Chapter Text
It’s 2:33 a.m., and the rooftop reeks of weed, piss, and concrete that hasn’t been properly cleaned since seven Joker attacks ago, when the city finally got tired of scraping child-sized smears of flesh off the sidewalks. Jason is cold. He's always cold, lately. The dead don’t hold heat well, and the ones who claw their way back don’t magically get it returned to them, no matter what the Pit promises. Tonight it’s worse, though, the kind of cold that sinks into joints and won’t fuck off no matter how many layers you wear. A good slap round the face would probably bring him more warmth than the half-finished, lukewarm cig in his hand, but the burn in his lungs reminds him that his lungs are actually still working, so Jason takes another drag as he looks out over Crime Alley.
Winter's arrived along with a colossal uptick in crime, and so Jason's barely been able to move without stumbling across another impossible situation that he somehow needs to sort out without five innocent people dying. Christmas is in a few days, Jason remembers with a jolt that hits him like a jab to the ribs - and it brings with every average Tom, Dick and Harry crawling out of the woodwork to try their hand at a spot of organised crime. Kids need feeding, presents need buying, rent’s overdue, and crime still pays, even in an over-saturated market where Red Hood already has his claws in most of it, and informers in the rest.
Bruce’s voice cuts through the night in his ear, crackling over the comm with that familiar gravel-and-authority tone, the one that says I am the Dark Knight and you will listen to me whether you like it or not.
Jason’s had a private tap into the Bats’ comms since the day he came back - his Robin access codes still work, and he'd be a fool not to utilise that. He tells himself it’s just to avoid them on patrol, to stay one step ahead. He doesn’t examine that lie too closely.
"Oracle, what's the ETA for Nightwing and Robin?" Bruce growls through the comms line. There’s a pause of crackling static, and then Dick’s voice replaces Batman’s.
“Robin can’t do this one, B. He’s got school tomorrow, and it’s Scarecrow. You really wanna throw him at that?” A pause, the sound of movement. “I’m dropping him at the Manor and heading your way. ETA’s five minutes.”
Jason rolls his eyes so hard they almost hurt. Bruce had sounded far from happy about it, judging by his sigh of annoyance and general brooding demeanor, but he hadn't forced the issue, hadn't made Damian run into a potentially lethal situation in just neon green kiddy shorts and tights, like a walking fucking target just made for thugs to have a shot at. It's a far fucking cry away from Jason had been Robin, or Dick had been, and Bruce had had no qualms about sending the two of them rushing headfirst along into danger, like in Ethiop-
A sob cuts through his thoughts. It echoes up from the dingy alley below, and Jason's focus snaps towards the source. The Pit whispers in his ear, but he shrugs it off with the vague promise of bloodshed later - there's a kiddie trafficking ring on the West Side he aims to hit tonight- and stubs his cig out on a nearby gargoyle. The voice carries clearly now as it pleads with someone that Jason can't yet see, every word saturated with fear. Jason then pulls the balaclava down over his face and settles his helmet into place with a practiced tug.
He lands hard on the alley floor, inches from the agonised figure. The man stumbles under the flickering streetlights, and Jason recoils instinctively. Red scratches bleed crimson out over the man's face and hands and clothes, he's covered in mud and blood and he's pissed himself in fear. He's crying, full-body shaking, throat hoarse from screeching agony as he flails his hands at nothing, and Jason clocks it immediately. This isn't the usual 'cry, scream and run away shaking' fear that Red Hood inspires in petty criminals, and it's not some junkie rampage either. There's a stench in the air, mixing with the unpleasant aromas of Gotham’s particular living, breathing stench - a chemical, bitter tang. Fear Toxin.
“No, no, no! Please, I didn’t-. It wasn't me, don't take her away, I swear, I swear-" The guy babbles, and swings at empty air like he's trying to fend someone off. He carries a small bundle - a brick wrapped carefully in cloth, swaddled, almost, in one hand. He trips over his own feet, slams into the wall, and starts screaming, real screaming now, the kind that rips itself raw out of your throat.
“I’ll do it, I’ll do anything, just don’t take her from me, please, please. My baby, you can't her-”
Jason freezes for half a second. Whatever fucked up new strain Scarecrow's been cooking up, this shit is potent. Strong enough that it's causing genuine, schizo-level hallucinations, not just the creeping sense of doom of Crane's more recent strains.
Shaking off the fear after a second, Jason grabs the guy and hauls him up by his collar before the man bashes his own head in against the wall. The man - his nametag, a cheap plastic piece of tat from Arkham Asylum cleaning staff, reads 'James' - starts to wail again, siren-like in his misery. Jason forces his voice low and steady even as James thrashes like a caged animal.
"Hey, hey. Look at me." He cringes internally at the sound of his own voice. The Red Hood's voice modulators do a good job at disguising his fucked-up, throat-slit hoarse voice, but they're not the most comforting sound at the best of times, so Jason can imagine how terrifying they sound to James, trapped in the throes of some fucked-up nightmare. "You're okay, there's no baby. You're in Crime Alley, you're okay."
