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“What is your name?”
“Fuck you.”
Crack. “Wrong answer, champ! Let’s try again. What is your name?”
“Y’can’t…” Jason spits out a glob of blood. “Can’t read a newspaper? I’ll give you a hint: Starts with an R.”
Crack. The crowbar rips out a chunk of flesh this time on the upswing. Jason barely holds back the scream. The ropes keeping him tied to his chair are the only reason he doesn’t fall backwards. His Robin armor used to provide some cushion against the blows, but it’s been days. His armor had worn down. He is wearing down.
“What,” the Joker repeats, smiling like a bully burning an ant with a magnifying glass, “is your name?” He lifts the crowbar to swing again.
“Robin!” Jason sputters before it makes contact. “Robin. I’m Robin.”
The monster pats his cheek. “Good boy. And who do you hate?”
Jason spits in his face.
Crack. Crack. Crack. Crack. Crack.
Jason has been in the Joker’s questionable “care” for…six days? Seven? There are no windows in the abandoned basement beneath Arkham Asylum that Joker’s sequestered his fledgling trophy in, nor is there a clock in sight. The only time-keeping method Jason has is Joker’s daily traipse down here for their sessions. His only companion otherwise is the asbestos-infected water drips he can hear echoing in the room after his screams have stopped.
He’s a chew toy. The Joker comes down and plays with Jason when he feels like it while the guards he paid off cover for his absence in his cell. God knows what else the bastard gets up to down here. The whole wing could be filled with room after room of pitiful victims that get the blade any time Joker feels like getting his crazed rocks off.
Sometimes Jason hears laughter coming from the walls. This part of the asylum is far enough from the inmates’ cells that there’s no way Jason can simply be hearing the Arkham crazies in their natural habitat. Something is in here with him.
Then again, it’s possible that Jason’s simply snapped and these are all auditory hallucinations. The Joker could have been drugging him slowly all this time, driving him more mad with every visit to the point where he’s imagining laughter just so he doesn’t have to sit alone in silence. He was so determined not to break under the endless torture. Has he already broken?
The first few days, it was blades. Crude, but efficient. Next came the whips. The electricity. Power tools. The Joker hasn’t made an appearance yet today, and Jason’s internal clock says he’s late by at least an hour. He’ll probably switch it up today, then, to make up for the loss by bringing in something new. Five bucks says it’s fire.
“Ohhh, Robbie!” The heavy door bangs open. Joker shows up grinning, energized. The cafeteria must have served real coffee today instead of the sludge Harley complains about. “Did’ja miss me, kiddo?”
From behind his back, the Joker proudly presents a blowtorch. “You’ve been looking a little pale lately, pookie. Ol’ Joker’s kept you down here too long. You could use a spray tan!”
Called it.
In the brief snatches of sleep Jason catches between sessions, he hears voices. Sometimes it’s Bruce in his head coaching him to be strong. Just hold on a little longer, son, he reassures Jason. I’ll come save you. I’m on the way right now. I won’t forget about you.
Other times, after it becomes clear that Jason won’t be rescued today, Alfred’s gentle British accent comforts Jason through the hurt. Tells him to breathe. This will pass, my boy.
Most often, the voice Jason hears is one he doesn’t recognize. High-pitched and faint. Shrill, like Joker, but…younger. A child. Jason hears it laughing. Then he hears it crying.
Joker and Harley’s voices join the rotation from the other side of the wall adjacent to Jason’s room. They’re louder than the child. Their glee carries. Jason hears the bzzt of electricity, followed by cackling sobs so quiet he barely hears them over the Joker’s own uproarious laughter.
Neither Joker nor Harley acknowledges this when Jason asks. On the occasions when Harley is lucid enough to feel pity for Jason, she’ll come in to clean the blood and sweat off him after Joker’s done for the day. She wraps his wounds. Dresses him up in clothes too small for him. Stolen from a Goodwill bin? Borrowed from a kid they slaughtered together?
