Chapter 2! Thank you all so much for all the wonderful reviews! I'm glad my late night ramblings were well-received! So, without any further ado, onward!


"I don't get it." The nasally voice broke his boss's concentration, earning him a glare so fierce he was sure he'd collapse right there had half of his mind not been so focused on the illusion he had to maintain.

"Elaborate," came the reply.

The weasel of a man swallowed, his throat suddenly inhumanely dry. "Why just the eyelets? We can reveal who they are right now. I mean, I get the torture bit, but why not expose them while doing it? Two birds, one bat?"

He let out an uncomfortable laugh, though quickly thought better of it when the other's eyes did not soften. In fact, the glare grew more intense. Damn it, why hadn't he just kept his stupid mouth shut? There was a short list of people who scared the psychic to his wit's end, and he was questioning one of the top three about their on-the-job skills. Idiot.

"It is not their identities I am after," his boss replied. "Now, focus."

Deep in the rafters, he nodded at the command and said nothing more about it. Identities he could wait for. Torture? Torture he could do.


They say it's impossible for someone to kill himself simply by holding his breath. The body's instinct to breathe overrides the will not to, and any attempts are quickly dashed without the assistance of weights and a deep body of water.

Fight or flight. Jason had both in spades.

Yet, here in his hell, he felt like he was drowning. It took him far too long to realize he had been holding his breath, but even the quick intake of air did not relieve the tightness in his chest or the overwhelming panic that made his stomach turn.

"—Little Wing."

Christ, he hadn't been called that in years.

The nickname rang through him, surprising him and halting his panic just long enough for him to turn around to face the source. While Bruce was busy trying to stop the vision at all costs, Dick had moved to crouch beside Jason. Up close, Jason could see the pure concern radiating from Dick's brilliant blue eyes. God, when was the last time he had looked at him like that? Like a mentor or older brother rather than an… enemy? Was that what they had become? He couldn't be sure anymore.

"Jason, you shouldn't see this."

"You're forgetting I'm the only fucking one who's already seen this episode, Goldie," he shot back. His voice lacked its usual bite, his breathing escaping in short, sharp puffs.

In front of them, the beating was nearing its end, but Jason knew the worst was still coming. As the sounds in the shack had heightened to a dull roar, he found he could still feel every hit just as they had landed six years earlier. First his cheek, his ribs, then his side, moving on to his stomach, his jaw, then his nose. Every thud and every crunch of the crowbar sent a new wave of pain through the trembling man.

"I know you've seen it," said Dick. He placed a gentle hand on his back, as if forgetting the last few years where the mere thought of one touching the other would be akin to pouring acid into one's throat. "You don't need to see this again."

"You don't need to be watching it at all," Jason snapped back.

Dick took the lack of curses as a sign that, at least on some level, the younger man appreciated the sentiment. He had never been able to read Jason quite as well as the younger Robins. That, he realized, was somewhat on him. If he had spent more time with Jason before this brutal beating took place—

The elder bird shook the thought from his mind. There was no point in dwelling on that now. Not when their mentor was now ballistic in his hunt for the source of this misery and his efforts to stop the vision entirely.

Dick turned back to his wayward brother. "I'm watching you right now," he said.

"What the hell for?" Jason shot back.

"Because it doesn't take a damn detective to know you shouldn't be watching yourself die."

His tone had been harsher than he intended. He blamed it on the particularly nasty swipe Joker had just made against Jason's windpipe and the unholy yell that had just erupted from a half-crazed Bruce. "Close your eyes."

"That won't make it go the fuck away!" Jason shouted.

"Neither will watching it, but it can't hurt to stop looking at it. Close. Your. Eyes."

"…I can't."

Without warning, Dick placed his gloved hand over Jason's mask before watching their mentor battle the demons he could never grasp. The crowbar crashed against the small teen only a few more times, but each one sent a wave of anguish through Batman. At the moment, Dick doubted Bruce even realized he was battling a phantom.

"Well, it's been fun." Joker's taunting sent a chill down Dick's spine. "But I better be going now. Oh, one last thing…"

Sheila's eyes darted between Joker and his henchmen, soon realizing their gaze was on her. Dick cursed himself for feeling some disgusting sense of justice for what he knew was coming. Quickly, he quelled the sensation, but even after he could not force himself to feel bad for the woman. What kind of person could stand by and have a smoke break while her young son was being beaten to death in front of her eyes? No, Dick would not allow himself the cruelty of celebrating her death, but he could not allow pity or compassion, either. Not for her. Not for this.

With each second that ticked by, Dick felt Jason's breathing becoming more and more rapid. A panic attack. While Dick wasn't as accustomed to them as some members of them family, he was well aware of their effects. There was no mistaking what was happening beside him, and no blame for it happening at all.

Sheila's screams carried around them until it was replaced by harsh sobs. Joker watched by the door as his henchmen tied her up, her arms bound behind one of the support columns, her body slumped against the splintered wood.

"Make him stop," the elder Jason managed.

