as soon as they leave her mouth, swallowed by wind and water and distance—but Jason hears them. Every syllable.

Busy.

Something inside him tightens, winding down to a thin, dangerous thread.

His hand comes up to his comm without conscious thought. He adjusts it once, fingers steady despite the way his pulse thuds too hard, too fast. The harbor seems to lean in again—the stacked containers looming like watchful giants, the river below churning black and endless. 

Gotham breathes around him, damp and unforgiving.

“B,” Jason says.

Sharp. Precise. A single syllable fired into the dark like a flare.

Static answers him. Wind whistling through steel corridors. The distant cry of something alive and miserable echoing off the water. No voice. No correction. No irritation crackling back through the line.

Just silence. It stretches. Pulls thin. Grows teeth.

Jason exhales through his nose, a humorless breath that fogs faintly in the cold air. He thinks of you again—too vividly now. The way your voice softens when you say his name. The way you always pick up, even when he thinks you shouldn’t. The way silence has never belonged between the two of you.

His jaw locks. Fuck this shit, I should be at home with her.

Jason moves before anyone can stop him—before anyone even realizes he’s decided something.

He’s across the concrete in three long strides, boots splashing through shallow puddles that mirror Gotham’s jaundiced lights in broken pieces. Damian doesn’t flinch when Jason grabs his comm. Doesn’t pull back. Doesn’t protest. That, more than anything, makes Jason’s teeth grind.

He clicks the emergency signal to the Batcomputer—once, twice, a break, two clicks hard enough that it hurts his thumb—then rips the comm free. His helmet follows, clattering against the concrete with a hollow, echoing crack that ricochets between the shipping containers. The sound feels too loud, too exposed. Jason presses the comm to his bare ear, cold metal biting into skin.

No one stops him.

Not Dick. Not Tim. Not Stephanie. Cassandra watches with that same quiet intensity, hands flexing like she’s bracing for impact. They stand there and let it happen, like this is how it was always meant to go—like they’ve already accepted that Jason finding out is inevitable, but telling him would be worse. Like this is some twisted test, or penance, or family tradition he never agreed to.

The harbor hums low and restless. Wind slides through steel corridors, rattling chains, carrying the stink of oil and brine and rain-soaked concrete. Gotham feels awake in that way it only does when something bad is already in motion.

“Robin?” Bruce’s voice cuts through the static, sharp and immediate. Too immediate. There’s an edge to it Jason hasn’t heard in years—tight, almost nervous, parental. “Robin, what’s wrong?”

Jason almost laughs.

Instead, his mouth twists.

“I’m going home, old man,” he hisses, already turning away from Damian. “What was this? Ya trying to tire me out, or did you get mind-controlled again? ‘Cause everyone here apparently likes you enough to not tell me the truth.”

“Jason—”

“Red Hood,” Jason snaps, the correction coming fast and mean. He bends, scoops his helmet up by the chin guard, and starts walking toward the exit between the containers where the harbor opens up to the road. “What happened to keeping hero names on comms? Or are you the only one allowed to break rules tonight?”

“Red Hood, just give me—”

“It’s a lousy gang!” Jason shouts, voice tearing loose now, bouncing off steel and concrete and dark water. “They don’t even crack the top twenty. Damian could’ve done this shit by himself.”

He doesn’t look back, but he knows they’re following him. He can feel it—the weight of their footsteps, the way they trail just close enough to intervene if he breaks. Later, it’ll hit him why Tim made sure every single goon was double zip-tied, wrists biting white beneath plastic. Insurance. 

Tim knew Jason would find out. 

Knew none of them would be coming back to clean this up.

“Red Hood—”

“Merry Christmas, B,” Jason cuts in, bitter and sharp as broken glass. “Please don’t call.”

“JASON—”

Bruce’s voice snaps through the comm like a gunshot, dragging Jason straight back into another life, another night, another version of himself that answered to that tone. “She’s in danger. And if you want any chance of seeing her again, get to the Batcave—”

The line goes dead.

Not static. Not interference.

Bruce cut it himself.

Jason stops, because there's only one person he could be talking about to send all five of them with him.

The harbor seems to lurch, the world tilting just enough to make his balance feel theoretical. The wind howls between the containers, louder now, like Gotham exhaling something foul and satisfied. Water slaps hard against concrete pylons below, relentless, counting seconds Jason no longer owns.

Slowly—too slowly—he turns.

He looks at them. At Dick’s pale face. At Tim’s clenched jaw. At Damian’s rigid stillness. At Stephanie, eyes bright with unshed panic. At Cassandra, whose gaze is already on him, steady and mournful, like she’s watching something crack.

They look at him like he’s glass.

Like he’s a bomb they’re waiting to defuse—or clean up after.

Jason doesn’t give them the chance.

“Fuck all of you,” he spits, the words coming out broken and small despite his best efforts.

Then he runs.

Out of the harbor. Out of the sodium lights and rust and the weight of too many eyes. Jason runs like Gotham itself is on his heels, boots striking concrete in a brutal rhythm that drowns out thought—or tries to. The city stretches around him in jagged silhouettes and wet stone, skyscrapers looming like blackened ribs against a low, churning sky. Clouds hang heavy and swollen, bruised purple and gray, threatening rain they never quite release. Gotham loves the anticipation of pain more than the act itself.

His blood is loud in his ears. Too loud. Every heartbeat punches through his ribs, frantic and unforgiving, as if his body already knows something his mind refuses to accept.

Toward the manor. Toward answers.

Toward the awful, creeping certainty settling into his bones that whatever Gotham has taken this time, it didn’t take lightly—and it didn’t take something he can afford to replace.

He takes the shorter way.

Fire escapes. Rooftops slick with mist. Narrow alleys that smell like old rain and older sins. He vaults gaps without slowing, coat snapping behind him like a torn banner, the city blurring into streaks of shadow and light. This route cuts close to your place. Too close. He doesn’t consciously choose it; his body does, muscle memory dragging him along a path his heart has memorized better than any map.

And then—

Mid-leap, suspended between one rooftop and the next, he sees it.

Your building sits quiet against the skyline, dark in a way it never is. Your lights are off. All of them. The windows—your windows—are shattered, glass glittering weakly under the city’s glow like fallen stars. The balcony rail is smeared with something darker than shadow.

Blood.

The word doesn’t form. Not fully. His brain skids around it, refuses to give it weight. At most, he tells himself, you’re hurt. Something small. A cut. A scrape. A stupid accident that looks worse than it is. You’ll laugh it off when he gets there, scold him for worrying, tell him he’s being dramatic again.

Because you’re untouchable.

That’s the rule his mind has always clung to. Gotham can drown him in filth and violence and rot, but you—you—are clean. Untarnished. Something soft the city hasn’t learned how to bruise yet. You exist outside its reach, outside its hunger. Gotham takes things like Jason. It breaks people like him. It doesn’t get to put its hands on you.

It can’t have you.

Because if you’re hurt—if you’re really hurt—then everything Jason has built inside himself caves in at once. Every fragile structure, every careful compromise, every promise he’s made to stay standing for you. There’s no version of the world where you’re broken and he survives it intact.

He lands hard, barely absorbing the impact before he’s running again, lungs burning, throat raw. The manor rises ahead of him through the trees like a dark monument, windows glowing warm and oblivious against the night. Too slow. The gates are too slow. The doors are too slow.

Jason doesn’t bother.

He barrels straight for a ground-floor window and drives his elbow through it without hesitation. Glass explodes inward, sharp and screaming, biting into skin. He doesn’t feel it—not really—until he’s inside, boots skidding onto the polished floor, breath tearing out of him in harsh, uneven pulls.

Blood runs freely down his forearm, drips onto the pale carpet in dark, blooming stains.

It looks wrong there. Violent. Out of place, just like the blood on your balcony.

Jason stares at it for half a second too long, chest heaving, and something in him splinters quietly—because now he knows. The city has already touched you and it has never, not once, let go without breaking something in return.