The man's eyes stare straight through him. He starts to thrash again, his eyes tracking something over Jason's shoulder. He starts clawing at Jason's armoured chest like he's drowning.
Jason swears under his breath. He scans the alleyway, eyes sharp in a way Batman had lectured and the League had beaten into him. No syringes, no broken gas canisters, no obvious injector wounds, which means-
His gaze drops to the puddles pooled on the cracked asphalt, water spurting from a rusty outdoor tap fixed haphazardly to the wall. The runoff glistens strangely under the lights, reddish in hue and acrid in smell. Jason's jaw tightens. The water supply. Scarecrow has poisoned the damned city’s water supply with his shitty fear toxin.
Merry fucking Christmas, Gotham. Here, have a side of hysterical mania with your turkey and stuffing. Bloody Scarecrow, with his shitty Fear Toxin, and, God, couldn't Jason just have one normal night, when he didn't have to deal with some city-ending catastrophe?
He can’t handle this alone. He knows it the same way he knows when a gun’s empty or a fight’s unwinnable, and he hates it. The thought sits ugly in his chest, because Batman’s still sticking to his ‘no metas in Gotham’ rule, so Superman, Wonderwoman and half the Titans are out of commission. This little toxin issue lies solely under the Bats' and Jason's jurisdiction. Opening the comms means letting the Bats see the scope of it, means dealing with Bruce, but people are already breaking down in the streets and it’s only going to get worse. Jason exhales sharply, then taps into the frequency he pretends he doesn’t listen to anymore, the one he's not supposed to have access to.
"Batman." He says, voice clipped. "Check the water supplies."
“What-?" Bruce’s voice cuts off mid-word, sharp and startled in a way Jason almost never hears. “Oracle, did you open a channel?”
“I didn’t,” Barbara answers instantly, just as confused. “No new links on my end.”
Dick cuts in a beat later, wary now. “Okay, so… who just keyed into Bat-comms?”
Jason exhales slowly through his nose, keeps his voice flat and unmistakable. “Relax. It's Hood. There's a fucking problem, Dickwing, so quit fucking about or the whole city's going under by dawn."
Dick's voice sounds, incredulous, "Is that threat-?" He splutters. "Jaybird-"
"No! No, God, it's not a fucking threat. Scarecrow's out, decided to test-drive his new toxin strain in the Gotham water supply. Found some loony raving in my territory and thought I'd call it in. Believe me, this is not a goddamn social call." Jason snarls back.
There's a pause, and Jason can tell that Batman and Nightwing, now having met up, are most likely conferring frantically with each other, offline.
When Bruce speaks again, the familiar control is there, but it’s strained around the edges. "Red Hood." He says. "How did you access this frequency?"
Jason pinches the bridge of his nose as best he can through the helmet, and breathes out. "Listen, old man, Scarecrow's fucking crazy and half my people are seeing shit that isn't there. I don't know how far the toxin's spread, but Crime Alley and the Narrows look bad. Robin and Red Robin aren't out, but call in Spoiler and Orphan because things are looking fucking shit."
Jason's people, the high-up members of his criminal empire are calling in now, reports of people going mad and punching the walls and each other and shooting at shit that's in their heads, and then themselves. He can hear more screams, now, terrified screams and pleas for mercy, reverberating round Crime Alley like some kind of sick choir. Someone down the block is wailing like they’re being flayed alive, the sound cutting off abruptly into wet coughing, and a gun goes off twice in quick succession. The shots echo sharp through the alley. He tightens his grip on James, who's slumped against the wall at his feet, and keeps his knee planted between the man’s shoulders to stop him from bolting back into traffic or throwing himself under a car.
Dick lets out a quiet, incredulous laugh that’s halfway to panic. “Holy shit. You’ve been listening to us?”
"Sometimes." Jason dismisses. "Not the point. What's it look like on your end? The socialites started seeing ghosts yet?"
Barbara’s voice comes back first, and it's clipped in that way that means she’s scared and working twice as hard not to show it. “I’m seeing spikes in emergency calls across the east end. The whole West End network's down, reports of a 911 operator throwing themself onto the power lines. Rioting all over the city, the GCPD station there is overrun, some of Bane's thugs have taken a bunch of station 17 firefighters hostage. Jason-” she stops herself, corrects, “Hood, this is citywide. Or it will be in a couple of hours.”
Bruce exhales, slow and controlled, and Jason can physically hear Bruce locking all his emotions away to focus on the mission. “We’re rerouting. Nightwing, Orphan, Spoiler begin converging on Crime Alley first. Oracle, start isolating the water mains. I want a source.”
"No." Jason says, the Pit flaring into life, hot in his head and his gut. "You're not coming to Crime Alley, that's my territory. I'll deal with Crime Alley, you deal with the rest of Gotham."
