Hey Y'all. Here's another chapter of the YJ verse, and this one is all about Jason so get ready for a harsh flashback, warning for somewhat graphic mentions of abuse, because the Joker is evil AF. Next up, more bonding and reunions, but for now, enjoy some angst ~~

Chapter 4: Waking World

"How we doing, pumpkin?" the voice echoed in the hollow air, making the boy shiver uncontrollably. The Joker took a step closer, leaning down so that his pasty white face was right in Jason's line of sight.

Jason choked, coughing past the blood in his mouth at the smell of the crazed man. Something about the pasty complexion, the way the Joker had been created, made him reek of death, like formaldehyde and cemeteries. It made Jason want to gag, but he'd already tried that number – and it hurt like hell, grinding against his broken ribs.

"Nothing to say? How rude." The Joker laughed, standing to spin in a tight circle over the blood now coating the floor. "Don't worry Birdboy, I invited a friend to make sure you wouldn't feel lonely!"

Just then the sound of heavy footfalls echoed across the warehouse. Jason was afraid to look, afraid to even move. But he'd seen it – the hush of a cape on the floor, black boots that looked a little off, but still oh so familiar.

Batman.

Jason struggled against the chains holding his hands behind his back, crying out weakly at the man –

Only to be struck again by the damn crowbar.

Jason screamed, forcing his head back and crying weakly at the unfairness of it all. He cried out again, calling for Batman to come closer, to release him, to check on- Sheila… His mother was already dead, staring hollowly back at him from across the room, but Bruce could check maybe she was still alive, by some miracle. Hell, it was a miracle he was even still alive.

But Batman ignored Sheila, coming to stand over Jason. His boots splashed wetly in the pool of crimson surrounding the boy.

Jason watched, through bleary eyes, as Joker handed the man the crowbar.

And Batman swung it at him.

Jason grunted with the impact. And then another came. And another, until Jason was breathing blood. He gasped weakly, crying out "Br'c!" but the man didn't even hesitate and the blows just kept coming. Tears fell, and Jason choked back a sob as his shattered body trembled in between each hit. He knew logically that this could not be Bruce. Knew it for sure when the man spoke, whispering that he'd never loved Jason, that Jason was a liability, that he'd done this to himself and deserved every single hit.

But knowing it couldn't be Bruce didn't seem to matter to his fractured psyche.

Jason cried, raggedly, spitting blood and the salt of tears whenever he gasped enough air to do so. He wanted nothing more than to see his father just then, not this dark visage, not the Batman, but Bruce Wayne. He wanted to say he was sorry. Wanted to chat with Alfred one last time. Wanted to tell Dick he didn't actually hate him. Instead, he was in a world of pain, alone and forgotten, being beaten by a man dressed as the father-figure and mentor he'd never even gotten the chance to call "dad".

The Joker was laughing in the background, deep gulping chuckles that made Jason's whole body shudder as the ragged words of the Not-Batman dug into his brain.

"Worthless."

"Worm."

"Weak."

Jason closed his eyes, wishing without hope that Joker would just end it already.

And then, just as abruptly as it had happened, it stopped. Jason's eyes opened to an empty warehouse, and Jason had no idea how long it had been since the blows had stopped.

He only knew that there was a faint beeping in the air, and a cold weight settled into his stomach. Jason gasped working his hands over his feet to bring them up to his chest and then pulling himself off the ground a half meter. Everything hurt, breathing hurt. But he had to make it to the door. He had to survive, even this. So, Jason moved. He worked his way up to stand, reveling in his ability for all of two seconds before he landed straight back on his face. The beeping was loud in his ears, and Jason turned to see a bomb wired up to C-4. Jason glanced at his hands, where most of the fingers were bloodied or broken. He wouldn't be able to disarm it, even if he could crawl his way over to it.

Only one minute left on the counter.

Jason spat angrily and began to slink forward, maneuvering himself like an earthworm.

Fifty seconds.

Jason gasped as his muscles twanged with pain and exhaustion.

Forty seconds.

He was so close.

Thirty seconds.

Jason made it to the door, knowing that there was a trail of blood in his wake.

Twenty seconds.

Jason tried the door handle. It was locked, and Jason put all his weight into pulling the damn thing, no matter that his ribs screamed in protest.

Ten seconds.

Jason sat back against the door, his eyes closing, thinking of Bruce one last time. Of Alfred. Of Dick. Of Barbara. And he cried ragged, deep sobs at the loss.

Zero.

His body was torn apart by the explosion, rending what was left of his internal organs.

And then, Jason's world became a shroud of black smoke and the glare of death.

For the last few weeks, there had been a blood-red tinge to everything. The waking world was no different from the frightening world of his dreamscape, a never-ending torture of alternating monotony and pain. Sometimes, he could see what happened to him, and the dreams took on the quality of a warehouse – laughter, the ringing of metal flying through the air only to land with a sickening thump, the foggy outline of a man in a bat suit beating him, pain, pain, pain. And then he would wake to the hell of being trapped in a coffin, first dark and dirty and terrifying, and then a bright red coffin with shocks of electricity arching through him. In all that time, Jason Todd had lost pieces of himself.

Fear was a constant, and the body could only survive for so long with that much stress. Bruce had made Jason learn about the body, about the brain and how fear worked in the shorthand. But Jason had needed more, had searched the books for information on the how and why, trying desperately to explain his own reactions (or, more aptly, his overreactions) after his time on the streets.