Jason doesn’t slow down in the Cave.

The platform is still lowering when he’s already moving, boots striking metal too hard, too fast, the sound ricocheting off stone and steel. The Batcave yawns around them—vast and echoing, all cold water and colder rock, computer screens throwing pale blue light across jagged walls. The waterfall roars like it’s trying to drown the night itself, a constant, punishing noise that usually steadies him.

Tonight it only sharpens the edges.

Bruce turns at the last possible second. His eyes flick first to Jason’s face, then to the blood smeared down his arm, dripping steadily onto the pristine metal floor. Bruce’s mouth tightens. Not in anger. In calculation. In fear he refuses to name.

Jason shoves him.

Hard.

Bruce’s back slams into the Batcomputer console, screens rattling, data stuttering for half a heartbeat. A lesser man would’ve been airborne. Bruce Wayne could have thrown Jason across the Cave without effort—could have ended this in a clean, controlled second.

He doesn’t.

Jason knows he won’t.

“Where is she,” Jason spits, the words tearing out of him raw and shaking. His hands fist in Bruce’s cape, knuckles white, trembling despite the strength coiled beneath them. The fabric bunches beneath his grip like it might rip if he pulls any harder. “Where is she?”

Bruce lifts his hands slowly, carefully—not in surrender, but in containment. Like approaching a live wire. His voice, when he speaks, is measured to the point of pain.

“…Jason.”

The name alone is an attempt. An anchor. Bruce is already running scenarios, already gauging angles and exits and how much damage Jason could do if this slips another inch. He knows Jason’s tells. Knows the way his breathing has gone uneven, the way his eyes are too bright, too fixed. Knows this isn’t rage yet.

This is terror.

“Don’t,” Bruce says quietly. Not commanding. Pleading, buried deep beneath control. “Just—listen to me.”

Jason laughs once, short and broken, the sound scraping his throat raw. “No. You don’t get to slow this down. You don’t get to prepare me.”

Bruce swallows. “…Joker—” he begins.

And the world fractures.

The word lands heavy and obscene between them, fouling the air of the cave like poison gas. Joker. The name crawls under Jason’s armor, past muscle and bone, straight into the place where you live inside him.

Suddenly, you’re not untouchable.

You’re not the one clean thing Gotham never got its hands on. Not the soft place Jason runs to when the city claws at him too hard. Not the warmth in his bed, the light in his kitchen, the voice that says his name like it belongs to something human.

You’re not safe.

You’re not distant.

You’re not protected by the simple, impossible belief that the worst things in the world know better than to touch you.

You’re real.

You’re fragile.

You’re reachable.

Jason’s grip tightens without him meaning to, breath hitching violently in his chest. His mind fills with images he refuses to finish forming—broken glass, blood on pale surfaces, your windows shattered open to the night the same way his chest feels split open now. He thinks of your hands. Your laugh. The way you look at him like he’s something worth keeping.

And now—

Now you’re the blood he’s already wearing.

The blood he’s going to feel soaking into his gloves tonight.

Bruce sees it happen. Sees the moment Jason slips past anger and into something far more dangerous. His own heart lurches, sharp and traitorous. This—this is what he’s been afraid of since the second he knew Joker was involved. Not Jason lashing out blindly.

Jason focused.

Emotional.

Unanchored.

“Jason,” Bruce says again, softer now, steady as bedrock despite the fear tightening his chest. “I need you to stay with me. I need you here. Because if you go out there like this—”

Jason’s eyes snap back to him, glassy and feral and devastatingly alive.

“If I don’t go,” Jason says hoarsely, “she dies.”

“If you go,” Bruce says, low and sharp, the words cutting through the roar of the Cave, “you die—and you could lose her at the same time.”

The Batcave hums around them, fluorescent light washing the rock walls in cold blue, computer screens flickering with restless data. The waterfall crashes endlessly behind Bruce, mist clinging to the air, dampening everything it touches. It feels like the Cave is breathing—slow, heavy, watchful.

Bruce moves closer and grips Jason’s jacket with both hands, fingers clutching the leather like it’s the last solid thing in the world. He holds on the way a man holds a ledge he’s already slipping from, hoping friction alone might be enough to keep someone from falling.

It isn’t.

“Where is she,” Jason says.

His voice is flat. Too controlled. His eyes have already left Bruce, already slid to the Batcomputer, to the glowing map littered with red and yellow pings like open wounds across Gotham’s body. Each marker pulses faintly, alive and accusing.

He doesn’t notice his siblings closing in—Dick’s careful steps, Tim’s rigid stillness, Damian hovering sharp and coiled like a drawn blade.

“She’s alive,” Bruce says quickly, desperately. “She wasn’t the only one—at least four other children and three women—”

Jason turns his head.

The look he gives Bruce is devastating in its emptiness. Eyes glassed over, jaw set too tight, brows drawn together like the world has narrowed to a single, unbearable point.

“Do you honestly think I give a damn about them right now?”

The words aren’t shouted. They don’t need to be. They land heavy, obscene in their honesty, and Bruce’s grip tightens reflexively, knuckles whitening against Jason’s jacket.

“I know you don’t,” Bruce snaps back, frustration bleeding through control. “Which is why I didn’t tell you she was taken. Because we need a plan that keeps everyone who was captured safe—”

“At the risk she dies in the process?” Jason cuts in.

Then—he stills.

Something shifts. His hands loosen, falling away from Bruce’s cape as if the fabric has suddenly burned him. His gaze slides, sharp and intentional, and locks onto Tim.

“How long,” Jason says.

The question is steady. Solid. Frighteningly calm.

Tim swallows and flicks a glance at Bruce—a silent check, a plea, a habit Jason has seen a thousand times. Jason shoves Bruce’s hand aside and crosses the distance in two strides, grabbing Tim by the shoulders, fingers digging in through armor.

“Don’t,” Jason hisses, thumbs pressing hard, grounding, painful. “Don’t look at him.”

The words aren’t just for Tim. They’re for Jason too.

He vaguely registers Dick saying his name, Stephanie’s voice tight with panic somewhere behind him, but it all dissolves into a dull ringing as he stares down at Tim. Tim doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t pull away. He meets Jason’s gaze head-on.

“How long,” Jason repeats. “Where.”

Tim exhales, slow and controlled, the way he does when delivering bad news. “Two hours,” he says quietly. “Warehouse two blocks from Crime Alley. Behind that busted playground.”

Crime Alley.

The name echoes through the Cave like a curse, sinking into Jason’s chest and blooming outward, cold and malignant. Of course it’s there. Of course Joker chose that place—layers of history piled atop rot, a shrine built from other people’s pain.

Jason releases Tim slowly, hands trembling now, control finally beginning to crack.

Two hours.

Two hours of you alone with the man who taught Gotham how to laugh while it kills.

The Batcomputer hums on, indifferent. Gotham’s skyline glows faintly on the monitors—jagged towers under a bruised sky, rain finally starting to smear the camera feeds, streaking the city in gray. Somewhere out there, windows are broken. Somewhere out there, that cashmere scarf he wrapped and placed under your tree stays un-wrapped.

Jason understands then—with a clarity so sharp it almost feels merciful—that plans are a luxury meant for people who still believe time is something they own.

Time has never belonged to him.

Because you—you—aren’t alone. You’re trapped with seven other people. Four of them children, Bruce had said, like that word didn’t rearrange Jason’s insides completely. His mind does something traitorous then, something he hates himself for even acknowledging: it calculates. It knows how these things go. It knows Joker’s sense of theater, his appetite for cruelty, his fondness for leaving one survivor behind as punctuation.

And the last one standing is never the strongest.

It’s the smallest. 

You would be dying before those kids.

Jason’s breath stutters, just once.

“Jason,” Bruce says from the Batcomputer, voice tight, forced into calm the way it always is when he’s terrified. The blue glow paints him hollow, all sharp angles and restraint. “Don’t make me stop you. The cops are on their way. Joker just wants cash.”