"Hood, your territorial aggression is both a hindrance and preposterous, Father is highly trained-" the demon brat's jarring tone rings shrilly over the line.
"Not my father." Jason grits out as he swings out on the streets and narrowly avoids a young woman wielding a deck chair and screaming blue murder. "And shut it, Damian, isn't it past your bedtime?"
"No names over comms." Bruce and Barbara chime in at the same time, and Jason takes his aggression out on an unfortunate, machete-holding Two-face hooligan, who crumples into the dirt after a well-timed hit from Jason.
Dick cuts back in, voice tighter now, the joking edge gone completely. “Fuck! Jesus, this woman's completely mad, just tried to bite me, oh my God. Jay- Hood. How bad is it down there, really?”
Jason glances up at the flats across the street just in time to see a woman fling open a fourth-floor window and hurl herself bodily from it, screaming at something only she can see. He grapples in to grab her and deposit her on the streets, where a ten year old is laughing so hard he's vomiting. Jason thanks the gods for his rebreather. “Bad,” he says flatly. “And it’s accelerating. This is Crime Alley, these people have experienced a lot of fucked-up shit in their lives, the fear toxin's amplifying that. They're violent, and they're going to hurt someone, because in their heads it’s already the worst day of their lives on loop.”
Bruce’s voice hardens. “Then you need to pull back. You’re one person.”
Jason feels something ugly twist in his chest at the ease at which Bruce gives the instruction, it's so comfortable for him to be so smug, to order Jason around, like Jason's still that stupid little Robin who'd follow Bruce blindly-. Jason blinks back a revolting lazarus pit green from his vision. “Yeah,” he snaps, “and right now I’m the one person standing between this place and a full-blown massacre. I’m not pulling back.”
"Red Hood-"
“I said I called it in,” Jason cuts him off, voice low and dangerous now, “Not that I was asking permission. These are my people, Batman, I'm not fucking abandoning them like everyone else does. Fear Toxin doesn't hurt me like it hurts you, you know this, old man."
"Hood's right." Red Robin's steely voice comes through the comms next. The kid's out of commission for a few weeks after a nasty little run in with Pyg, but he's clearly hacked the frequency and got in on the action. "The Pit helps reduce the effects of Fear Toxin on him - it can't spread through airborne means and must be ingested to have an effect."
Jason grunts in agreement. "You're right, Replacement, for once in your-"
A hand grabs his shoulder and whatever snarky bullshit Tim says in retaliation is cut off. It's a little girl, aged about six. Her gas mask and bottled water means she's not affected by the Fear Toxin, but she's clearly terrified, her big blue eyes welling up with tears and nose dripping snot. With a surge of rage, Jason notices that her bright pink, bunny rabbit-patterned dress is ripped at the chest, and hiked up high - too high, the Pit howling in his brain - around her legs. She babbles something, a man- chasing her- he tried to- she didn't know what to do- and Jason's already moving, on the hunt. The Pit is screeching, banshee-like in his ear, baying for blood like the beast it is.
“Kid. You’re okay,” he says, even though the lie tastes bitter on his tongue. “You did good. You did everything right. Can you tell me where he went?”
She hiccups, swipes her sleeve across her face, leaves a smear of grime and tears, then points with a trembling finger down the alley, toward the older flats where the lights are blown and the stairwells smell like rot and piss and meth. It's a few blocks from where Jason grew up.
“He- he ran that way,” she whispers. “He was yelling. He- he said-” Her voice breaks completely and she clamps her mouth shut, shaking.
Jason feels something go white-hot and blinding behind his ribs, the Lazarus Pit stirring his own anger, ugly and eager and bloodthirsty, but he keeps his hands gentle and keeps his touch light as he shrugs off his jacket and wraps it around her shoulders. “You don’t gotta say anything else,” he murmurs. “You’re safe now. I promise.” The child's mother - Arkham-staff-issued gas mask strapped securely on her face - it's in the air now, Jason's rebreather whirring as it works overtime to cut through the thickening clouds of toxin - runs up from where she’d been sheltering behind a garbage bin and grabs the child from Jason, very clearly on edge. She's young, shockingly so, nineteen at most. The little girl smiles weakly and hugs her mum tight. Jason nods at the mum, who points, again, towards the flats.
"343B" She says. "His name's Michael Roeslin. Sick son of bitch, Hood, everyone knows his reputation." Jason nods. The woman pauses, and continues. "I thought- it was me- he- yeah. I'd see him if the toxin got me. Didn't realise he'd hurt anyone else. Didn't know he went younger than-"
And Jason sees green.
On the comms, the Bats are still wittering in his ear as he grapples towards the building..
"Hood. Red Hood, report." Batman demands. "Red Hood, are you incapacitated? Hood-"
Jason scoffs. "Relax, old man." He says. He gruffly grunts. "Just clearing up the streets." He's inside the flat now, kicking through the window and terrifying the man in the gas mask on the sofa. Jason steps into the doorway and lets his visor-covered acidic green eyes catch the light just right. The flat is small, dingy and dull in that familiar Crime Alley shithole way. Roeslin's sitting on the couch, smoking a cigarette, looking wholly unbothered by the sick and fucking twisted act he'd committed. He's shaking; Fear Toxin clearly running through his veins.
