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Jason fucked up.
He knows he did. He does. One does not end up tied up to a ceiling, a blindfold over his eyes without having fucked up at least a little.
He just hadn’t realized how much he had fucked up until the blindfold is removed, and his eyes fall over a familiar face among his captors.
There are a lot of familiar faces he doesn’t like to see when tied up. Two Faces. Black Mask. Joker, most of all.
But Dick’s face? No, that’s one he’s usually relieved to see. Seeing Dick’s face when he’s tied up usually means he’ll soon be in a warm safe house somewhere, with an asshole of a big brother scolding him for getting caught, and maybe, maybe he can bribe him into not telling the bat.
Now, though? Now it’s not Nightwing, and even less Dick he sees in front of him.
It’s Lloyd.
A week or so ago, Jason had heard rumors. Nightwing had been shot by some kind of new player in Gotham. Lloyd. Rumors said he wouldn’t be seen in the skies for a while. When he had inquired about it, fully intending to take down that Lloyd before he could do further damage (and not because he was worried about Dick), he had learned that the whole thing had been fabricated.
The personality had been created to go undercover into a dangerous, new gang. Nightwing, Lloyd, and Dick Grayson are one and only person.
Though, it’s hard to believe now, as his eyes fall to the face of the man, his hair pulled down with gel, face hardened by makeup, eyes cold.
Yeah, Jason fucked up. He fucked up bad. He’s been captured by the very people Dick is trying to bring down.
“Is he even working with the Bat?” he hears Dick -Lloyd- ask. “Last I heard, they weren’t exactly friends.”
“Haven’t you heard?” another guy says. “He went back to working with daddy.”
Dick, that asshole, snorts. “Must be nice to be able to do your little teenage crisis and then go back like nothing happened. All bark and no bite, are you?”
Jason could say exactly the same thing about him.
“And another thing,” the man add. “You’re from Blüd, right?”
“Yeah. What does that have to do with anything? Nightwing was the one who doomed Blüd, and the bastard escaped me.”
Jason almost chokes. So, this is the story they’re going with? A man who holds a grudge because Nightwing failed to save Blüdhaven from the Chemo explosion, all these years ago? And Bruce let him go with that?
One of the criminal shrugs. “Which is fucked up, if you want my opinion, I mean the guy did try.”
Yeah, listen to the criminal, Dick.
“The city wouldn’t have been targeted in the first place if it wasn’t for him.”
“But, yeah, whatever, you have issues, we all do, my point is-”
“Watch your tone.”
“My point is, Hood? That’s different. He knew the bomb was gonna fall. Rumors say he was part of the plan.”
Lloyd, of maybe Dick, freezes. His entire body goes rigid. Then, a smile slowly draws itself on his lips. He let out a sinister chuckle, then two. “That changes everything,” he says, and then, “would you let me have him?”
The men laugh, and Jason hears a few “go ahead.” Dick takes a step so he’s directly in front of him. A knife is shining in his hand.
“What he said about Blüdhaven,” he asks in a cold tone. “Is it true?”
“No,” Jason says, as much for Lloyd as for Dick, but he’s unsure. This part of his life still has holes, zones of shadows in his memory, even if it’s not as bad as the years before. He’s pretty sure he knew about it, at least. The timing was just a little too good.
“Are you lying to me?”
Jason makes the mistake of looking down. He shivers. Dick’s eyes are… Empty. Cold. He knew Dick could look like this, completely terrifying. He just never imagined he would be the one on the other end of it. Even when he hurt Tim, Dick had never looked at him like his.
This is for show, right? This is fake, right?
Jason died, and yet he’s rarely been more afraid.
But he doesn’t have time to dwell on it, because the knife finds its way to his cheek, his helmet long gone, and traces a small cut on it. “Do you work with the bat?”
Jason spits on Lloyd’s face.
Wrong move.
He feels the pain before he realizes the knife is in his shoulder. This is still Dick, so it’s done with surgical precision, and Jason knows the second he registers something else than the pain that there will be no permanent damage.
It still hurts like a bitch.
“He wants to play!” one of the men in the background screams.
“Do you?” Lloyd asks, in a tone that is nothing like Dick’s.
“I don’t work with the Bat!”
“And I don’t like liars.”
The knife moves, cutting the sleeve off his leather jacket like its butter. Dick is going to repay that.
“What’s the Bat’s plan for us?”
The plan is to take them out from the inside. Jason knows, Dick knows, Lloyd knows. Everyone else in this room doesn’t. “I told you, I don’t know!”
His jacket falls to the ground, in pieces.
“Did you know about Chemo dropping on Blüdhaven?”
Jason grits his teeth. Don’t do this, Dick. Not now.
“No.”
His shirt joins his jacket on the dirty floor, leaving a few more cuts on his body. They’re not deep enough to do any real damage, beside pain.