Here’s another day of Joker running late for their torture sessions. Jason is starting to feel like a stood-up date. He’s been fading in and out since the night before thanks to his most recent head wound. He’s been tied to the chair for over twenty-four hours this time around. His arms and legs have become useless noodles, but at least they’re still attached to him. For now.
The heavy door creaks, and Jason’s adrenaline kicks in like a Pavlovian response. He braces himself, opens his eyes, and sees…nobody. No Joker. No Harley.
The basement is dark, but not so dark he can’t make out the short shadow that’s appeared in the corner farthest away from Jason. His heart leaps into his throat. Call it pathetic, call it childish, but for that first split second, Jason is rescued. Batman is here. Bruce came to get him. The pain is over.
But this shadowy figure is too little to be Bruce.
Jason and the shadow appraise each other for a long time until Jason can’t take it any longer. “Well?” The shadow doesn’t move. Jason tries to pretend his heart isn’t going a hundred miles an hour. “Who are you?”
The shadow giggles.
Jason sneers even though he’s trembling like a leaf. “What, Mister Jay couldn’t come down to torture me himself? He had to send a representative? Laaaame.”
The shadow takes a step closer, into the faint light of the overhead bulb.
The boy is shorter than Jason. He can’t be older than ten or eleven. It’s like looking at a mini Joker—green hair, white skin, and all. Like the creep and Harley fucking procreated, as if the world needed those two clowns multiplied.
“You’re just a kid,” Jason whispers. The boy grins like invisible fingers are pulling the corners of his mouth up for him. Jason’s stomach roils in response. “Are you…Are they keeping you here, too? How’d you get here?”
The kid doesn’t say a word. He just keeps smiling.
“You must know your way around this place, right? Is there a way out?” From what he can see in the low light, there are raw, red marks circling the boy’s wrists and ankles. Clearly he didn’t wander down to this part of the asylum himself. Does Joker let him roam free, or did the kid somehow escape the bindings himself? Does he just wander around the basement wing in his free time like it’s nothing? If that’s the case, then why hasn’t he escaped?
“Hey, if you untie me, I can help you get out of here. We can escape together, and we’ll find a way to contact Batman. I know him. He’ll save us.”
The kid lets out a giggle so sharp it has all the hair on Jason’s body standing up. Jason’s body is tied too tightly to back away as the kid approaches him like a marionette brought to life. He holds out a crumbled-up candy bar, half-melted from being inside his pocket. He breaks off a piece and eats it. Then he breaks off another and offers this one to Jason.
“Uh…” For all Jason knows, the chocolate could be laced with narcotics, or whatever is keeping the kid so crazed and complacent. He hasn’t been fed in two days, though, and at the rate things are going, a drug trip or death seems a hell of a lot better than the treatment Jason’s got coming his way.
He doesn’t get to decide. The kid shoves the piece in Jason’s mouth for him. The old, half-melted chocolate is the best thing Jason’s had in years. He allows himself to be fed until the chocolate bar is gone.
With the kid this close, Jason gets a better look at his features. Under the bleached skin, the scars, and the crazed eyes, the boy looks…familiar. From school? Passed on the street? “What’s your name?”
The kid cocks his head like Jason spoke in another language.
“Do you remember your name?”
“Heh-heh.”
“Did you have a family?”
“He sure does!”
Jason’s heart stops.
In the open doorway stands the Joker, baseball bat in hand. He clicks his tongue in disappointment. “You know better than to play with Daddy’s things, JJ.”
The kid has gone completely still, but there is no visible fear on his face. More like he’s…checked out. Back to factory settings. He doesn’t brace himself, doesn’t throw up his hands to defend himself when the baseball bat hits him in the face so hard Jason can hear his nose breaking. The boy collapses to the floor, holding his bleeding face.
“Aw,” the Joker croons with a hateful smile, “don’t cry, slugger. You know Daddy doesn’t like it when he has to punish you.”
JJ giggles. He snorts around the blood pouring from his nostrils. He doesn’t look at Jason.
“Back to your room!” Joker snaps. “Daddy will be there in a minute to tuck you in.”