He sounded so small. Five-feet, four-inches and fifteen-years-old, if Dick had to guess.

"Joker?" he asked.

The clown had stopped, but even in the depths of his hysteria Jason had to know Dick couldn't control a memory.

"Batman. Make him fucking stop."

Dick looked up to see Bruce still trying to take control of the vision. The guttural sounds escaped their wild mentor added to the brutal soundtrack around them. It certainly wasn't helping Jason's mental state.

"Batman!" Dick shouted.

It took several attempts at his name for Bruce to even register he was being called to. For a brief moment, white-hot rage filled his every feature. Then his eyes landed on Jason. His Jason. Instantly his expression relaxed, and he approached the young vigilante like one may approach a wounded animal. Careful, quiet, cautious of his every movement.

"Ja—Hood. Look at me," Bruce ordered.

Jason's jaw clenched as Dick's hand fell away from his eyes. For a moment, there was only the sounds of Sheila's sobs and teenaged Jason's rattled breathing. So close. The end was so close. And, yet, each aching moment just made everything so much worse.

Red Hood wanted to punch something. Shoot something. Kill someone. No, not someone. Joker. He wanted to raise hell and allow the darkness that had threatened him since his return to take over. Maybe then the hysteria and pain would stop.

Except, it wouldn't, and he fucking knew it. That didn't mean it wouldn't save someone else from this misery. Damn it all to hell, but mostly damn the evil, death-worshipping clown. Jason's muscles continued to tense, his limbs trembling from the anxiety and anger that had enveloped him like a vice.

"Hood," Bruce tried again. Briefly, he and Dick exchanged a glance. If they didn't pull the younger bird back soon, they could lose him. More than now, perhaps more than when he first returned to the world and had his alleged rejection thrust upon him.

With another silent step, Bruce knelt down by his lost son, his hand pressing against Jason's back in the same spot Dick's had been minutes earlier. Though there was no warmth radiating thanks to the protective glove, he hoped the steadiness and strength of it would help ground the young man.

For a while, it worked. His fingers pressed into Jason's tense spine, wordlessly assuring him they were there.

Then, as Jason's memory continued, they began to hear a low beep. Soft and rhythmic, it filled the shack around them. The teenage Jason rose from the heap he was in, crawling toward Sheila. Her cries halted save for an occasional sniffle. Together, the woman and the intruders witnessed the bloodied child approach the source of the noise.

"Jason?!" Sheila's sobs hitched. "You're alive!"

No fucking thanks to you, thought Dick.

The teenager struggled with every breath, clawing his way toward the beeping. Once he made it, he practically collapsed on top of the metal casing, his head barely raised above the changing numbers on the screen.

"It's… a bomb," he managed, breathless.

Sheila's breathing rose in terrified, rapid breaths. "Stop it!"

"I… I can't.… Not… not enough time…."

His mother watched as his hands, caked in dirt and blood, felt the wires and metal shell of the bomb. Bruce eyed it from a distance, noting the intricacies of the design. Guilt-ridden thoughts rushed through him at a million miles an hour, each one worse than the last. If he had just trained him more with explosives, if he had just gotten there earlier to diffuse it himself, if he had just been there at all…

The hand that rested on Jason's back curled as Bruce's own anxiety and anger flowed. Dick watched as the pair prepared, knowing what was just minutes away.

Two minutes and seven seconds, to be exact.

"I… I can… get you out," the boy tried.

Summoning his last ounces of energy, young Jason forced himself upright, shaking fingers working their way through the knots holding his mother to the beam. The beeping around them seemed to get louder as the impending end approached. Slowly, painfully, the teenager managed to untie Sheila's binds. With his last ounces of energy expended, he crumpled there by the beam, his body trembling from the pain and shock overtaking him.

"Jason," Sheila says, glancing down at her broken son. "We need to get out of here."

Bruce and Dick watched as she tried to raise the boy. Batman tensed at the sight of the woman putting her hands on Jason after she just contributed to his pain. His jaw clenched and unclenched, and Dick knew the other Jason's presence and strained breathing were the only things keeping the man rooted on the spot.

"Batman, you shouldn't be watching this, either," Dick said firmly.

His mentor glared at him, and he thought briefly there were now two ticking time-bombs in the shack. Perhaps three, depending on where Jason's mind was taking him.

Carefully, Dick continued. "You shouldn't watch him die."

"I'm clearly alive now, Dickieboy," Jason shot back between rapid gasps.

The elder brother knew the effort it took for Jason to speak as the clock wound down. He was doing it for Bruce. Almost everything he did was for Bruce in one way or another, he realized. To teach him a lesson, to earn his approval.

To receive his forgiveness.

Dick prepared to respond, but the scene from Jason's memory interrupted him.

"It's locked!" Sheila shouted.

Teenage Jason leaned against her, his body bent in awkward angles as he lay slumped by the door of the shack. At his mother's exclamation, resignation fell over the teen's face. The clock continued to count down, closer and closer to zero.