Another question, another negation, and his belt snap. Behind Lloyd, the men laugh, but for Jason, at this moment, nothing but he and Dick exists.
Lloyd keeps asking questions. Jason keeps refusing to answer them, until he has cuts all over and he’s down to his underwear.
The knife moves on his skin, a cold feeling on his bare side, and he shivers. It stops on his hip.
“Do you work with the Bat?” Lloyd asks once again.
“No,” Jason lies again.
Lloyd’s hand moves, and Jason is naked, with a fresh new cut on the side of his hip. Dick had seen him naked plenty of times, but Lloyd looks at him from the top of his hands, still tied up to the ceiling, to the bottom of his feet, barely touching the ground, like he’s judging some kind of merchandise.
“What’s the matter, Lloyd?” one of the men ask. “Wanna fuck him?”
“Nah,” The knife moves again, very close to Jason’s face, but without touching him.
“I like my men honest,” Jason winces internally.
“Competent,” this is about him getting caught, isn’t it? He’s never going to hear the end of it.
“And good looking.”
Well now he’s just rude.
“Come on guys,” he says. “Let’s see if hypothermia makes him a bit more talkative.”
There are some protests, but after a time, all the men leave the room, and Jason is left alone.
Hypothermia is not exactly a risk in the short term. It makes him wonder just exactly how long they plan to keep him hanging there naked.
But he doesn’t wait more than a few hours before Dick is back. It must barely be morning. The two of them are alone, but Jason knows there is a camera.
Lloyd isn’t supposed to know there is a camera, but Oracle does, meaning Dick should know about it.
“What are you doing here?” Jason asks. Dick can’t plan set him free. Not without compromising his cover.
“What they said about Blüdhaven, was it true?”
What game is he playing? “Do you think I’ll tell you anything?”
Lloyd, or maybe it’s Dick, sighs. “No, I didn’t think you would.” He raises his shirt, showing a deep burn scar. Jason had seen it before, he just never really wondered about it. Dick has a lot of scars. They both do.
“This is from the explosion,” and Jason knows it is. Every good lie has a part of truth in it. “And I’m one of the lucky ones. Too many people didn’t make it. And for what?”
He takes a step toward Jason. “Did it feel good?” he asks. “To see these people dying? Did it feel like you were getting back at Batman or something?”
Yes. Yes, it did, as much as anything could feel good for Jason at that point in his life. Rebirth. Whatever. “Why should I tell you anything?”
He gets punched, hard, in the face. “You all-” Lloyd screams and he’s a world away from the man who tortured him earlier. “You don’t care about anyone but yourself, do you?”
The punches are raining on Jason now, catching him in the ribs, in the stomach. “You go off killing people only to just go back to the Bat! What’s the point? What’s the point in any of this?”
Jason tastes blood. He thinks he spits a little of it, also. It’s not intentional, it just flows between his teeth. Dick isn’t holding back, his own knuckles bleeding.
“Nightwing is the same, if he hadn’t gotten involved in this city, none of this would have happened! Just another piece of shit with too much ego who-”
Jason stops listening. He’s feeling very cold, but it’s not the injuries, nor it is the temperature of the room.
Every good lie has a part of truth in it.
“Don’t talk about him that way,” he hears himself screaming, like he’s out of his body. “Don’t you dare-”
“Or what?”
Lloyd takes a step back to admire his work. “What will you do to me? People like you had power over people like me my whole life. Now it’s my turn. I am going to kill you and when I get my hands on Nightwing, I am going to kill him too.”
The tone is cold, but Jason understands. This is their way out.
Lloyd has to kill Jason.
He hits him, again and again, until he seems satisfied. Then, his hand find Jason’s pulse point. Jason stays very still, slowing down his breathing to the maximum.
He knows one thing or two about being dead, after all.
Lloyd curses. He takes a step back. Curses again.
Then, he cuts the bonds, and Jason falls to the ground like a rag doll. Eyes closed, breathing still very, very slow, he hears Lloyd moving around him. The sound of a bag being opened, and then…
He’s shoved into a trash bag, then in a can. What the hell, Dick?
The can is rolled, and then he’s just left there. He doesn’t really know how much time passes. He thinks he passes out, but he’s not sure. He probably has a concussion.
Dick didn’t hold back, that’s for sure.
Until, finally, the garbage collector come pick the can up. And the garbage collector, he finds out when the bag is opened and he can finally open his eyes, look suspiciously like Steph. In a garbage truck that had been equipped like an ambulance, with Tim driving it.
“May have survived the torture but I’ll not survive his driving,” is the first thing Jason slurs.
Steph snorts. “Let’s get you to a bed. Why are you naked?”
Jason groans. “Long story. Dick contacted you?”
“Yeah,” they both say at the same time. “He’s pretty pissed,” Steph adds as she helps him into a cot, pushing a cover on his naked body.
“I bet,” Jason says, and they share a smile.
She has no idea.