For the first time since the harbor, the noise in Jason’s head goes quiet.

Not peaceful—focused.

Everything narrows down to Bruce. To the way his shoulders are squared like a barricade. To the way his hands hover, uncertain, like he’s trying to decide whether to reach out or brace for impact. Jason’s heart hammers so hard it hurts, louder than the waterfall, louder than any threat Batman could ever make.

“If you even try, Bruce,” Jason says.

He doesn’t look at him when he says it. He can’t. The name comes out wrong in his mouth—too raw, too intimate, scraped down to bone. Instead, he keeps his eyes on Tim, standing rigid in front of him, small in a way Jason suddenly can’t stop seeing. He hopes—distantly, uselessly—that he isn’t glaring at his little brother. Hopes Tim understands this isn’t anger.

Just pure desperation. His last attempt, his last shot.

“Ill fucking shoot myself. I’ll make sure you know it’s your fault,” Jason continues, voice low and shaking despite his effort to keep it steady. “I’ll use my gun. And if you tie me up today, I’ll wait until next week. If you lock me down for a week, I’ll wait a month. I’ll do it.”

He swallows.

Because that’s the only thing that’s ever worked. The only language Bruce Wayne never ignores.

Dick moves fast—too fast—grabbing Jason’s arm where it’s still braced near Tim, fingers digging in hard. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” he shouts, panic cracking straight through his anger.

Jason turns on him then, eyes blazing, voice breaking loose at last.

“Would you be this still?” Jason yells back. “If that was me with Joker again? If it was me instead of her—would you have left me there for the police to find? Again?”

The word hangs between them, heavy and damning.

Again.

Jason knows Dick well enough to see it land. To watch his brother’s grip falter, fingers loosening like they’ve forgotten what they were holding onto in the first place. Dick’s face goes pale, mouth parting uselessly, and Jason twists the knife—not because he wants to hurt him, but because he needs them to understand.

“This,” Jason snaps. “This is why none of you fucking knew about her.”

He looks at all of them now—really looks. At Bruce, frozen behind the console like a man staring down a live bomb. At Dick, wrecked with guilt.

“If you can’t even see me beyond a mistake you made,” Jason says, voice hoarse, “there was no way you wouldn’t have seen her as that too. And I love her too much for that.”

The words leave him hollowed out.

Then he’s gone.

The Cave swallows the echo of his footsteps, leaving only the roar of the waterfall and the hum of machines that suddenly feel pointless. No one moves to stop him. No one even tries.

It takes Tim a full minute to cross the platform and reach the Batcomputer, fingers hovering uselessly over keys he knows by heart.

It takes Cassandra four times as long to find a part of Bruce that still moves—some small, human place in his arm or shoulder that isn’t locked rigid like a man bracing for an explosion he knows is already ticking down.

Dick follows Jason’s trail almost immediately. And Damian follows Dick.

You don’t remember the last five hours.

They’re gone—hollowed out—like someone reached into your head and scooped the time away with a careless hand. The last thing you have is small and warm and ordinary: the coffee table between the couch and the window, set for two. Plates aligned just so. The new glasses you bought with Jason on that stupidly perfect thrift-store date, thin and elegant and impractical. You’d laughed about them, about how easy they’d be to break. Jason had pretended to scold you, fingers warm around yours as he tugged you toward the bookshelves, already stacking paperbacks in his arms like treasure.

You’d bought homeware. A vintage mirror with a gold edge, slightly warped, the kind that makes everything look softer than it is.

Jason always said you needed better locks. You realize it numbly.

He always said it gently, like a suggestion instead of a warning. Like he was talking about replacing a lightbulb or buying better coffee. You brushed him off every time, smiling, pressing a kiss into his shoulder, telling him Gotham wasn’t that bad. That you were fine. That you were safe.

And you were right. You always are.

Because an extra lock wouldn’t have stopped the man with the red smile.

It wouldn’t have stopped hands tangling in your hair, fingers tight and merciless as he dragged you across your rug, skin burning where it scraped against the fibers. It wouldn’t have stopped the way your mirror shattered when he slammed you against it, glass singing as it broke, your own reflection splintering into a hundred terrified pieces that stared back at you with wide, unbelieving eyes.

It wouldn’t have stopped the way he looked at you.

He crouched in front of you like this was intimate. Like this was a secret. His smile stretched too far, paint cracked and smeared, eyes bright with something wrong and delighted and ancient. 

Joker tilted his head, studying you the way a child studies an insect pinned to cork.

“Here’s the other lovebird,” he murmured, voice lilting, almost fond. “Ohhh… how cute you are.”

You remember thinking—absurdly, desperately—that Jason would hate that word. That he’d bristle at it, roll his eyes, pull you closer just to prove a point. You remember the ache of missing him hitting harder than the pain at first, your mind reaching for him the way it always does when the world goes wrong.

Jason would know what to do.

Jason would make this stop.

The thought is a comfort even now, curled tight in your chest, fragile but stubborn. You cling to it as the man stands, as one of the shadows behind him passes up an old, rusted crowbar. The metal is pitted and dark, flaking with age and something older still. It smells like iron and damp and rot.

It doesn’t take a lock to stop that.

It doesn’t take a security system to stop the sound your bones make when he brings it down.

The pain comes in blinding flashes—white-hot, nauseating, wrong. Your legs scream before you do, nerves lighting up in protest, your body trying to fold in on itself, trying to protect something already broken. You taste blood, copper and thick, your teeth chattering even as your throat burns raw from crying out.

Through it all, you think of Jason.

Of his hands—gentle despite their strength. Of the way he says your name like it’s something precious, something he’s afraid to drop. You think of his laugh, low and surprised, the way he softens when it’s just the two of you and Gotham can’t see him. You think of the books still stacked on the table, waiting to be read, of the glasses that shattered just like the mirror did.

Of how he warned you.

Of how he would be here already if he knew.

The room feels wrong—tilted, smeared with shadow, the air thick and sour. Blood pools where it shouldn’t, dark against your floor, soaking into the rug you picked out together. The city hums outside your broken windows, indifferent and vast, neon bleeding into the night like nothing is wrong at all.

You breathe when you can. You hold onto Jason’s name like a prayer you’re afraid to say out loud.

Because if he comes—when he comes—you need to believe there will still be something left of you for him to find.

Your consciousness returns in fragments, drifting in and out the same way you remember nights with him. Not clean breaks. Not mercy. Just gaps.

A void of sleep.

Jason easing your window open like the city might hear him, hands raised in mock surrender, voice low and careful. I didn’t mean to wake you… shh… go back to bed. The mattress dips, familiar weight settling beside you, warmth bleeding into your back.

A void of sleep.

Jason in your bathroom, the light too bright, the mirror fogged. Gotham’s blood and grime rinsed down the drain while he rubs his hair dry with one of your soft, ridiculous pink towels. He smiles at you through the doorway, sheepish and fond, promises he’ll be there in a second. He always is.

A void of sleep.

Jason shifting beside you, breath warm against the delicate skin beneath your ear. His arm tightens in his sleep, possessive without knowing it, like even unconscious he’s afraid the world might take you if he lets go. He murmurs your name—broken, reverent.

A void of sleep.

White hands. Cracked paint. Fingers threading through your hair, slick and tangled with blood. The touch is intimate in the worst way, scalp burning as he hums—no, sings—a childish tune about robins, voice lilting and wrong, laughter bubbling beneath it like rot under sugar.

A void of sleep.

Concrete tearing at your skin as you’re dragged, knees bouncing, spine jolting with every crack in the ground. A van door yawns open, metal teeth waiting. A child sobs near your ear, small and hiccuping. A woman screams at the child to shut up—panic sharp and desperate—until a gunshot rings out like punctuation. The woman goes silent. The child doesn’t. The word mommy repeats, thin and broken, drilling into your skull.

A void of sleep.

You wake choking on pain.