"I'm sorry…" the boy whispered. His eyes were closed, his face tilted away from his mother. Dick glanced toward his own Jason, the angry man he had turned into, and saw only resolve and profound sadness.

"I'm sorry," the teen said again. His mother continued to try the door, banging her fists against it and beating at the handle. Jason's attention was somewhere else and, Dick realized, on someone else. "Thanks for everything.… Goodbye."

Three seconds on the clock. Bruce moved his hand from Jason's back to his shoulder, holding him steady as the young man began to shake in earnest. Two seconds. Dick placed his hand on Jason's other shoulder, wishing once again that he had been there the first time around. Maybe then Jason wouldn't have felt the need to run to someone who so easily betrayed him, solely because she was his mother. Maybe he would have realized he already had a family, and blood meant nothing.

One second. Both Jasons curled, bracing for impact. Bruce moved closer to the one he hoped he wasn't too late to help, pulling his cape around the trembling young man. In the memory, the teenager rose with his last bit of strength, throwing himself between his mother and the bomb.

Zero.

A blinding light followed by ear-splitting noise erupted around them. They couldn't feel the heat and the debris passed through them as Batman's fist had done to Joker moments earlier. An illusion. All an illusion.

And, yet, Jason screamed in agony. His memory, still so vivid, lit up his nerves. Every inch of him remembered the searing pain before cold nothingness took over. His throat ripped open into a brutal howl, and this time Bruce outright held him. Dick watched the fire die down around them, casting shadows on the deep creases along his mentor's face. Bruce had never looked so old before; Jason had never looked so small.

"It's okay. I've got you," Bruce said.

Though Jason didn't respond, his breathing evened out just slightly and his muscles began to relax. Over and over, Bruce reassured Jason that he was there and everything would be all right. Even as the bright sun of Ethiopia poured over them in the remains of the shack, the father continued to console his son.

For a while, the only sounds around them were the crackling of fire and collapsing debris. Then, in the distance, footsteps approached. Heavy and frantic, they rushed into the ruins.

Batman, younger than Dick could remember him ever being, raced through the rubble. Frantic, he searched the scarred earth, his eyes scanning in every direction.

"Robin!" he called. Dick sensed both men beside him go rigid. When the call rang out again, Jason looked up, watching the scene as his chest rose and fell in rapid beats.

The first form found lying in the debris was Sheila's. Her body-wracking coughs and shallow breaths caught Batman's deft ear. He ran to her, shoving broken wood and medical supplies away.

"He… he tried to save me," she managed.

The Batman ahead of them looked proud, the one beside them even more so.

"You tried to save her," Bruce repeated. "Even after everything she did."

"She was my mother and a victim," said Jason, his voice heavy with emotion. "That's all there was to it. Didn't make a fuck all bit of difference in the end."

"It made a world of difference," Bruce insisted. "You died a hero."

You died a child.

"Better than I lived," Jason replied.

Bruce's hold grew tighter. "Just like you lived. Jason, you've always been selfless. Sometimes I'm still surprised by just how much. You have always been willing to break if it meant keeping someone else together."

"Poetic, but false."

"Jason…" Bruce sighed, though whatever thought he had died in his throat. There was no need in keeping up with the secret identity. Not in Jason's memory. Whoever was doing this clearly knew who the young man was by now, and Bruce had no desire to keep calling him Red Hood. Not here.

Jason slumped as he watched Sheila die beneath Batman, his efforts to save her wasted. He closed his eyes, at first to say whatever kind of prayer he had in him, but only vile curses rose within him.

Neither Batman, however, did not have time for prayers or curses. The memory continued, the bat combing the area another minute or two until he found his last target. There, covered in blistered skin, blood, and dirt, lay the cooling body of a boy. He reached out and touched his wrist, his frown only deepening.

"Jason," Batman breathed out. "No…"

The intruders watched as he lifted his broken bird into his arms, the teen's limbs hanging awkwardly. Dick looked away. After all the fighting, the anger, the pain this incident had unleashed, he found himself understanding why. Seeing the teen—his younger "brother", he reminded himself—hanging there lifeless. Seeing Bruce looking so destroyed. It ripped through him, tearing a hole in his chest.

It took every ounce of resolve he had to look back up. He needed to see this. After so many times of not being there, then and now, he owed it to both of them to see the source of the fallout.

In spite of the evidence, Batman tried once more to check for any sign of life. A pulse, a breath, anything. When none came, he held his son tighter to him, his arms wrapping protectively around him. He stayed there for what felt like an eternity, just cradling his boy to him.

"I'm sorry," he whispered into his dead son's ear. It wasn't the whisper of the Dark Knight or some cold vigilante. Jason stared at the scene before turning to the man still holding onto him, realizing then it was the voice of a father forced to bury his child.

He opened his mouth, unsure of what to say or where to begin. Just as a thought came to him, another wave of skull-splitting pain. This time, Bruce bore the brunt, his teeth bearing down so hard he thought they might crack.

Another blinding light burst around them, then nothing.


There you have it! Hope you all enjoyed!

-Defective