“Funny thing about fear,” he says calmly. “It doesn't invent shit out of nowhere. Just drags what’s already inside you up to the surface.”
Roeslin spins, eyes wild, pupils blown. “Don’t- don’t come closer,” he babbles, backing up, pressed against the couch cushions. “You’re not real. You’re- you’re one of them.”
“Oh, I’m real,” Jason says, advancing now, slow and inevitable. “And you picked the worst fucking night to do what you did.”
"Hood, man please- it was the Toxin, she was just so pretty-"
Roeslin lunges, panicked, for the gun on the table, but he gets barely halfway before Jason's putting a bullet between his eyes.
The gunshot cracks over the open comm channel, sharp and flat, the sound of it echoing just a fraction too long through thin apartment walls and cheap microphones, and for half a second there is nothing but dead air on the line.
“Hood- ” Bruce starts, voice pitched low, adrenaline flaring. “That better not have been-"
“Michael Roeslin." Jason says. "Pedophile. Decided to get handsy with a kid tonight, used Fear Toxin as an excuse. He won’t be hurting anyone ever again. He's down.”
. “Hood, define ‘down’.”Bruce snaps, although he already knows the answer, the word comes out sharp enough to cut.
Jason snorts softly, nudges the man’s foot with his boot to make sure he’s not getting back up, not that there’s any real doubt. “I shot him, Batman. He’s dead. You’re a detective, figure it out.”
Dick cuts in fast, ever the peacemaker. “Okay, just- focus, everyone, please, we have a bigger problem. Hood, did you really have to-”
“Yes, I did,” Jason says. He steps out into the hall and slams the apartment door behind him without any care for the door’s battered hinges.
Dick mumbles something non-committal - Jason can he’s not really mad over that sick bastard’s death, but Bruce is on the comms, accompanied by the mountain of guilt that inspires his no-kill rule.
“ I don’t cage people like that and wait for them to slip through the bars.” Jason keeps talking as he moves, boots crunching over broken glass and debris. The 'like you do, Batman.' goes unsaid.
Bruce hears it though, because his tone is sharp when he speaks again. "Hood, we need you in inner Gotham with Nightwing. Oracle’s got reports that Killer Croc's out, he's been infected by fear toxin, too." Batman’s annoyed, clearly but there’s bigger issues to be dealing with, and Jason thanks his lucky stars that Bruce doesn’t push at how blatantly Jason breaks his precious no-kill rule.
Dick cuts in then. "He's fucking - shit - I don't know what he's seeing, but he's angry. Holy sh-" He's cut off by a loud clang and the oncoming rush of water. There's a few moments of silence, where both Jason and Bruce are clearly trying to see if Dick's just fucking up and died on them, before Dick speaks again, breathing hard. "Don't go in the sewers, my God, he's pissed off."
"Orphan, Spoiler, what's your ETA?" Bruce gets back to business quickly.
"Almost with you, Batsy!" Comes Steph's chirpy voice. Jason likes the kid. Sharp, doesn't take Bruce's bullshit, got fired from Robin even quicker than Jason did. She's alright. Reminds Jason of himself, pre-League, pre-death, pre-Joker, a bit.
"Be there in five." Jason grumbles. He hates to leave Crime Alley like this, really truly despises abandoning his people how they’d ben left behind so many times before. Crime Alley is the most forgotten place in Gotham, and Jason refuses to let Red Hood be just another cape who walked away from it. He’s not leaving it solely alone, of course - he could never. He knows his lieutenants can handle it. Slicer, his top lieutenant, is quite possibly the handiest woman with a knife Jason's seen since Talia Al-Ghul - Crime Alley would be safe under her watchful eye He still despises it, though, loathes how Batman can call and Jason has to come running.. He draws his gun from the holster on his thigh, and leaps off the roof, towards Bristol, and the rest of rich-schmuck inner city Gotham.
If Crime Alley sounds like the day of reckoning, then Bristol's a different beast entirely, ringing out loud with the screams of the terrified and dying. The rich fuckers of Bristol, of all of inner Gotham in fact, have grown complacent, too used to Batman swooping in to save the day. Most of them don't carry rebreathers, even fewer bother to check the water before they drink it.
They're not used to fear, unlike the people of Crime Alley. Unlike Jason.
The infected water is spraying in huge arcs from sprinklers set up across the city, spreading it's fumes over the wide avenues and glass-fronted buildings that comprise inner Gotham. The air's thick with Toxin now, red gas scrawling up the sides of buildings and clustering in clouds of misery in the muggy air. The light hits the streets wrong, the electric power lines are faulty after some worker hurled themselves onto it to escape an imagined horde of ravenous beasts, Oracle reports, and the resulting charge fried both the worker and the majority of Gotham's power lines. Shadows rise up and warp and stretch wrong, and Scarecrow's mechanised voice is crowing over the loudspeakers, crowing in delight at the misery and delicious fear before him.