Your body is bound to a chair, wrists cinched tight, ankles screaming. Barbed wire coils around you like something alive, biting deep with every involuntary twitch. The metal is rusted, flaking, cruel—tearing skin open in ragged kisses that burn and throb and never quite stop bleeding. Your legs are numb in places, screaming in others. You can feel blood soaking into fabric, sticky and cooling as it trails downward.

He’s in front of you.

Smiling.

Head cocked, eyes bright with interest, like you’re a puzzle he’s just started enjoying. He steps closer, crouches until he’s eye-level with you, hands clasped together as if in prayer.

“You do love your sleep, don’t you?” he says, voice almost gentle.

Your vision swims. The room smells like iron and oil and damp concrete. Somewhere nearby, something drips steadily—water, or blood, or both. The walls feel too close, the shadows stretching and curling like they’re listening.

“The other birdy,” he continues, grinning wider, “wouldn’t even sleep if I cracked his skull. Such a shame.” He sighs theatrically, tapping the barbed wire with one gloved finger, delighted by the way you flinch. “I suppose I’ll have to find a way to keep you awake.”

Through the haze, through the pain, one thought stays stubbornly intact.

Jason is coming.

And you cling to that like a lifeline, even as the horror closes in, even as the night tries to peel you apart—because if you let go of that belief, if you let the void take everything—There will be nothing left for him to save.

You can’t see farther than four feet in front of you.

Anything beyond that dissolves into smears of color and motion, the edges of the room bleeding into one another. When you try to focus, your vision tilts violently, the world pitching sideways as warm blood slips down from your temple, sticky and insistent. It drips into your eye, blurring everything further, each blink making it worse. The ceiling swims. The walls breathe.

He notices.

Of course he does.

He steps into what little clarity you have left, face snapping into focus like a nightmare finally deciding to be seen. His hand comes up fast, fingers prying your jaw open with impatient familiarity. Something chalky presses against your tongue.

You gag immediately.

Your throat spasms around his fingers, saliva thick and useless as panic claws up your chest. Your head jerks instinctively, barbed wire biting deeper in protest, fresh pain flaring white-hot along your wrists and ankles. He doesn’t pull away. He shoves the pill back, past your tongue, past your resistance, until your body betrays you and swallows.

You choke.

Tears spill from your eyes, hot and humiliating, streaking through the grime on your cheeks. Your lungs burn as you suck in air in sharp, broken pulls.

Jason, you think, distantly, desperately. The name is a reflex now. A prayer you don’t dare say out loud.

His hand withdraws at last.

Then—

Smack.

Your head snaps to the side, vision exploding into sparks. Before you can react—

Smack.

The second strike lands harder, ringing through your skull, teeth clacking together as pain blooms anew. The world steadies just enough to be cruel about it.

“That’ll keep you awake, birdy,” he croons, pleased.

Your heart slams against your ribs, frantic and trapped. Already you can feel it—the way the haze pulls back just a little too much, the way your thoughts sharpen against your will. Your eyelids burn, heavy but refusing to close, nerves screaming as the drug seeps in and denies you even the mercy of darkness.

“Now.”

He leans back into his own chair like this is a rehearsal, like he’s bored of waiting for his cue. The legs scrape loudly against the concrete, the sound sharp enough to hurt. He reaches forward and adjusts the camera in front of you with careful precision. A small red light blinks every few seconds—steady, patient. Watching.

“We’re going to make a deal, okay?”

You don’t answer.

Your eyes refuse to cooperate, swimming uselessly as you blink through blood and tears. Every attempt to focus sends a wave of nausea through you, the room tilting, your pulse roaring in your ears louder than his voice. Your jaw trembles. Your tongue feels thick, wrong in your mouth.

“Okay?”

Nothing comes out.

The barbed wire strung cruelly across your throat digs in deeper with every breath you take, a quiet reminder that sound would cost you skin. Air hisses past your teeth in shallow pulls. You can feel your heartbeat there, fluttering and frantic against metal.

His smile thins.

He stands.

The rusty crowbar tightens in his grip as he rises from a stupid, bright orange folding chair—out of place, obscene against the filth of the warehouse. He steps into frame, then closer, until the camera, until you, are all that exist. He hooks two fingers under your chin and lifts your face, forcing your eyes up.

“Answer.”

You try.

Your mouth opens. Nothing happens.

All you can see is him—cracked white makeup creasing around his eyes, green hair greasy and limp, age showing in the lines around his mouth where smiles have lived too long. He smells like oil and metal and something sour beneath it all. The warehouse stinks of rust, damp concrete, old fuel. It crawls into your lungs.

And then—

You hear it.

A sound that doesn’t belong to him.

Crying.

Your head turns slowly, painfully, vertebrae protesting as the wire shifts against your throat. The movement costs you another sharp breath. Your vision blurs again—but this time, shapes resolve.

A cluster of bodies huddled together against a dented equipment container. Two teenage girls with their knees pulled tight to their chests, faces streaked with dirt and tears. Four little boys wedged between them, shaking, hands bound too tight, mouths open in silent sobs like they’ve already learned screaming doesn’t help.

Something in your chest caves in.

You don’t even see the crowbar move.

The impact comes out of nowhere—white-hot, brutal. The hooked end of the bar slams into your shoulder with a wet, tearing sound, metal biting deep as it pierces flesh. Pain detonates through you, ripping the air from your lungs. He yells as he does it, manic and delighted, like the violence startled even him.

Your body jerks against the restraints.

Barbed wire bites deeper. Blood spills warm and fast down your arm, soaking into your sleeve, dripping to the floor in thick, uneven drops. Your vision fractures, stars bursting behind your eyes.

You clamp your teeth down hard on your lip to keep from screaming.

You taste iron immediately—sharp and overwhelming—as skin breaks beneath your bite. Tears spill freely now, blurring everything, mixing with the blood already clinging to your lashes. It burns. It hurts. Your whole body shakes with the effort of staying quiet.

Behind you, the crying gets worse—fractured, panicked.

“Okay,” you choke out.

The word scrapes your throat raw on the way out, barely more than a breath. It tastes like blood and rust and surrender.

Immediately, the pressure is gone.

The crowbar pulls free with a wet sound that makes your vision white out, pain screaming down your arm as the hooked metal tears away from muscle and skin. You shudder hard, a broken gasp ripping out of you despite your best effort to swallow it down.

He steps back like a magician deciding on the next trick.

Then he leans in again—careful, deliberate—and pats at the wound where the bar pierced you. Not gentle. Never gentle. His palm presses just enough to make you flinch, fingers smearing warm blood across your torn clothes.

“See?” he says brightly, turning slightly so the camera gets a better angle. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

Your breath comes shallow and fast, chest stuttering against the wire. Every inhale sends a fresh bloom of pain through your shoulder, the edges of it pulsing in time with your heart.

His hands come up next.

Dry. Cracked. Too warm.

He grabs your face, fingers digging into your cheeks, thumbs pressing at your jaw as he tilts your head from side to side. The movement drags the skin of your neck against the barbed wire, a searing, intimate pain that makes your eyes flood instantly.

“What a dumb dumb birdy you are,” he croons, affectionate in the way predators are. “It’s okay. Joker can teach you.”

Your body trembles uncontrollably now. Your fingers spasm uselessly against the wooden arms of the chair, nails scraping shallow grooves into the surface. You can feel blood slicking your palm and you don't even want to think about how you got hurt there too.

He releases your face.

Pats your head once.

The gesture is almost worse than the violence.

“Now,” he says softly, pleasantly, “say thank you.”

Your vision swims. The room feels too loud, too close. Somewhere behind you, one of the children sobs so hard it turns into hiccupping gasps. You swallow around the wire, throat burning.

You look up at him with shaking eyes, lashes heavy with tears and blood. Your mouth opens. Your lips quiver.

“Thank—” Your voice breaks completely. You force it back together, dragging the word out of yourself like it’s being pulled through glass. “Thank you.”

His smile spreads slow and satisfied, stretching the cracks in his makeup wider.