Jason has a feeling that whatever that means, it’s going to be painful for JJ. His psychotic little grin doesn’t waver. He obeys and picks himself off the floor, looking back at Jason for only a moment before he runs off out the door, back to wherever the hell he came from.
Joker heaves a put-upon sigh. “How embarrassing! I’m sorry you had to see our little family spat. Kids these days can be so rude.” He hefts up the bloody bat. “Now, where were we?”
“What is your name?”
“Who was that kid?”
Crack. “Who do you hate?”
“Does he have a family? What did you do to him?”
Crack. “Who do you hate?”
“You’re a fucking monster!”
Crack. “Who do you hate?”
“I hate you! I hate you! I—”
Crack. Crack. Crack.
“Tim.”
The kid goes eerily still, and Jason knows he guessed right. It only took a week for him to put a name to the disfigured face. Bruce would be proud of Jason’s detective skills. Y’know—if he was here.
JJ doesn’t come around often. Jason has no idea what the little freak does when he’s not sneaking around to visit Jason. Maybe he helps Joker and Harley on their heists. More likely he’s just as much a prisoner as Jason is. Today, JJ was there when Jason woke up. He drew smiley faces on Jason’s skin with a finger dipped in the pool of blood under Jason’s chair. The latest wounds stopped bleeding sometime in the night.
“Tim Drake,” Jason says, watching JJ’s face for a flicker of recognition—of something. “Vanished without a trace last year while his parents were on a trip.” The nanny waited three days to report Tim missing. His parents flew back to Gotham the next morning. “Last seen in Park Row with a camera during an Arkham breakout. The camera was left behind with pics of Batman and Robin on the film.”
The tragic consensus was that little Tim Drake had been trafficked or killed. Bruce and Jason worked the case for days after the GCPD gave up, but eventually even they had to accept that the trail wasn’t getting warmer any time soon.
“That was you, wasn’t it?” Jason goes on at the lack of a reaction from his audience. “You were taking pictures of us?”
The kid starts humming some nursery rhyme under his breath like he’s trying to drone out Jason’s interrogation.
“Please, Tim. You gotta help me. You gotta do something. He’s going to fucking kill us.”
“Heh-heh.” JJ does a somersault on the concrete floor, giggling to himself.
“Batman’s not coming,” Jason says. “It’s been too long. Either Joker got him, or he’s—”
He doesn’t care about you. He doesn’t love you. He left you to rot.
Jason grits his teeth. “We’re on our own, okay? If we’re going to escape, we need to work together. Do you understand? Please, Tim.”
JJ snickers. “Please,” he echoes with that creepy, scratchy voice of his, like a music box that broke decades ago.
A tear falls from Jason’s eye. “Please.”
JJ forms a gun with two fingers and points it at Jason. “Please.”
“What is your name?”
It’s been too long. Bruce would have gotten here by now if he wanted to. If he cared.
Did he ever care?
Crack. “What,” the Joker repeats through a gritted smile, “is your name?”
“R-Robin.”
“Good boy! And who do you hate?”
Why are you still protecting him? He never protected you.
“I…”
Crack. “Who do you hate?”
He left you to die.
“Batman.”
Jason is losing it. He can feel his resolve slipping away every day. Every minute. Bruce trained him to withstand torture, but there was always the underlying reassurance that Jason merely had to hold out long enough for Bruce to come rescue him.
I’ll always keep you safe, Jay.
Liar.
Jason’s been in the Joker’s hands for months. Batman isn’t coming. He probably never even bothered to try.
Jason can’t believe how gullible he was. He’s in the same boat as Tim—a helpless little boy left behind with a madman. Tim’s parents forgot about him, too. Jason remembers seeing Jack and Janet Drake at the last Wayne event Bruce dragged him to. (How long ago was that? How old was he then? How old is he now?) They were planning an anniversary trip to Bermuda.
A fucking vacation. Their child was being tortured and contorted into a pantomime of himself, and they were planning a goddamn romantic getaway. Just a couple of suckers with shitty parents, Jason and Tim.