Jason drops onto the street a block behind Batman, boots hitting wet asphalt hard enough to jar his knees, and readjusts his rebreather, feeling the burn on his lungs as it constricts his airflow. The press of his guns is a familiar and welcome weight at his side. Orphan says nothing, but Spoiler grins at him quickly before turning back to business.
He hears Croc before he sees him - that snapping, snarling, grotesque gurgling noise emanates from the alleyways around them. Something between a growl and a laugh rolls out of the sewer mouth like it’s being pushed up from the city’s gut, and the toxins in the air are thick enough that even through the filters of Jason’s rebreather are struggling to keep up. Jason can taste it, sharp and metallic, like licking a battery.
“Spread out,” Bruce orders, dropping onto the ground beside Jason, already moving, cape flaring as he lands. “He’s bigger than usual, coming out of the sewers because of the damp air. Toxin’s amplifying aggression and pain tolerance.”
“Copy,” Cass says quietly, and then she’s gone, a flicker of motion Jason barely catches before she’s on a fire escape, eyes locked on the sewer grate like she can see straight through concrete. She looks nervous, almost, and Jason wonders what Bruce isn't telling them, that Cass can read on his face.
Steph lands beside Jason with a light thud and a grin that’s a little too bright for the situation, twirling her baton once. “Okay, big ugly crocodile man on fear drugs. That’s new. You good, Hood?”
Jason huffs. "I've had better nights."
Croc erupts out of the sewers with a spray of piss-stinking water, asphalt cracking under it's teeth, and the roar that tears it's way from it's chest is enough to strike a little fear into even Jason's heart. Dick gets flung out along with Croc, flipping through the air before falling into a controlled roll to land beside Jason. sShow-off.
"He's big." Dick warns as Jason takes in the sheer size of Killer Croc, hopped up on fear Toxin and whatever fuckass steroids he uses to transform into a crocodile 'roid-monster. Jason, catching Dick’s eye, stifles the urge to laugh. Not the time for a dick joke. Steph has no such qualms, and opens her mouth, expression delighted, before Batman cuts her off with a glare.
Jason doesn’t wait for Batman’s signal, just opens fire to draw Croc’s attention. The shots spark uselessly off the thickened scales, but do their job enough to attract the beast's gaze. Croc's head snaps round, his yellow eyes locked onto him with something like faint recognition.
Croc charges, pavement buckling under his weight, and Jason barely has time to roll before a massive claw slams down where his head had been, shockwaves rattling his teeth. Bruce swoops in from above, explosive gel detonating against Croc’s shoulder, and Steph darts in low, baton cracking against a knee that would shatter a normal man’s bones and barely slows Croc down now. Cass moves like a ghost, striking pressure points beneath his scales, testing reactions, but the toxin has made Croc sloppy and unpredictable, swinging wild and fast.
"Rioters in the Cauldron!" Their comms, tuned into the GCPD wavelength, scream into life with Jim's frantic tones. "Rioters in the Cauldron! Joker's men- Batman, requesting immediate assistance!" Shit. If Jim sounds that stressed, it's bad. Very bad.
"Hood, deal with Croc. Nightwing, Orphan, Spoiler - with me." Bruce barks out, and Jason barely has time to snarl a curse before the old man's fucked off to the Cauldron to go and stop a bunch of rich fuckers from killing themselves.
Croc roars and charges, and it’s brutal and quick and far too close for comfort. His clawscrape sparks off of Jason's armour as he ducks and rolls. The world narrows to just this - the scrape of his boots on the concrete as he runs, the recoil of a bullet leaving his gun, and the hiss of the rebreather in his mouth.
Croc bellows something unintelligible, the fear toxin must be stealing all coherence and reasoning from him, and charges at Jason. Jason scrambles backwards, hands scrabbling for purchase, but a puddle of water to his left sends his foot flying out from beneath him and his back slaps into the pavement hard enough to knock the air from his lungs. Croc looms over him, mouth bared, and raises one gargantuan hand to rake his claws down Jason's side.
The claws slide like butter through Jason's armoured jacket and then through soft flesh, and he screams in agony, twisting around fruitlessly to free himself. His head swims with pain, and he's screaming, screeching really - distantly, some small part of his brain hears Dick's almost-concerned voice over the comms. Killer Croc pulls his arm back again, but Jason's ready this time. He half-rolls, half-flops along the ground, and drags himself into a tiny alley a few paces away from the road he'd been fighting on. He's practically army-crawling, hauling himself desperately away, until Croc catches him with a backhand he doesn’t quite see coming, the force of it slamming him into a brick wall hard enough to rattle his teeth and, worse, crack something at his jaw. There’s a sharp hiss, a spluttering gurgle, and Jason’s stomach drops as the rebreather stutters and then goes silent. Water drips from the sewer ceiling right into his open mouth.