“Good birdy,” he coos, pleased. “So much more compliant than your love bird already!”

“Now—” Joker announces, voice lifting into a theatrical lilt, like he’s stepped beneath a spotlight instead of flickering warehouse fluorescents. He turns toward the camera, gives it a jaunty little nod, then looks back at you, grin splitting wider. “I was gonna let you go for some cash. Thought your little boy bird might get scared shitless—just a fun little bonus, really—buttt—”

He drifts away from you, footsteps light, almost playful. You can’t turn your head far enough to see what he’s doing. The wire bites when you try. Your vision pulses, dark at the edges.

Then—

A scream.

Sharp. High. A girl’s voice.

It cuts off halfway through, collapsing into a thin, broken cry that echoes far too long in the hollow space of the warehouse.

Something in you fractures.

Joker reappears at your side, breath brushing your ear, laughter bubbling out of him like it’s a private joke the two of you share. “Got lucky with a rich bitch on the road,” he cackles, delighted. “Gotham really does keep on givin’.”

Your stomach twists violently. You taste bile. The crying behind you swells again, panicked and animal, and you can feel your own body trying to fold in on itself despite the restraints, like if you curl inward hard enough you might disappear. 

His hands slide to your throat and at the same time your eyes land onto his hands. Diamond earrings.

He ripped her earrings out of her ears. 

Before you can flinch at the sight of pieces of skin in his open hand, he yanks.

The chain snaps free with a sharp tug, metal biting into your skin as the necklace tears away. You gasp, the wire at your neck punishing you for it, and the sudden cold where the chain used to rest feels obscene—too exposed. You feel lucky that you took off your earrings when you were doing your hair.

He dangles it in front of the camera, letting it glint under the harsh light, gemstones smeared faintly red from your blood. “This could go for a couple hundred too!” he sings. “Ohhh, how delightful!”

He leans closer, eyes alight, savoring every tremor that runs through you. “At least one of the birdies knows how to decorate their nest. Found a few rings at your place as well.”

Joker pockets the necklace with a satisfied hum.

“Well, now that I don’t need the money,” he croons, voice lilting, playful, like he’s deciding which joke to tell next, “what should I do with you?”

His fingers drag along your cheek again, slower this time, the pad of his thumb pressing just hard enough to bruise. His touch leaves heat behind, a crawling sensation that makes your stomach revolt. You feel contaminated where he’s touched you, like your skin is remembering something it shouldn’t.

“…I’ll give you more,” you whisper. Your voice fractures around the word, splintering into something pitiful and thin. “However much you want—just—”

“Oh, I don’t need money.”

The change is instant. His tone drops, sharp and venomous, and when he leans in his eyes are blown wide and empty, pupils swallowing the green like oil slicks. A hawk spotting movement. A blade finding flesh.

“I was looking for some fun, love bird,” he hisses. “You can’t give me that?”

You whimper around the grip on your jaw as his fingers tighten, nails biting into your skin. The wire at your throat digs deeper when you gasp, its teeth kissing something vital. Pain blooms hot and bright, stars bursting behind your eyes.

“Jason— Jason will—”

He doesn’t even flinch at the name.

Maybe that’s mercy.

His fingers move higher, rough and invasive, smearing through the makeup you’d put on hours ago with careful hands. The eyeshadow burns as it’s ground into your skin, sweat and blood turning it into a dark, ugly paste. His thumb drags through the faint blush on your cheeks, erasing it like it was a mistake.

“How pretty you are,” he murmurs, almost tender. “I do makeup on myself too, you know.”

Then his hands leave you entirely.

He grabs his own face, fingers digging into the cracked greasepaint, stretching the red grin wider, tearing at the corners until the white creases and flakes. For a second you think you see real skin underneath—white, lined, angry. Horrid.

“Do you like mine?” he asks brightly. “Do you think I’m pretty?”

Your mind blanks.

Your eyes flick helplessly to the camera instead—the blinking red light pulsing steadily, patiently. Recording. Waiting. You try to speak, to say yes or no or anything that might stop what’s coming, but your throat locks around the wire and all that comes out is a wet, useless sound.

Then—

“Very pretty!”

The voice is behind you.

Too young.

A teenage girl, no older than seventeen. Her voice trembles, thin and frantic, the words tumbling over each other. “So—so pretty—”

You feel something inside you tear open.

She’s trying to survive. You can feel that hope radiate off of her. The hope of throwing words into the dark and praying it lands somewhere safe.

Joker’s head snaps toward her.

His eyes narrow, sharp and wrong, smile freezing into something predatory. “You think so?”

There’s a frantic nod you can hear more than see—the quick intake of breath, the shuddering little sob that follows.

Joker bends down.

The crowbar scrapes loudly as he lifts it, metal screaming against concrete. You catch a glimpse of it as he moves past you—rusted, pitted, darkened in places where it’s already been used tonight.

Then he’s gone from your line of sight.

The scream that follows is immediate and unbearable.

It’s not just pain—it’s shock, terror, the sound of someone realizing too late that they were wrong. The metal wall amplifies it, throws it back at itself until it feels like the warehouse is screaming with her.

There’s a wet, sickening crack.

A sound like meat hitting concrete.

“Why don’t we match?” Joker coos from behind you, voice light and delighted. “I did one side, now the other!”

The crowbar hits again.

You hear bone give this time—feel it in your teeth, in your chest. Her scream fractures into something animal, then into choking sobs, then into a raw, bubbling sound that makes bile rush up your throat.

Your own crying breaks free, ugly and uncontrollable. Your body jerks against the restraints, fingers cramping, nails tearing uselessly into the wood of the chair. Hot tears spill down your face, mixing with blood, dripping off your chin in thick, dark drops.

The camera’s red light blinks again.

Once.

Twice.

It taunts you by matching every sound that breaks out of you.

Every gasped sob, every wet, hitching breath. The camera’s red light blinks in time with your chest, like it’s learned your rhythm, like it’s decided to breathe with you instead of for you.

And then the Joker comes back.

You smell him before you see him—iron-thick blood, old rust, sweat gone sour. His hands are slick, red to the wrist, fingers shining under the warehouse lights. The crowbar hangs loose in his grip, darker now, clotted, strands of hair caught cruelly in its curve.

He crouches in front of you, bringing himself eye-level, like he’s talking to a child.

“Well,” he hums thoughtfully. “I can’t give you her look, can I?”

Your vision swims. You can’t stop shaking. Tears slide down your face in hot, unstoppable streams, carving clean paths through blood and grime. Your mouth opens, but nothing coherent comes out—just a broken, animal sound that folds back in on itself.

His smile twitches.

“What should I do with you?” he asks softly. “Hm?”

You don’t answer. You can’t. You just cry harder, chest stuttering against the wire, throat raw and burning.

That seems to irritate him.

He clicks his tongue, disappointed, and lifts the crowbar. The cold metal taps against your cheek once—tap—just enough to make you flinch violently. He pauses, head tilting.

“Oh—”

His eyes light up.

“Oh yes, that’s wonderful! Oh—” He erupts into laughter, sudden and explosive, clutching his stomach as if the joke is too much to bear. Spit flies from his mouth, warm and disgusting as it lands in your hair, streaking through blood-matted strands. “Oh, isn’t my brain just splendid?”

He straightens, still laughing, wiping his eyes like he’s genuinely amused. “You bats are all poetry, I say—pure poetry!”

Then he turns.

Walks away.

His footsteps fade, echoing hollowly through the warehouse, until there’s only the hum of the lights, the distant crying behind you—and the camera.

You’re alone.

One last sob claws its way out of your throat, wet and choking. Blood follows it, dribbling down your chin, splashing darkly against your chest. You force your eyes open, drag them upward, lock them onto the camera.

You don’t know who’s watching. You don’t know if anyone is.

Your voice comes out steadier than it has any right to be.

“How—”

“Shut up!” someone whisper-yells behind you, frantic and terrified. “There’s other men!”

Your mouth snaps shut.