Why do you want to go back, again?
“Please, just five minutes,” Jason begs. He begs now. He blubbers and pleads and he’ll—he’ll kiss the clown’s fucking shoes if it means putting off the pain, if it means he can see sunlight again, just for a minute. “Just stop for five minutes, please, please—”
The Joker loves it when he begs. He loves the satisfaction of knowing he broke the Bat’s bird. As a reward, he brands Jason’s left cheek with a big, unmistakable J. Jason screams louder than he has in a very long time. His face feels like it’s on fire for hours.
Then the Joker makes Jason watch him do the same thing to JJ—two of them this time, side by side under his left eye. JJ screams so loud it brings tears to Jason’s eyes. When Joker shows him the results in the mirror, however, JJ begins to laugh.
“What a perfect match! Like brothers!” Joker pats JJ’s head.
Jason never had a brother. Dick hardly gave a shit about his failed replacement on a good day. Jason clearly doesn’t have a father either, considering that the man who pretended to be his dad doesn’t care enough to track him to the most obvious secret hideout in the world. The Joker literally lives in the same building.
Did Tim Drake have siblings? Jason can’t remember, and there’s no use in asking. JJ hasn’t been lucid for a minute since Jason met him. The kid’s brains are swiss cheese, and Jason can feel himself following close behind.
Maybe they’re more similar than Jason thought.
Maybe you’re just as insane as he is.
Maybe it was all a joke.
“Who put you here?”
“Batman.”
The J brand on his face has dried and scabbed over. Everyone will see the scar. Everyone will know of Batman’s failure. Jason thinks he might like that.
“Who abandoned you?”
“Batman.”
Liar. Traitor. Bastard.
“Who do you hate?”
“Batman.”
The Joker doesn’t swing the crowbar this time. He rubs Jason’s head affectionately. Jason whimpers at the contact all the same. “Good boy.”
One day, JJ makes a mistake. The Joker hands him a gun and instructs him to shoot their captive birdie right between the eyes. Joker’s got a video camera rolling like a proud pop.
“Time to shake things up, sonny-boy! My little guy’s first kill.” Joker wipes away a fake tear. “They grow up so fast. It’s a shame things didn’t work out with our little bird here, but he’s just no fun anymore. No hard feelings, right, Jaybird?”
He’s grown bored of Jason. That’s all it is. He’s broken and used up, and now there is no more purpose for him. He’s a broken toy. Now he’ll die for it.
Bruce instilled it in Jason to never show fear, never give the bad guy the satisfaction of knowing he’s got the upper hand, but Bruce isn’t here. He never was. Jason shakes and shakes.
JJ raises the gun in both hands. Presses the cold metal to Jason’s forehead. Jason’s trembling like a rattlesnake tail, but Tim’s hands are still.
“Say hi to the kiddo, Batsy!” Joker tells the camera. He zooms in on Jason’s worn, bloodied face. On the gun. “So sad that it’ll be for the last time! Make sure you’re paying attention to this final act, Batman. We’re going for the Oscar!” The Joker zooms in, grinning and licking his lips like this is the performance of the century. “Go on, JJ. Deliver the punchline.”
Jason stares into JJ’s cold, lifeless eyes. “Please,” he whispers. “P-Please, Tim.”
JJ giggles. “Please.”
“Do it, JJ!”
Jason closes his eyes.
Bang.
Jason lets out a sob, except—except he’s not dead. His eyes fly open, and JJ isn’t facing him anymore. The gun is no longer aimed at Jason, but recoiling now from the bullet plunged through the camera lens. Right between the eyes.
The Joker lowers the camera slowly. The lens is shattered. That could have been in his forehead.
JJ begins to laugh.
Joker flings the camera aside. The smash makes Jason flinch. JJ is lifted up by the front of his shirt and shaken like a disobedient animal. “You think this is funny?”
JJ just laughs and laughs and laughs.
