It was white hot, which was really the only way to describe it. It was like touching the corner of the stove and not realizing that it was on when you were a child. You know that feeling that is more of a searing heat? It was like that.

Now the pain in my head was worse. I could judge that it was a concussion. It was a dull but steady throb, matching the beat of my heart in my chest. Honestly, I could tell that I still had a way to go before it would be over. Torture was a game, a power play.

Pain, in Bruce's mind, was a state of being. If you really wanted to get rid of it, you could think yourself out of pain, since essentially, it was a sense. It was like a smell. You don't know that you are smelling things all day long, but you are. But once you smell something intense or recognizable, you notice the sense more. He believed that if you never thought about it, the pain would go away.

I never really latched onto his idea, it seemed like you would have to spend a lot of time to think pain away. But in those moments, I did. I made myself shut everything off. I focused on the air being sucked into my lungs. I made myself focus on the steady, but slowing, pulse that I heard in my ears. Somehow, the pain subsided.

In all of that I made him mad. I guess the point of his little charade was to prove that he was powerful, beating me with a crowbar, like how he did Jason. It was emotionally crippling, but unusual. It was not his style.

"What's wrong bird boy?" He chuckled cracking it over my ribcage. I tuned it out. I breathed in and out, labored. It was getting harder. I tried not to think of the shards of bones that I knew were now embedded in my lungs. "Are you giving up?"

I said nothing as he swung again, hitting my collarbone. Anyone who has had a broken collarbone will tell you, breaking that bone is the worst. It takes forever to heal and the doctors can do nothing except give you a sling and some low dose pain-killers. I would need something heavy if I lived from this.

"You know," He began again, "Even the last Robin was mouthier than this. Weren't you loud too as Robin? Maybe I finally shut you all up." He let out another laugh and smacked me in the ribs again, sending the chair and me sailing. I landed face down, with my forehead bashed into the concrete. Opening my eyes, I could see blood pooling beneath my face. I coughed and spit up some as well. It ran on the floor and around my face and hair.

I let out a moan, which was probably the worst instinct to do. First, it let him know that I was capable of speech and was just being stubborn. And it took my focus off of the breathing. I let the pain escape me and it was like opening the floodgates. I gasped a few times before managing to get my breathing under control again. All the while he walked over and yanked up the chair so I was eye level but still hovering above the ground.

"Ah, so the Golden Boy lives." His face twisted into a smile and my focus went out the window. I hated him. I hated every inch of him, not for the pain he caused me, but for Jason. He killed my brother in a room like this. He took him from me. He was a child and he died alone. I wanted every inch of me to throttle him there on the floor, but my hands were still tied down. And if they weren't, half the bones in my body were still broken.

"You are nothing, Joker." I muttered, boarding holes into him with my eyes. My voice rasped, blood dribbling down the corner of my mouth. "You are useless. You try and you try to prove to Batman that you are an ordinary man who turned after one bad day? You try to prove that anyone can be a psychopath if their world is turned upside down? Well it doesn't work and you know it…You are losing it, and losing hope. You are nothing and you will always be nothing. Plus you lost your edge, this isn't you. This isn't even funny."

In hindsight, edging on the man who was ending my life was probably not the best idea. I saw his smile drop, which was a strange thing. He became a monster, filled with rage. He wielded the crowbar over and over again to the point where I didn't need to focus on my breathing, I couldn't feel anything anyway. I heard the bones in my face break and my eyes swelled. The world filled with darkness as I drifted in and out of consciousness.

I was ready to die. I had given up. I had screwed up. The team was on a covert mission and I was here, dying. Artemis and Kaldur were undercover for nothing. They were on a lost-cause mission and they knew it. Wally knew it. I was dying alone, just like Jason. And I was okay with it.

Drifting in and out was okay because I didn't feel much. I knew I was awake because I felt nudges, that's all they were now, of the crowbar. They weren't as angry now, not fuelled by rage, fuelled by boredom. It was distant, the nudges. It was like a kicking, and there was no pain. It was nice, dying without the pain. It was slow, but it was soft, relaxing. I hadn't had anything remotely relaxing in a long time.

I heard a slight scuffle, in the back of my mind. It could have been a dream, but it seemed so real. I felt myself being untied and a light, feathery touch, so unlike the nudge of the crowbar against my stomach. I didn't want to open my eyes against the harsh light but I knew I had to try.

Half dead, the only thing I could describe it was as an angel had come to take me.

Author's Note:

So this was brought on by a particularly bad migraine that I had today, sorry if it was a bit graphic. Pain sucks. Anyway, I really like the idea of this story but I need your guy's input. Would you guys like me to do what originally happened in the comics? So basically I would write in Babs getting shot and paralyzed? It was a thought I had, so review and help me out, because I'm not quite sure if it would work in this story. If not, I could just write in her nursing him back to health. It would also progress with the show coming back on the air, since that would give some new plot-lines and whatnot. Anywayy please review and follow and favorite! It makes me write faster!