And the red light keeps blinking.

The metal door slams open with a shriek of abused hinges, the impact shuddering through the warehouse floor and straight up your spine. Dust rains down from the rafters in a thin, dirty veil, catching in your hair and sticking to the blood already drying there.

He’s laughing before you even see him.

Not distant laughter—close. Moving. Each step accompanied by a wet, dragging sound, like something heavy being pulled across concrete. His cackle ricochets off the shipping containers, off the steel beams, off the low ceiling that traps the sound and forces it back into your skull.

A little boy cries out behind you as Joker passes him. A sharp, panicked sound that fractures into a sob and then cuts off abruptly, like someone clamped a hand over his mouth.

The air grows hotter.

Through the warped reflection in the camera lens, you see it clearly now: a long metal bar burning red-hot, so bright it hurts to look at directly. Heat ripples distort the image around it, the glow painting the walls in feverish streaks of crimson. The smell hits you next—burning iron, scorched metal, something faintly organic beneath it that makes bile crawl up your throat.

Joker taps the brand against the concrete behind you.

It doesn’t clang.

It hisses.

The sound is sharp and alive, like meat on a skillet. Tiny sparks spit outward where it kisses the floor, leaving blackened scars in the cement. The red glow doesn’t dull. Doesn’t cool. It stays furious and bright, as if fed by something endless.

Whatever fragile hope you were clutching evaporates in that moment, leaving you hollowed out, lungs burning as you exhale something that feels like your last prayer.

He’s behind you in the next second.

Joker’s hand comes out of nowhere, clamping over your mouth, palm slick and hot. The copper taste floods you as his fingers press into your cheeks, nails digging in just enough to hurt—just enough to remind you that restraint is a choice he’s making. Your head is forced back, neck screaming as the wire saws deeper, the barbs biting into tender skin.

“Would you like to match your birdy?” he murmurs.

His voice is serene. Gentle. Almost affectionate.

He angles the brand around the arm of the chair so you can see it clearly. The letter is unmistakable now, its edges glowing white-hot, heat radiating off it in suffocating waves.

A ‘𝙹’.

Your body reacts before your mind can—your stomach convulses, gagging against his hand, breath stuttering uselessly through your nose. Your skin feels too tight, like it’s already shrinking away from what’s coming.

“We’re going to make the deal now,” he coos.

In the camera’s reflection, you can see his eye—wide, bright, utterly focused on the blinking red dot. Performing. Enjoying the audience if there even is one.

“You either get a matching look…” The brand drifts closer, close enough that the heat kisses your cheek, nerves screaming in anticipation, sweat instantly breaking out along your spine. “…or you tell me who you hate.”

His hand peels away from your mouth.

Air rushes in too fast. You choke on it, coughing hard enough that the wire grinds into your throat, pain blooming hot and blinding. Your voice comes out shredded. “Who… who I hate?”

“Who put you here?” he hums thoughtfully, as if the answer delights him. “It wasn’t me.”

The brand pauses, hovering inches from your skin. You can feel the heat burrowing inward, like it’s already memorizing you.

“Why do you think I found you?” he continues lightly. “Do you know how sloppy he is?”

Silence stretches, thick and oppressive.

You stare at the glowing red letter, your mind drifting somewhere distant and numb to survive. Absurdly, irrationally, you think of Jason’s helmet—the same violent red, the same defiant color. You wonder if he’s thinking of you right now. If he can feel this, somehow.

“Tell me who you hate.”

The words don’t just reach you—they enter you, heavy and cold, sinking past bone and settling somewhere deep and irreversible. They press the air flat, make the warehouse feel smaller, closer, like the walls are leaning in to listen.

He stands before you in all his wrongness, and up close there is nothing theatrical left. The Joker’s makeup has melted into something corpse-like, white cracked and flaking into the grooves of his face as though his skin is trying to shed it. The red smile is no longer a grin so much as a wound, smeared unevenly, darker where blood has mixed in, the corners dragged downward by age and use. His hair hangs limp, green dulled to the color of mold, clinging to his scalp in greasy strands. His eyes are too bright—glass-bright, feverish—never still, never soft, reflecting the warehouse lights like knives.

The space around you hums with misery. The concrete beneath your feet is slick with blood and oil, cold seeping up through the chair and into your bones. Shipping containers loom like coffins, their metal sides scarred and rusted, shadows pooled so thick between them it feels like something could step out at any moment. The air reeks—burnt iron, old sweat, copper, rot—and every breath feels like inhaling something alive and hostile.

You look at the camera.

That red eye blinks steadily, rhythmically, a heart that isn’t yours. It sees the way your chest shudders, the way your fingers twitch uselessly against the bindings, the way your body is already bracing for pain it knows is coming. Your thoughts drift, slow and exhausted, slipping through your hands like water you can’t quite hold.

You think of Jason.

Not the helmet. Not the blood. But his hands—warm, callused, careful when they touch you. The way he looks at you like the world might soften if you stay. The way he says your name like it’s something solid.

You could say his name now.

You could offer it up like a sacrifice and pray that this monster believes in deals, that you might walk out of here broken but breathing. You could lie and hope he lets you go.

Or you could say Jason’s name and watch Joker’s smile vanish as he switches off the camera and kills you quietly, preserving this horror to show your sweet boy later.

Or you could stay silent and take the brand—feel your skin burn, your body marked, watch the ecstasy bloom in Joker’s eyes as he claims you like an object he’s improved.

None of them feel survivable.

Something inside you twists—not courage, not bravery, but love sharpened into something desperate and ugly and defiant. You gather what spit you can in your blood-wet mouth and turn your head as far as the wire allows.

You spit in his face.

It lands wet and unmistakable, dragging a slow line through the cracked white paint, cutting through the red smile like an insult carved in flesh.

For a heartbeat, everything freezes.

The Joker goes utterly still, his expression emptying out in a way that is far more frightening than his laughter. Then his eyes widen, pupils dilating, fury flaring bright and feral—pleased.

You lean forward, neck screaming as the wire bites deeper, and you whisper because your voice will not survive being louder.

“You know,” you murmur, breath shaking despite everything you do to steady it, “he’s never mentioned you before.”

His breath stutters.

“You must not have left quite an impression.”

It’s a lie. A reckless, transparent lie.

You have lived in Gotham long enough to know exactly what he is—his name written in blood across the city’s history—but lies can still cut, and you see it land. You see the way his smile stretches wider, hungry and thrilled.

You’ve given him a reason.

A reason to prove himself.

A reason to keep you alive.

A reason to make you hurt longer.

His hand tangles in your hair and yanks your head back violently. Your neck slams into the barbed wire, spikes tearing in with a wet, intimate sound that makes you sob despite yourself. Warm blood spills down your throat, choking you, slicking your chest.

Then the brand descends.

The heat is indescribable—ancient, total, a pain so vast it consumes thought itself. Your flesh screams as it burns, the smell of seared skin rising thick and sweet, smoke curling upward as the letter is carved into you slowly, deliberately. Your body arches uselessly against the restraints, every nerve on fire, and the sound that leaves you is not a scream so much as something torn out of your soul.

You hate that he hears it. And when that drug denies you the void of sleep you so desperately need, you allow yourself to think numbly as the man pulls it away that at least Jason can't dwindle his appearance anymore.

Your tears stripe down your cheeks, burning as they touch your skin.

We match. You think numbly, Atleast we match.

He strokes over the brand with more delicacy than he has ever had in this whole nightmare, mumbling, “This is going to hurt you a lot more than it hurts me.”

When you wake again, it’s to the weight of tears landing on your face—warm, uneven drops that pull you out of the dark in slow, reluctant pieces. For a moment you don’t know where you are. The world rocks gently, like it can’t decide whether to keep moving or stop altogether. There’s the low hum of an engine beneath you, vibration traveling through bone and bruised muscle, and the smell of old leather surrounds you—worn, familiar, grounding in a way that makes your chest ache.

Leather is good.