Joker seizes him by the throat, cutting off his air. The laughter peters out, but JJ’s smile doesn’t drop. “Clearly someone needs to be taught a lesson,” the Joker snarls. He turns to Jason, helpless in his death chair. “You’re lucky,” he decrees. “You get to be part of our happy family for a little longer! Enjoy your front-row seat to the show.”
Jason is forced to watch on helplessly as Joker holds JJ down on the cold concrete floor. He carves jagged lines into JJ’s cheeks with a switchblade, turning his gleeful smile permanent. JJ screams and thrashes the whole time, but he’s half the Joker’s size, and what would escaping do? He’d only be caught again and face a steeper punishment for his insubordination. That’s the way things are.
And where is Batman? Safe at home, ignorant of the carnage he wrought simply by locking the Joker up in this fake facility instead of putting the rabid animal down when he had the chance.
Bruce wanted this to happen. He wanted you to get taken.
He wanted you and JJ to die all along.
The Joker should have been dead years ago. Batman should be dead. Clearly he’s doing fuck-all for Gotham by letting these monsters live, so what’s the fucking point anymore? Who is Jason trying to protect?
Who even are you anymore?
“What is your name?”
“Jason Todd.”
“Who do you hate?”
“Bruce Wayne.”
Jason wakes to find JJ sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of his chair, driving a toy clown car back and forth over the hill of Jason’s foot.
“You could leave, y’know.” Jason’s voice is hoarse. Yesterday, Joker strung him from the ceiling by his wrists and carved strips of flesh off wherever he pleased, simply because one of the Arkham guards pissed him off that morning. “If you were smart, you’d get the hell out of here and kill anyone who got in the way. You’re freaky to look at. No one’ll mess with you.”
JJ doesn’t indicate that he’s even listening. He scratches the healing scars carved into his cheeks.
“I was weak like you, once. I followed a madman to the ends of the world because I thought it was good, and look where it got me. He doesn’t even care that I’m gone.” Jason lets out a pitiful, tired laugh. “Your parents barely looked for you. Batman gave up, too. We’ve got nobody but ourselves, you understand? No one else gives a shit.”
JJ makes vroom vroom sounds and drives the car up Jason’s scarred ankle. Every inch of him is scarred, now.
“We can kill Joker.” The car stops. “I can make sure he’ll never touch you again. We can put him down together, and then bust the hell out of this place and hunt down the Batman next so he can’t fuck up any other kids. We can be better than them. A new Batman and Joker.”
The more he talks, the more beautiful it sounds. “Gouge out their eyes, slit their fucking throats. We’ll string their bodies up outside Wayne Tower so everyone in Gotham will know what they did. Sounds fun, doesn’t it?”
Sounds like justice.
JJ sits upright so suddenly that Jason yelps. He plants himself close enough to Jason’s face that he can smell the kid’s breath. He can see the veins in his sclera; his blown, crazed pupils, like he’s high off every drug on the planet. He doesn’t laugh. He doesn’t say a word.
Jason swallows thickly.
Tread carefully.
“We don’t have to be what they made us. We can beat them. We can kill them. I won’t abandon you like your parents did, like Batman did. He said we’re brothers now, right? Jay and Jay-Jay. We don’t need them anymore now that we’ve got each other. I’ll keep you safe.”
JJ stands up. His toy car rolls away down the sloped floor, skidding on Jason’s dried blood trails. He goes over to the table with Joker’s favorite instruments aligned, prepped and ready for him as always. JJ selects a serrated knife from the collection. He returns to Jason with the blade clenched in his white fist.
JJ holds the tip of the knife to Jason’s neck—presses the cold metal down just enough for Jason to feel the pressure of it, the threat hanging here. His life, for the third time, in the hands of a psycho.
Jason doesn’t breathe. “Please, Ti—” He gulps. “JJ. We can make this right. We can pay them back for what they did to us.”
Slowly, savoring the anxiety, JJ brings the knife down to the rope pinning Jason’s torso to the chair, and he cuts it loose. “Brothers,” he whispers.
Jason matches JJ’s crazed grin with one of his own. “Brothers.”