Chapter Text
Report.
No. Jason didn’t want to hear Batman’s voice right now, in or out of his head. And the last thing he wanted to do was obey it. There were a million other things his currently limited cognitive abilities would be better spent on than impersonating the Big Bad Bat and “reporting” the too many injuries he had. He needed to focus. He needed to find a way out of this or at least stall until Dick could find him. There had to be a way to buy some time.
“Which hurts more, hm pumpkin?”
Jason grit his teeth and braced himself for another hit.
“Forehand?”
He sucked in a sharp breath as the crowbar slammed into his chest with another sickening crack. He had to keep it together. He had to keep his wits about him. Sheila was right there. Mom. She was right there. She was as trapped as he was, tied to a beam, unable to move. Unable to help. Even if she wanted to. Not that that mattered. She was still his mom and he’d do anything to save her.
“Or backhand?”
Jason barely stopped himself from crying out in pain as the crowbar hit his already dislocated shoulder.
He didn’t have time to process the pain before the room filled with laughter. Sickening, high pitched, insane laughter. It echoed around the concrete and metal, reverberating in Jason’s ears. He bit back a wince, trying to block out the sound before it aggravated his concussion more than it already was. If that were even possible.
No. He wouldn’t focus on the pain. He had to do something. He had to find a way out. Somehow. He had to at least stall for time. But he could barely think, the room was spinning around him. And he was staring at a flat surface--though he couldn’t tell if it was the ceiling, the floor, or a wall. No wait, there was blood--his blood--splattered across the wood.
So it was the floor.
Ok, he was face down on the floor then. Not a great angle to fight from. Or move. He couldn’t even remember when he’d flipped over, but it had probably been in an attempt to protect his ribs. Clearly it wasn’t working.
The crowbar slammed into him again, this time smashing into his right wrist and shattering several bones. Jason couldn’t keep himself quiet this time and cried out, his voice echoing around the warehouse and coming back to his own ears.
Something grabbed onto his hair and pulled, forcing him to twist over and look up into putrid green eyes.
“Aw, did that hurt, pumpkin?”
The voice cackled more before throwing Jason down on his back and crushing his shattered wrist beneath his weight.
Jason screamed in agony, but it only caused the laughter to get louder. More amused. More hungry for pain. There was no escape.
“ Joker!”
A voice boomed through the warehouse, eliciting a momentary cry of shock and anxious shuffling from the addressed before he burst into deranged laughs.
“Batsy!” He crooned and it made Jason sick. “Come to save the little birdie?”
There was no answer. Only a beat of silence as Joker looked around the warehouse, searching every dark corner and finding nothing.
Batman wasn’t here. He couldn’t be. He wasn’t coming. Batman didn’t know where Jason and Dick had gone and he didn’t know where Joker was either. There was no reason for him to be here. Joker was probably just toying with Jason, imitating Batman’s voice to give Jason hope of a rescue when Dick was too far away to make it in time and Bruce had no idea what was going on. There was no rescue.
“Well you’re too late!” Joker cackled and Jason looked up just in time to see him raise the crowbar above his head. He was going for the face, crush in the skull.
Jason could see it coming. As if in slow motion. He didn’t have time to move. He closed his eyes.
There was a whoosh somewhere above him and Jason flinched right as metal met cranium with a sickening crack, but the pain never came. He couldn’t feel it.
Then something rattled like a bar hitting the floor followed almost immediately by a body dropping right beside Jason.
He strained himself to open his eyes and look up. He was still alive, albeit in immense pain, he was still alive. And Joker lay next to him, a smile plastered on his face and blood oozing down green locks.
This couldn’t be right. Jason had been about to die. Maybe he was dreaming. Or maybe he’d been hit too hard too many times. He couldn’t be thinking straight.
“How many times am I going to have to save you?”
That couldn’t be his imagination. That voice was too loud, too real. And right next to him.
He shifted and noticed a pair of black boots standing right behind Joker’s still form. They were slick, well made, and… Small.