Leather is not acid.

Leather does not burn your lungs on the way in.

“Hurts,” you mumble, the word barely surviving the journey out of your throat. You offer it up like an apology, like a peace offering, half-expecting pain to answer you back.

Instead, the crying breaks harder.

It comes undone above you, raw and ugly, and through the haze you realize you aren’t lying flat on concrete, waiting for the Joker to press a cinder block to your stomach. Your body is stretched across someone, your legs draped over another set of knees, your weight distributed carefully, reverently, like something fragile that might shatter if shifted wrong. 

An arm is braced beneath your neck, steady and strong, keeping your head from lolling, and your cheek presses into a leather jacket that smells unmistakably like gun oil, sweat, rain—

Jason.

The knowledge hits softer than it should, cushioned by exhaustion and shock, and when your eyes finally manage to open, everything swims. Light smears at the edges, colors bleeding into one another, but his face is there anyway, hovering close, carved with terror and relief and something so naked it almost scares you more than the warehouse did.

“Am I in heaven?” you mumble.

He lets out a sound that isn’t quite a sob and isn’t quite a laugh, choking on it as his chin trembles. “You don’t even believe in heaven.”

“Well,” you murmur, trying—and failing—to pull your mouth into something that resembles a smile, “what else could you be?”

Your jaw burns when you speak. Everything burns. It feels like your body has been filled with broken glass and lit from the inside, and you’re dimly aware of warm liquid slipping from your mouth, darkening the leather beneath your cheek every time you breathe wrong. You hate that you’re staining him. You hate that you can’t stop.

“I’ll kill him,” Jason whispers, like a prayer he’s been holding onto with both hands. His fingers shake as they brush your hair back, careful to avoid places he knows are hurt. “I’ll kill him. I promise.”

“Can I have hot chocolate first?” you mumble. The words feel distant, like they belong to someone else. “I bought that expensive kind… from Finland. Asshole knocked it all over my carpet…”

Jason’s breath fractures completely at that. He nods too hard, tears spilling freely now, dropping onto your cheeks, your neck, your collarbone. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll buy you hot chocolate. I’ll buy you all of it.”

Somewhere near your feet, another voice cuts in, low and strained with concern. “Hey, Jay—breathe—”

Jason doesn’t hear them. Or maybe he does and simply can’t afford to listen. His chest is rising too fast beneath you, breaths sawing in and out like he’s drowning on dry land, his eyes glassy and unfocused, the green in them shifting with every frantic blink.

Or maybe that’s just your vision still failing you. That would make sense. The powder. The smoke. The way light hurts now.

“Stop crying,” you murmur weakly. “I can’t die with you looking like that.”

That breaks him.

His face crumples completely, grief spilling over into something fierce and desperate as he bends closer, forehead almost touching yours. “Good,” he chokes. “Fuck you. I’ll cry even more, so–so stay with me, yeah?”

“No,” you whisper, your voice scraping raw against your throat. “Wanna sleep.”

“You slept an awful lot,” he snaps, but there’s no anger in it—only terror wearing sharp edges, only love clawing its way out however it can.

“Well,” you murmur, your voice thin but soft, like you’re afraid of startling him, “You show up in my dreams an awful lot.”

That does it.

Whatever fragile control Jason had left fractures clean through. He folds over you instinctively, shoulders caving as he tries—fails—to hide the sound of it. His breath comes apart against your hair, his forehead dipping close to your temple like if he presses himself near enough, he can keep you here by force alone. You feel the tremor of him through your whole body, every hitch of his chest echoing in your ribs.

You smell blood on him then. Copper and iron, sharp beneath the leather and sweat and rain. For a distant, numb second you think it’s yours again—until the scent is too heavy, too layered.

Oh.

Was this—

“Did I interrupt family bonding?” you whisper.

Your lips barely move. The words slip out half-asleep, half-dreaming, and they earn you a startled huff from somewhere behind you. Jason doesn’t answer. He can’t. His arms tighten instead, one hand splayed carefully at your back like he’s afraid even breathing too hard might hurt you more.

A voice comes from the seat behind, dry and unimpressed, because Jason is currently incapable of speech and whoever has your legs resting in their lap is rubbing slow, grounding circles into his back.

“If this is what you think family bonding is, you’ll fit right in.”

“Damian, be quiet,” another voice snaps.

“She’s the one shamelessly flirting with him in front of all of us, Tim” Damian continues anyway, undeterred. “And Father isn’t even saying anything, so—”

“Well she’s the one dying!” Tim blurts, voice cracking sharp with fear.

Jason chokes on the words that come from Tim’s mouth, breath stuttering hard, and a deeper voice cuts in from the front seat—controlled, measured, holding itself together by sheer will.

“She’s not going to die, Tim.”

“I want hoya bellas on my grave,” you interrupt softly.

Jason lets out a broken sound that might have been a laugh in another universe. He shakes his head over you, forehead brushing your hair, and through your blurry vision you think you catch a gloved hand popping up behind him in a solemn thumbs-up.

“Got it.”

Another voice joins in from the front, exasperated and strained. “Cassandra, she’s not being serious.”

“I’m sorry,” Jason whispers, over and over, like a mantra, like something he’s trying to carve into reality. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” His thumb strokes your hair away from your forehead again, impossibly gentle, avoiding the places he knows hurt, the places he doesn’t want to know at all.

“I’m gonna sleep now,” you murmur. It takes effort to shape the words. The dark is getting heavier again, tugging at you, warm and deep. “Can one of you give Jason water?”

“Hey—” Jason breathes, panic flaring sharp as his voice cracks. “Hey, no—no, no, no, stay with me, come on—”

But you’re already slipping.

Your eyes flutter closed despite him, despite the warmth of his arms, despite the way his heart is racing beneath your ear like it’s trying to outrun fate itself. His glove comes off hurriedly and you feel his bare fingers press to your pulse, grounding himself in the steady beat there, in the fact that it’s still happening.

After a few minutes, Dick leans forward and taps Jason’s shoulder gently, offering a water bottle. His uniform is torn and scorched like the rest of them, a thin cut bright against his cheek, but his voice is soft when he speaks.

“Drink.”

Jason doesn’t look up. He doesn’t let go. He just nods once, tight and shaky, eyes fixed on you like if he looks away for even a second, the world might take you again.

He forces himself to take a full gulp of water, the plastic bottle crinkling loudly in the too-quiet car, his throat working like it has to remember how swallowing goes. His hands are still shaking when he passes it off to Tim.

“Hey, I don’t need any—”

Jason looks at him.

Not sharp. Not angry. Just steady in a way that leaves no room for argument, the kind of look that says do this or I will fall apart next.

Tim takes a long swig immediately. Somewhere in the background, Damian lets out a low, satisfied cackle.

The digital clock on the Batmobile reads 4:00 a.m.

The numbers glow cold blue against the dark interior, reflected faintly in the windshield like a second set of eyes staring back at them. Gotham outside is hollow and half-dead at this hour—streetlights flickering, rain-slick asphalt stretching endlessly, buildings slumped together like they’re exhausted too.

Bruce’s voice is calm as he calls Alfred, clipped and precise, already listing supplies like this is something he can control if he names enough of it out loud.

Jason doesn’t listen.

He keeps his focus on you.

On the shallow rise and fall of your chest. The warmth is still clinging stubbornly to your skin. On the way your weight settles into him like it belongs there, like it always has. One hand stays firm at your neck, holding you upright because you need it—because you need him steady, and that knowledge anchors him harder than anything Bruce could ever say.

You need him here. You need him present. You need him not to break.

He knows that, because once—once—that was all he ever wanted too.

And that’s the cruel part of it.

Because the weight of you in his arms has only ever meant safety. Home. Sleep curling warm and heavy in his bones. His body doesn’t know the difference between holding you safe and finally being allowed to rest.

Jason Todd passes out with his forehead dipping gently toward yours, his grip loosening only by a fraction, like even unconscious he’s afraid to let you go.