“Shit,” he gasps, because he can already feel it, the air burning as he sucks it in, the water corroding his throat as it slips down. The toxin creeps past filters that aren’t there anymore, panic trying to claw its way up his spine. Croc lunges again and Jason fires blind, the smoke and noise buys him just enough space to stagger away, to throw a grapple and haul himself up onto a fire escape. Croc’s furious bellows fading as Jason forces his legs to move, to run, to get somewhere, anywhere but here. It's setting in already, and the Joker's maniacal laugh reverberates in his skull, joined by Batman's gravelly growl and a little birdie's dying scream.
The journey to his nearest safehouse is a blur of terrified agony and vivid hallucinations. The Joker swings the crowbar as his mother smokes a cigarette and Bruce watches on in stone-faced, passive silence. Muscle memory carries him across the rooftops and, after fumbling with the keypad, up the seven flights of stairs to his apartment. His head pounds. Alfred dies a thousand gruesome deaths with each step Jason takes up the staircase; the Joker giggles manically against the screams of the infected. His vision's warping at the edges as he hurls himself into the room and slams the door closed, breathing hard.
He locks the door by feel rather than sight, shoulder slamming into it once, twice, until the deadbolt catches with a solid thunk that sounds way too much like a coffin lid in his head. Then he’s sliding down the wall again, his boots scraping uselessly against peeling paint and his injured side burning and leaking warm blood that soaks into his jacket. The room is dark but it doesn’t matter, because the fear toxin doesn’t need light to show him things, it just reaches in and pulls them out anyway with a clawing hand that’s Joker-pale and Batman-talon sharp. It's a potent strain and it layers memories over memories over the present until he can't tell when one ends and the other begins.
"Which one hurts more, Birdie? Forehand or backhand?"
The crowbar swings down onto his skull and splits it clean open. Blood runs into his hazy eyes but his hands are dry and clean when he lifts them to his face.
"A or B?"
The ticking of a bomb beeps in time with his heart and he chokes on his spit as he scrambles and pleads with forces that aren't there.
The safehouse twists around him, walls stretching too far, ceiling lowering until it feels like it’s pressing down on his skull, and suddenly it’s not his apartment anymore. It’s a narrow concrete room that smells like bleach and rot and old blood. Chains rattle somewhere just out of sight as the Joker’s laughter bounces off every surface. Jason claws at the floor, and his nails start to bleed.
He can hear Bruce now, or thinks he can, that calm, infuriating voice cutting through the chaos like it always does. “Hood, you are compromised, focus. Breathe. You’re letting it get to you.” He laughs, a short, broken sound that hurts his ribs, because of course Bruce would say that, of course his fucking sociopathic dad would stand there and tell him to focus while the world caves in.
His comm crackles again and it takes him a second to realise it’s real, that it’s not just another voice the toxin is throwing at him to see what sticks.
“Hood,” Dick says, and there’s real worry there now. “Hood, respond. Your vitals just spiked then dropped. Jason, talk to me. Jaybird-"
Jason can't hear anything now, just the hum of the Lazarus Pit and the crushing weight of six feet of dirt packed up above. He claws at the lid of his coffin and tries not to suffocate as the dirt comes rushing down, spilling into his lungs and mouth and nose and eyes, and oh God-
He's going to die.
again.
He's going to die again, right here and right now, with no one by his side, and no one will mourn him because he's not even done anything useful, anything worthwhile. The Joker's still alive and Crime Alley's still a stinking shithole and none of that matters right now, anyway, cause he can't fucking breathe-
There's old antidote kits in the kitchen, the type that should work just enough to kick the hallucinations out, restore a little of Jason’s sanity. God bless Alfred, that wonderful man-
The mere thought of Alfred gives the Toxin something new to latch on to. Blood blooms from Alfred's skull as Jason loses control in a Pit-fuelled rage and places a bullet between his faux-grandfather's eyes, Alfred screams as the Joker slams a crowbar down on to him, Alfred's teeth shatter into a million tiny pearls as a thug with a hammer decides to try his luck with 'Agent A'.
“Stay… outta my head,” Jason mutters hoarsely, not sure who he’s talking to anymore. He drags himself towards the kitchen because he knows, logically, that he planned for this, always plans for this, but logic is hard to come by when the Lazarus Pit is humming under his skin and the toxin is peeling him open layer by layer.
The counter sends a fresh lance of pain through his skull as he crawls headfirst into it, and he blinks. His vision's basically gone, now, save for the hideous nightmares behind his eyes, but the impact is enough to send stars across his sight , what little perception he had left becoming fogged and distant with black dots.
Something falls from the counter - a glass - and it crumples in time with Barbara's spine shattering. The sound triggers another wave, another memory, this one of a coffin, of darkness pressing in from all sides. He's choking on dirt again, unable to swallow because of the thick cloying mud that worms it's way into his lungs.