It started with the introduction of a stressor – which could be anything external that threw the body out of allostatic balance. Allostasis was kind of like a measure, asking what was an appropriate reaction to something as mundane as being woken from sleep to bungie-jumping. When the body reacts to stress, it goes through three stages: alarm, resistance, and finally exhaustion. There was something called cortisol, a stress hormone that could prepare the body to react to fear, sort of like adrenaline, but longer lasting. Cortisol could be good in the short-term, aiding a person in escaping from what they fear (these were the alarm and resistance phases). But the stress hormone, when in the bloodstream for longer periods of time, produce exhaustion – the immune system isn't in hyperdrive anymore, meaning you'll get sick if you're not careful. Take that system even further and you compromise even more systems. All-in-all it was like a muscle in the brain. Like lifting a weight, you can only hold the extra pounds for so long before the muscle will no longer respond and drop the weight. In the aftermath of dropping it, the muscle will hurt, sometimes for days afterward. Now picture that immediately after dropping it, you go to pick it up again. And again.

A lot of it had to do with the control a person had over the stressor – can you walk away vs. are you trapped?

Jason, for the last two months, had been in the latter category. He'd been sick almost constantly with fever and chills, though he couldn't be sure if that was due to the stress response or actual exposure to a virus. But waking to a constant nightmare? Being isolated, forgotten, hurt? It was agony. He had the vaguest idea that his pain had ended, that the soreness and bleeding had slowed to dull aching. But when he'd finally garnered the strength to open his eyes, he'd seen a man in a bat suit – just like that day with the Joker – and screamed for all he'd been worth.

His body and mind had relapsed, fleeing to the furthest reaches and cowering there.

It was dizzying, not knowing what was real. But still, he called for his father. Not Willis Todd, but Bruce Wayne. He had so much left to say to the man, so much he needed to talk to him about. Maybe not even to talk, but to be held by someone like his mother used to. He'd missed that the most in all this time: the simple pleasure of another person's touch. Humans were social creatures and the lack of contact had made Jason withdrawn. It was worse than the physical pain and illness. It affected his mind and made him tremble with anxiety.

Still, he didn't want to risk opening his eyes, not if he would wake to another nightmare. Of Batman standing over him, whispering that he was worthless or beating him with the echo of a madman in the background. Still, he could hear voices outside of himself and, for once, they weren't the awkward clatter of an alien language, but the familiar voices of people that Jason used to know.

"He going to be…"

"Very high fever… Don't know how he's still…"

"…Bruce?"

The last word, more than any of the words before, made Jason's brow furrow. He wanted to open his eyes, but he was still so afraid. What would be waiting for him? Another nightmare? Another Bat waiting to beat him? The Joker and the godawful smell of death?

He felt a hand on his forehead and his immediate reaction was to shrink away, to avoid a blow. But the touch was gentle, moving to card fingers through Jason's hair. It was soothing, calming, and after a moment Jason moved toward it, seeking out the comfort it brought.

"Jason?" He knew that voice. Knew it as well as his own, had yearned for it in his dreams just before they turned into nightmares.

Jason opened his eyes, squinting at the harsh light above him before finally coming to rest on the man he'd been waiting for.

Bruce Wayne. His father.

Bruce, for his part, looked like shit. His hair was a tangled mess and there were smudges of dirt on his cheeks, but it was him. Jason gasped lightly, wincing at the pain in his chest as he did so. Bruce was growing blurry and it took Jason a minute to realize that he was crying. It didn't make sense, Jason shouldn't be crying when his heart felt lighter than it had in months. His eyes should not be streaming when this had been his dream since the day he'd choked on black smoke. But he was, and Bruce reached forward to wipe at the droplets, likely smearing dirt in the process.

"Dad?" Jason asked, though his voice sounded so foreign to his own ears that he wasn't even sure that the words made sense.

But Bruce just smiled, his hand still resting on Jason's cheek feathering his thumb over the skin there. "I'm here, Jay."

And Jason didn't know why, but the confirmation had him crying harder. Broken, ragged sobs broke loose from his throat and he curled his body toward Bruce, seeking shelter from the raging storm in his head. And Bruce was there, tugging Jason close, pressing the boy's face into the hollow of his throat, fingers splayed in the boy's hair, whispering soft assurances that he wasn't leaving. Whatever he'd been using to plug up the aching hole in his chest had been blown away and he was going to be carried away with the floodwaters. But Bruce was still there, still holding him steady and firm, like the waters couldn't touch either of them. Everything hurt, but Jason didn't care. He'd been waiting for his father to come for so, so long and now that he was finally here – Jason gasped.

There was something he needed to say, something he needed desperately to know.

"I-I'm Sorry!" Jason choked out, "A-Are. You. Ang'y?" It took him several harsh breaths to get the words out, but once they were Bruce froze, tensing every muscle.

Jason thought that was a bad sign, that of course he was angry with Jason, he'd been the one to screw up. He had deserved what happened and he deserved to be washed away by the flood of emotion rocking through him. He had, he had –

"God, no!" Bruce pulled away, and Jason whimpered pathetically at the loss of contact. But suddenly, Bruce was back, holding him tighter than before, like he was as afraid that Jason might disappear as Jason was of Bruce disappearing. "God, no, son."

It wasn't until much later, when Jason was starting to slip back into unconsciousness, that he realized his father's shoulders had been shaking too.

A/N: Please review! I love them :)