The last thing he hears before everything goes dark is Tim’s voice, sharp with panic and disbelief.

“Dude—what the fuck—”

“Hold his head up—don’t let him fall on her!” Bruce barks from the front, voice cracking sharp through the Batmobile like a snapped cable.

All at once, everyone moves.

Damian fists the back of Jason’s T‑shirt, knuckles white as he yanks him upright with a strength born of panic he’d never admit to. Dick stretches impossibly from the passenger seat, arm braced awkwardly as he cups the back of Jason’s head, careful, reverent, like he’s afraid one wrong angle will shatter him. Tim presses a steadying hand to Jason’s chest, feeling the uneven rise and fall beneath his palm, grounding him the way he’s learned to do with bombs and brothers alike.

Jason is dead weight. Heavy. Still clinging to you even in unconsciousness, his arm slack but stubborn around your shoulders, like muscle memory alone refuses to let you go.

The Batmobile hums on, tires slicing through wet streets, Gotham blurring past in streaks of sodium light and rain-slick concrete. The city feels distant now, muffled, like it’s holding its breath with them.

“…Did someone check if the Joker was—uh—breathing?” Stephanie asks from the back, her voice small in a way it rarely ever is.

She hadn’t stayed for the end. Her job had been triage—getting the kids out, shouting orders, dragging civilians through blood and broken glass while the rest of them stayed behind in the warehouse with the laughter and the screaming. She’d smelled the aftermath on them when they regrouped. She didn’t need details then but...

Bruce doesn’t look back. His hands tighten on the wheel.

“Jason didn’t hit any vital points,” he says quietly, like he’s reciting a report he’s already memorized. “Just… ah—”

“Carved his face like a jack‑o’‑lantern,” Damian supplies, entirely too calm. “Heated up a crowbar to do it too. Very effective.”

There’s a beat of silence.

The city lights flash over Bruce’s face—old stone and deep eyes that are hollowed by relief he doesn’t let himself feel yet.

“…Yeah,” Bruce exhales, short and rough. “That.”

The Batmobile keeps moving.

Jason breathes.

You breathe.

And for now, that’s enough to keep the night from swallowing them whole.

You wake up in bed.

Not the thin, borrowed kind your body has learned to tolerate at your apartment, but something deep and indulgent—clean sheets tucked tight, the mattress yielding just enough to cradle you instead of swallowing you whole. The pillow beneath your cheek feels stupidly expensive, cool and smooth, smelling faintly of detergent and something old and comforting, like cedar and money and quiet hallways that echo.

For a moment, you think you’re dreaming again.

Then you feel him.

Jason is asleep beside you, solid and unmistakable. You don’t need to move—you can’t really anyways—to know it’s him. The arm wrapped around your waist is heavy with familiar strength, protective even in unconsciousness. His hair brushes against your arm every time he breathes, soft, tickling your skin in a way that makes your chest ache.

He’s breathing.

That fact alone nearly undoes you.

God. You really need to raise your standards, you think hazily. You’re reduced to this—listening to him breathe, feeling the slow rise and fall of his chest, and already you want to curl into him and coo like nothing in the world has ever gone wrong.

Then you see Bruce.

He’s standing near the bed, still as a statue, watching you with the careful intensity of someone afraid to spook a wild animal. It takes effort to focus on his face, your vision dragging itself into clarity inch by inch.

When you try to lift your head—manners resurfacing before sense—your body protests sharply.

Bruce moves instantly.

“Hey, hey—no,” he murmurs, hands gentle but firm as he presses you back into the mattress. “Relax. It’s okay. You’re safe.”

Your head sinks back into the pillow, and the moment stretches. You swallow thickly before managing a small, hoarse sound of politeness.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Wayne. Jason—”

“Hasn’t told you much about me,” Bruce finishes for you, a faint, tired chuckle slipping out. “That’s alright. I just need you to sleep right now.”

You glance downward as best you can, feeling something sharp dig into your side.

“…I can’t sleep if your son’s elbow is in my ribs.”

Bruce blinks.

Actually blinks—surprised enough that it breaks through the carefully assembled calm. “Ah—” he starts, then reaches for Jason, trying to rearrange him with the same precision he uses on everything else.

It doesn’t work.

Jason huffs in his sleep, a low, irritated sound, and somehow manages to make it worse—his arm tightening, his leg hooking over yours possessively, like you’re something he’s afraid the world might steal back if he lets go.

Bruce freezes.

You mumble, exhausted but soft, “It’s alright. I’m sure he hasn’t slept… I’ve gotten quite a lot, so…”

Bruce looks like he wants to argue. His jaw tightens, then loosens, the fight draining out of him. He exhales and sits back in the chair by the bed, elbows on his knees, hands clasped tightly together.

“It’s the 26th,” he says quietly.

Oh.

You missed Christmas.

What a shame.

After a moment, Bruce speaks again, and his voice is heavier now—careful, deliberate, like every word costs him something.

“I… want to apologize to you.” His fingers interlace, knuckles whitening. “I knew you’d been taken. And I didn’t tell him. Possibly… he could have been there sooner. But I needed to make sure the others would be saved as well.”

“Well,” you murmur, the word barely more than breath, “I don’t exactly blame you for that.”

It isn’t forgiveness exactly—nothing so grand—but it’s honest, and it lands heavier than anger ever could.

Bruce doesn’t relax. If anything, his shoulders pull tighter, like he’s bracing for a blow that never quite comes. He’s spent his whole life learning how to de‑escalate men with guns, gods with vendettas, cities with teeth—but you unsettle him in a quieter, more dangerous way. You’re calm. You’re lucid. You’re something Jason had threatened to shoot himself for.

He clears his throat, trying to give you something solid, something measurable. Facts are safer.

“Jason… got him,” Bruce says carefully. “Badly. I think—” He hesitates, eyes flicking once toward Jason like he’s checking for movement. “I think the Joker may be blind now. Or at least permanently impaired.”

“You let him?” you ask.

Still no accusation. Just a soft, stunned curiosity, as if you’re piecing together a story you were never meant to survive.

Bruce nods. Once. The motion costs him. “I did,” he admits. “But I—”

“Then that’s enough,” you whisper, interrupting him gently, like you’re afraid the words themselves might hurt. “Jason will realize that too.” Your lashes flutter; exhaustion tugs at you like a tide. “I mean… he probably won’t. He’ll still try to kill him.” A faint, crooked exhale. “But you did everything you could yesterday.”

Your gaze drifts—not to Bruce, but to Jason. To the way his arm is still locked around you, even in sleep. To the stubborn set of his jaw, the crease between his brows that never fully smooths out anymore.

“Thank you,” you add quietly. “For finding me.”

That’s when Bruce goes still.

Not rigid. Not defensive.

Still.

Because he’s been looking at you, yes—but now you realize he hasn't been looking you in the eye while he speaks. His eyes have been caught in one place, drawn there again and again like a bruise you can’t help but press.

Your cheek.

The skin there is angry beneath the bandage’s edge—raw, faintly swollen, discolored in a way he winced at while he bandaged it. Bruce didn't let anyone else tend to it, not even Alfred. 

Because this was a wound he inflicted, one that he needed to tend to.

“It’s still fresh,” he says, softer now, stripped of the Bat and the rules and the fear. Just a man speaking carefully around something fragile. “I’ll get you better medicine. The pigment should fade.” A pause. His voice lowers. “I can’t promise about the texture.”

You don’t look away. You don’t flinch.

“That’s okay,” you say.

And Bruce doesn’t know if you mean the scar, or the pain, or the fact that you’ll carry this forever—but Jason shifts in his sleep then, brow tightening, arm drawing you closer like he sensed the weight of the moment and refused to let it settle on you alone.

Bruce watches that. Watches how Jason anchors himself to you without waking, how his breathing steadies when yours does, how it pauses even in sleep when yours hitches.

“He loves you a lot.” Bruce mumbles.

“...And you too Mr.Wayne.”

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