“Jason,” Bruce’s voice cuts through the noise, suddenly closer, sharper. “Where are you?” For a split second hope flares, bright and stupid in Jason's heart. He turns, almost calls back, before he sees him. The Dark Knight, standing in the doorway in that fucking cowl, eyes cold and distant.
"You were a fool, Robin." Bruce sneers. "This is what happens when you don’t listen. This is your fault. How many dead, because of you, Jason? How much blood is on your hands?"
Jason snarls and draws his gun, pulls the trigger by sheer instinct, and watches it pass straight through Bruce’s chest and bury itself in the wall behind him. Bruce dissolves into shadows and smoke and reforms into the Joker, his mother sanding beside him, smoking that fucking cigarette.
Jason finally finds the cabinet and rips it open with shaking hands. His fingers are so slick with blood as he fumbles for the injector that he almost misses it entirely.
"Come on, kid, you were always such a quitter!" The clown giggles. "Where's that fight you showed in Arkham, hm? So much anger, all that rage."
Jason roars wordlessly and coughs so hard blood mixes with the spit that flies from his mouth in the Joker's direction. "Fuck. Off. and die, you stupid fucking clown!" he screeches.
Joker sidesteps the spit, because of course he does, he's not even there, and wags a finger like he's scolding a child. "Now, now, Birdie, that's no way to talk to your good old Uncle J, is it?"
He tuts, and steps closer, looming over Jason, to grab his jaw in one ice-cold hand. His grip is vice-tight. "You used to be so good for me, Robin. What happened?" He wheedles. "I thought we were friends. Comrades, compatriots. Good old buddies in the fight against your old man, huh?"
Joker’s thumb digs into the hinge of his jaw and Jason feels it pop, feels the sharp, sickening jolt of pain bloom. He wants to throw up, but there's nothing left in his stomach so it's just bile that spews from his bloodied mouth.
“Oh, don’t give me that look,” Joker croons, leaning in close enough that Jason can smell him, oil and sugar and rot all tangled together. “You loved it. All that attention. Six whole months, just you and me, Birdie. No Bats, no rules, no bedtime curfews. Wasn't it fun?" Joker spreads his arms wide and Jason's head drops to the floor with a dull thunk.
"You screamed, at first, little one, didn't you? Oh, how you screamed. But that was nothing compared to me and my friends. Do you remember that, Jason? You thought it was Daddy Bats, swooping in to save you, your hero." Joker swoons dramatically and bats his eyes. "But no. No no no. It wasn't dear old Brucie after all, it was me, and my friends! You hurt a lot of people as
Robin, Jason, and they all wanted a piece of the pie. Don’t you remember how much it hurt?"
The antidote injector slips from Jason's fingers with an anticlimactic thud, and shatters into tiny starts before his eyes. Jason barely notices, too far gone to register the significance of it, and too deep in the memory where nothing ever helped anyway.
"Uh oh! Butter fingers! Such a shame, Jason, you were almost free!" The clown raises the crowbar again.
Jason can't bring himself to pull his head up this time. He curls into a ball and lets the hits rain down on him. Just. Like. Before.
Nightwing hits the window first and Batman follows a half-second later. The safehouse smells wrong the second they’re inside, metallic and sharp and chemical, fear toxin thick enough that even through the filters in the cowl it burns faintly. There’s blood on the floor in long smeared arcs like someone had dragged themselves instead of walking. The kitchen is lit, but badly. One overhead light flickers on and off, casting uneven shadows across the room that clash with the blaring red of outside's emergency sirens. Broken glass crunches under Dick’s boot when he takes a step closer.
"B-" Dick starts, cut off by the horror that chokes his throat closed.
Jason is sprawled on the floor between the counter and the island, like he collapsed mid-crawl and never made it back up. Jason’s helmet is gone. His jacket is torn open. His chest is rising too fast, breaths shallow and hitching, and he’s muttering under his breath, voice hoarse and wrecked.
He screams suddenly, and flinches like he's being hit - no, like he's being beaten, over and over again. His eyes are open, but they look right past Bruce and Dick. Bruce drops to one knee beside him, glass biting into his suit, his attention locked on Jason’s breathing. Too fast, just pure panic in each inhale.
"Stay back,” he growls, dragging himself an inch forward before his strength gives out. He hits the floor hard. “I’ll kill you. I swear I’ll—” He coughs, loudly, blood dribbling from his mouth. "I'll- I'll fucking kill you, sadistic clown, I will-"
“It’s me,” Dick says quickly, stepping into view. He keeps his hands open, slow and visible. “Jay. It’s Dick. You're okay, littlewing, we're going to take you home."
"Nice voice." Jason mumbles. "You been practising that, Joker? Funny fucking party trick, yeah?" Even now, he's still fighting.
Bruce leans closer. “Hood. You’re hallucinating. Fear toxin exposure, you need to come back to the cave-”
Jason laughs like it’s a private joke, wheezy and tortured and horrible. “Yeah. Sure. That’s what you’d say.”
