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Bruce wakes up to Tim crouching on his chest, knife held against Bruce’s throat as he grins. The scars on his cheeks stretch wide, and his eyes are bright, their whites flashing in the darkness of Bruce’s bedroom.
“Wakey wakey, Mr. Bat,” Tim sing-songs as he presses the blade into Bruce’s skin. “Didja miss me?”
It has been a long time since Tim has lost the battle in his head and woken up as a different version of himself. Aside from the scars, there’s really no telling that Tim’s mind has been split right down the middle anymore. When he laughs now, Bruce hears no trace of the Joker in his rasped giggles, and he has foolishly let down his guard.
He throws Tim off the bed and leaps to his feet. Tim is too quick, already pouncing as Bruce tries to get his feet beneath him. For such a lithe boy, Tim’s strong, and he knocks Bruce backwards into the bedside table. Bruce turns, using the boy’s momentum against him as he shoves Tim against the wall. He tries to bring Tim’s arms behind his back, but he’s forgotten about the knife, and he yells when it buries itself deep in the meat of his thigh.
Tim laughs, high and grating, then lifts up his foot and kicks Bruce’s leg, driving the knife even deeper. He grabs the back of Bruce’s head as Bruce stumbles, then slams his knee into Bruce’s nose.
Bruce’s vision whites out, and he reaches blindly until he feels Tim’s arm beneath his hand. He yanks the boy forward, flipping him over his back, then pins him to the carpet.
“Jason!” Bruce yells at the top of his lungs. Tim writhes beneath him, cackling breathlessly as Bruce struggles to hold him down.
The bedroom door slams open, and Jason bursts in, Alfred hot on his heels. The butler swears, then rushes down the hall, no doubt about to keep the others away as Bruce and Jason try to wrestle Tim down to the Cave.
“Jesus Christ,” Jason whispers. “Bruce, your-”
“Help me hold him!”
Jason drops to his knees and grabs Tim’s shoulders as Bruce climbs off. Tim’s laughter grows until he is shrieking as he giggles, and Jason’s skin has turned green as he uses his knees to hold down Tim’s hips.
“He told me how wonderfully you screamed for him.” Tim is grinning, baring his teeth as he strains against Jason’s hold. “He told me how pretty you looked as you bled. Will you show me? Come on, birdie boy, I’m your brother, aren’t I? Won’t you show me?”
Jason’s face darkens, and he slams Tim’s head against the floor, but Tim doesn’t fall unconscious. He just keeps on laughing.
“Jason, don’t hurt him.” The pain in Bruce’s leg keeps him from standing, and he crawls to the bed, reaching for the belt still looped through the trousers he had left on the floor.
He tosses the belt to Jason, then presses the trousers against the wound while he watches Jason flip Tim onto his stomach and tie his hands behind his back. When Jason turns to face him, Bruce sees deep scratches bloom red across his cheek from where Tim had tried to gouge his eye out, and he’s trembling as he picks Tim up off the floor.
Bruce hates that he must make Jason do this, but nobody else is strong enough to keep Tim from hurting himself or others like this. Bruce can’t quite believe that he’s got a knife stuck in his leg, but he had hesitated when trying to fight Tim off, and that brief hesitation had been enough for Tim to break through his guard.
Dragging himself up from the floor almost makes Bruce hurl, but he limps out of the door behind Jason. He leaves the knife in place, and he knows Alfred will have a field day when he sees the trail of blood Bruce leaves in his wake as they head for the Cave.
Jason’s eyes have gone terrifyingly blank, and he stares ahead, unblinking despite the screeching cackles that fill the elevator down to the Cave. Tim struggles, but he is no match for Jason’s strength, so instead he talks. Bruce drowns him out, not wanting to hear whatever manic ramblings Tim is trying to provoke them with.
There is a glass cell tucked away in a back corner of the Cave, and Bruce limps over to the med bay to grab Tim’s meds while Jason wrestles the boy inside and locks the door. Hands now free, Tim jumps up and slams his fists against the glass. Without a word, Jason flips on the soundproofing of the cell, and turns his back on the screaming boy inside.
“You’re shaking,” he says as he pulls the syringe from Bruce’s hands. “Fix your leg. I’ll give him this.”
Bruce does as he’s told. He cannot bring himself to watch Jason fight to get the injection into Tim, so he just busies himself with pulling the knife from his thigh and stitching the wound shut. The blade is one of Damian’s, and Bruce is going to have to have a long, hard talk with his son about leaving sharp things where Tim might find them.
When Jason comes back over, he sits next to Bruce and curls into his side, hiding his face in Bruce’s collarbone.
“He laughs exactly like that psychopath,” Jason whispers. “I shouldn’t be scared of my little brother, but fuck, Bruce, that kid terrifies me.”
“I’m sorry I called you.”
“You had to.” Jason shuffles impossibly closer, and Bruce can smell the faint tang of cigarette smoke that clings to his hair. “You would have had to hurt him if you hadn’t called me.”
“Still.” Bruce tugs the final stitch taught and sighs. “You got his meds in him?”
“Yeah, I waited until he went down. Do they usually knock him unconscious?”
“We added a sedative after last time.”
They sit in silence for a long while, watching Tim sleep on the floor of the cell. There is nothing in there at all, not even a blanket, and it breaks Bruce’s heart to see his boy contained like this, but they cannot risk him waking up still in the throes of the madness the Joker had inflicted upon him.
“I really thought he was getting better,” Jason says quietly.
“So did I, Jaylad.” The sharp pain in his leg has faded to a dull throb, and a lack of sleep makes his head pound, but he knows he won’t make it back up to his bed tonight. Neither will Jason, and so they settle in for a long night. “I keep hoping that every time this happens will be the last.”
“It won’t.” Jason rubs a thumb over the burn scars that snake across his hands. “That bastard made sure of that.”
In a few hours, Tim wakes and sits cross-legged on the floor. Tim knows the drill by now; he will spend the rest of the day in the cell being closely monitored until Bruce deems it safe enough to let him out. Jason shuffles over to turn off the soundproofing, and Bruce hears Tim apologizing over and over for the scratch marks on Jason’s face.
Bruce stays on the cot. The lingering traces of fear keep him rooted in place, and he feigns sleep to avoid having to go over and talk to his son. When he closes his eyes, all he can see are the scars carved deep into Tim’s cheeks, and he rolls over, turning his back to the cell. The sound of his boys talking is drowned out by the laughter that still rings in his ears.