Jason shifted, letting his gaze follow the boots up to the figure wearing them. He was a boy. Small, like his footwear suggested, dressed in some kind of all black uniform with enough pockets and compartments to rival Bruce, but with no insignia at all. He wore a mask that covered half his face, spanning between his ears and from the bridge of his nose to his hairline. And his hair… A mess of black floofiness that looked oddly familiar.
“Well?”
The figure crouched down so Jason didn’t have to strain so far to see him, and Jason noticed something long and silver as it caught the light just right to draw attention. The boy held it in his right hand, a couple feet off from the base, his index finger pressed against the pole to keep it firmly against the back of his right shoulder blade. Relaxed, but ready to fight in a moment’s notice. That wasn’t a pole. It was a bo staff. And the kid knew how to use it.
“Robin?” His tone changed from laid back to concerned. Very concerned the more Jason didn’t answer. “Robin. Report.”
Jason groaned, but obediently rasped out a reply. “Concussion, bloody nose, broken ribs, shattered wrist, dislocated shoulder, probably internal bleeding.” He coughed after the last one, feeling the blood creeping up his throat. Definitely internal bleeding.
The kid nodded and seemed to look Jason over like he was mentally double checking everything for himself before acting on anything. When he did finally do something he pulled Jason onto his side and gently picked the cuffs around his wrists til they fell to the floor.
Jason let out a pained breath he hadn’t been realizing he was holding when the pressure around his shattered bones finally let up and he could lay flat on his back without crushing anything. It still hurt. A lot. But it was slightly more bearable and he could focus on breathing.
Someone said something not far off but he couldn’t quite catch the words. After that there was some shuffling and the kid seemed to have disappeared. At least for a minute. Before he poked his head back in Jason’s vision with a worried frown.
“Can you stand?”
Jason didn’t know how to answer a question like that, most of the injuries were focused on his upper body or arms, but that didn’t mean walking would be painless.
The kid seemed to understand the lack of answer and quickly added, “I can help you.” He immediately collapsed his bo staff with a quiet snap and holstered the weapon before sliding an arm under Jason’s good shoulder and helping him to his feet.
It took a few minutes, but between the two of them, one step at a time, they made it to the door. Somewhere in the distance, Jason could hear a faint beeping sound, but he couldn’t quite place where and it wasn’t important for now. Instead, he focused on the path ahead of him, squinting as they made it out into the glaring light of the desert sun. The kid mumbled an apology, but didn’t stop moving, forcing him onward, maybe thirty yards away and behind a large boulder before finally letting Jason collapse to the ground in pain and exhaustion.
He lay there a few minutes as the kid pulled bandages out of nowhere and got to work. He could barely make out the boy’s shadow in the glaring yellows and browns all around them, but in this light, the young vigilante’s eyes almost looked red.
This all seemed way too familiar.
And hadn’t the kid said something about this not being the first time he’d been there to save Jason’s life? But that meant…
“You’re a hallucination…”
The kid laughed, careful to keep his voice quiet for Jason’s sake. “No.”
Jason frowned, ignoring the shooting pain in his...everything. “That’s exactly what a hallucination would say…”
The kid looked over, the whites of his mask no longer looking red, but his skin a deathly pale color just like it had been years ago. Transparent, almost. Like a…
“Ghost.”
Right. It all fit. He had to be. Jason was being haunted by a ghost. Even back in the apartment building three years ago, it all made sense. The ghost boy could have just stood in the middle of their circle and spooked them into shooting at him. Only the bullets would go through him and hit their buddies. It all fit perfectly.
The ghost laughed again as he finished tying off a temporary splint around Jason’s hand. “I like that, Robin. You can call me Ghost then.”
Jason grinned and muttered something along the lines of what he hoped was “nice to meet you” before the world around him settled into darkness with a distant bang.
There was no Ghost by the time he woke up, only a black and blue blur gently carrying him to a car as smoke filled his lungs.