His gaze slides past Bruce’s shoulder, locks onto the doorway. His expression hardens into something sharp and vicious. “Get out,” he snarls. “You don’t get to come back.” His whole body arches off the floor as he contorts in pain. "Get out!" He wails. "Go away, don't touch me, don't fucking touch me, I swear to God I'll fucking kill you."
Dick follows his stare and sees nothing. He swallows. “Jay,” he says, softer now. “The antidote broke. Alfred keeps backups. We just need to keep you steady until-"
Jason's grip is ironclad on Dick's wrist. His hand shoots out and grabs him, clutching desperately tight. “Don’t leave,” he says. “Please don’t leave me here. I can’t breathe. It's so dark, Bruce, don't leave me here, please- Please.” He chokes. “I’ll be good. Just don’t put me back in that box. I can't go back, Dad, I can't do it."
Bruce goes very, very still at that. At that word, Dad slipping out like muscle memory, like Jason’s thirteen again and standing at Bruce’s door, all skinny arms and uncertain smile, after a bad night on patrol.For a second, Bruce looks every bit as wrecked as Jason is, his jaw tight and eyes dark and searching. Bruce doesn’t speak. He doesn’t look at Dick, or even at Jason, fully. Slowly, he reaches into one of the inner compartments of his belt and pulls out an injector - the antidote -, small and unassuming for what it contains.
“Jay,,” Dick says quietly, pitching his voice low, careful. “This will help. It’s the antidote. You know that.” Bruce doesn’t move closer yet, just lets Jason see the syringe, lets him register the shape. Jason groans - a low, pitiful groan - more animal than human and utterly drenched in fear. He’s shaking, Jason is, and he looks younger than his years. His Red Hood helmet’s cast off somewhere amidst the broken glass and carnage of the kitchen, and his green eyes are only half-open. The J brand on his cheek stands out, crimson, against his pale, sickly skin.
Jason turns his head away from the syringe with a sharp, jerky motion, as if the sight of it burns. “Don’t,” he breathes. It comes out thin and cracked, barely more than air. “Don’t do that. You always do that, Joker.” His fingers scrabble uselessly against the floor, nails catching in glass, leaving faint bloody crescents behind. “That’s how it starts. You say it’s medicine and then-” He cuts himself off with a harsh swallow. “You’re a fucking liar, don’t touch me.”
Dick swallows hard and stays where he is, hands still open and empty. He doesn’t reach. Not yet. “Jay,” he murmurs again. “Look at me. Not the needle. Me.” He shifts just enough to catch Jason’s line of sight and blocks the syringe - and Bruce - with his shoulder. “You know me. I won’t lie to you. Not over something like this.”
“You left me.” Jason cries, and his voice is small and pitiful and so entirely unlike Red Hood, it makes even Bruce step back. “You left me in Arkham with him. With the Joker. You left me to die.” Jason drags himself to his feet, points an accusing finger at Dick and Bruce. His eyes are clearer, but far greener now - perhaps that old theory of Tim’s is right, and the Pit helps combat the Toxin?
Jason stumbles as he stands, and shrugs off Dick’s helpful hand. “You- you fucking lied to me. You said you’d help me, and you left me with him.” His eyes shine with unshed tears and he looks as if he’s about to vomit. Dick feels quite like doing so himself - God, it’s fucking awful, seeing his baby brother in this state, hear how he was so abandoned by everyone. Dick doesn’t know the specifics of what exactly happened to Jason, when Jason had faked his death and disappeared for years, only coming back to terrorise half the city as Red Hood. But he knows that Jason didn’t get that J brand on his cheek for fun. And that the Joker is a sick and twisted bastard, who’d do anything to get his hands on a poor, defenceless little Robin. Two and two make four. Dick’s not an idiot.
Jason keels forward, that accusation having seemingly taken all his strength. He lurches right into Dick’s arms and goes limp, eyes rolling back in his head. Bruce takes the opportunity to stick the syringe into Jason’s neck and wipe his hands free of broken glass and blood. He doesn’t meet Dick’s eyes.
“The Cave.” Batman says, voice firm. He takes Jason from Dick with more care than Dick thought Bruce possessed. Bruce smooths a hand through Jason’s sweaty, bloodied hair, and rubs a thumb over the J brand on Jason’s cheek. For a moment, he looks sad. Guilty, even.
“The Medbay has synthesizers, Red Robin can run a scan on this batch of toxin.” Bruce straightens up, still holding Jason. It should look comedic - this grown, 6’3 man being cradled like a child by The Batman, of all people, but it doesn’t. It just looks sad.
“He’d hate that-” Dick tries to argue, but one look at Batman’s unsmiling expression, underneath the cowl, and he shuts up. Jason can be - will be - spitting mad at them all later, if when he wakes up, but Bruce is right. The Medbay is the best place for Jason now. He’s coming home.