"Have you heard the news that you're dead?
No one ever had much nice to say
I think they never liked you anyway
Oh take me from the hospital bed
Wouldn't it be grand? It ain't exactly what you planned.
And wouldn't it be great If we were dead?"

- My Chemical Romance, "Dead!"

When I came to, my eyes almost too heavy to open, I felt the same cold-stomached dread that had greeted me every morning and kissed me goodnight after each day of torture with the Joker. My hands were bound to the arms of my chair with chains, and my hair hung in my face. My head was killing me. The room was dim, like the asylum's and there were only two things that comforted me somewhat in this: it didn't look like I was in Arkham, and that I wasn't alone. Facing me, just a couple of feet to my front, was Tim chained to a chair. He was squinting through the dull light.

"Good, you're awake," He said, but he sounded detached, distant. "I wondered if Nygma had given you a concussion. Your head did make a pretty nasty smacking sound when he hit you."

I tried to move my head, sharp arrows of vertigo lashing through my brain and I leaned my head back to relieve it. I cleared my throat, and asked him hoarsely, "Where are we?"

"Penguin's museum. After you were knocked unconscious, he kicked Falcone out of the Iceberg Lounge - said something about this feud between you and him being... bad for business," He sounded like he was having trouble breathing. "He said that you and me would be dealt with, but didn't say how or when. So he threw us in here tied to chairs and I heard some of the guards talking outside, saying that Gordon is digging in - preparing SWAT to go in and rescue us...But it's been three hours since. I'm getting worried."

"Yeah, like we're really going to trust SWAT to help Red Hood and Robin," I tested the chainlinks, managing some bend in them. There was a lock next to the knobby bone in my wrist. "Or don't you remember that we're still outlaws?"

Tim got short with me, anger rising in his voice. "Well, they might be more willing to help me. You know, considering I don't kill people or increase people's chances of being killed for an idiotic vendetta. You want to tell me what happened back there?"

"You're the boy detective," I shot back sourly, glaring around the room, "You figure that out while I do the hard work on getting us out of here."

And then he hit me with the kicker question. "Were you really going to let him kill me…?"

I can't really put my finger on why it took me a few minutes to answer him. He waited patiently, staring at me while my eyes found the calluses on my wrists left from tugging against restraints. My jaw was tight, almost painfully tight. I met his eyes and dared the disgust in them to say something.

Finally, I admitted it, "At first? Yeah. I was."

He didn't comment. I felt like talking about this; maybe help him understand. It wasn't like there's much else to do until Penguin killed us or Gordon pulled his head out of his ass. I got the elephant off my chest first. "You took my place. You're the guy Bruce replaced me with, who goes to a private school, followed his orders with a 'yes,sir', and can't take a hint to save your life." I swept a gaze around at our scenery of gray, dirty walls and spatter of blood on the concrete floor. "Obviously."

"In detective terms, they call that motive," I said, and he looked back at me with his eyebrows pushed together. "I had a gun, and a room full of psychopaths. That would qualify as having means. And Two-Face grabbed you just when I had my gun on Falcone. Two people I had reason to hate, dead all in one night. That's the opportunity." I sighed. "That would've been the case - closed if I'd let you die. I would've been written off again by everyone I care about as being exactly what they thought I was. A wolf in sheep's clothing. Just another criminal."

He asked me, sounding small and almost unsure of himself. "But you didn't...Why? If you hate me so much, if I had taken so much from you - why leave me alive?"

"Because I'm Jason Todd," Somewhere deep in me, where the slightest sound was louder than a bomb and any reminder of this space felt like looking for skeletons in the old closet I used to hide in when my parents would fight, the colossal chip buried into my shoulder budged. "And I'm not what Joker made me. I am my own man. I decide what I do - not my vendettas, not my vengeance. And I'm sure as hell not going to let the Gotham alleys I used to sleep in be ruled by the corrupt and the cruel."

I didn't say it because my voice was rough from talking so much and because Tim had heard enough, but...I'd died once trying to get rid of evil. I was prepared to do it again, and do it my way. They would have to pry the innocent from my cold, dead fingers.

I watched Tim process, staring at me as if I'd ripped off my ruined skin to show him just what I really was. He said at last, "I really thought you'd betray us at the drop of a hat. You always ran off on your own, searching for trouble. I thought you were a reckless, psychotic, sadistic-

"Are you trying to say that you were wrong?" I was going for a half-smile at best, but it came out like a grimace. "Because you suck at it. Badly."

"Then, I'll just admit it," Tim said, shrugging a bit. "You're right. I misjudged you. I did some thinking while you were unconscious...I had no idea at first, because you're an ass, but I realized exactly what it was that Bruce saw in you. That fire. The drive to be the first to run into a burning building to save a litter of kittens or an old lady. None of us have the fire for this job than you do."

The corner of his mouth tugged up. "You didn't let me die because even after I'd pissed you off, I was in danger and you would've tried to save me."

"Whoah, watch it. Don't overthink it." I warned, though he was mostly right, "Be careful who you call a hero, kid."

Tim's eyes darted to floor then, disappointed. You want to believe I got some kind of morality? I appreciate the idea. Thanks, but no thanks. Keep your morals away from me. I've got too much work to do to hesitate for even a second... I added, to brighten the room probably, "Besides, Barb would stick my head on the wall as a trophy if I let anything happen to you."

I saw his ears get pink, an amused smile twisting my mouth. He mumbled something under his breath and I kicked him hard in retaliation.

"Jesus, what was that f-"

I kicked him again, and growled, "Don't you say that again in front of me. Of course she'd notice. She'd be devastated-"

"Shhh, listen!" He hushed suddenly, and I heard it too. Pained grunts, impact noises...then faraway gunfire growing louder and louder until it stopped. More grunts, then fast punches and cracking sounds. Someone was getting the hell beaten out of them outside the door. That dread festered in my stomach again. Was the guard being pummeled or doing the pummeling? Was this a rescuer or an executioner outside? There was a buzzing noise. Like an escrima stick or a tazer.

Tim and I exchanged a glance. He was panicking over there, his eyes wide and he struggled against his restraints again. I didn't tell him it was useless, just stayed quiet and bided my time. The door flew back in a bang, making us jump and I nearly tipped my chair over.

A light behind the man at the door blinded us in the dim room, but as I blinked through the pain I recognized the silhouette. The lean muscle, slender limbs and lightweight, nimble frame.

"Sorry, little brothers. Slumber party at Penguin's is over."

"You gonna stand there and pose, Dick," I groaned, "Or are you going to get us out?"

He came closer, and I saw the Colgate smile plastered across his face as he held up a shiny metal thing - a key, flicked it up in the air like a coin. "Patience is a virtue, Jaybird."

I rolled my eyes. God's laughing at me. He got to unlocking Tim's chains, and then mine. When my chains fell, I grabbed them in one hand and stood with throbbing limbs. I glanced down at the ropes of steel. They might be useful later.

Robins number one and three were by the door, waiting for me. After a few seconds, I followed them out of the Iceberg Lounge.

The exact route was a blur because I was still twitching at how many times I'd dreamed of something a bit like this years ago with him. It never failed to amaze me that no matter how far I ran, how close I'd come to getting somewhere ideal, that the year and a half I spent with him will always burn hot in ways the brand on my cheek doesn't anymore. How I'd would have begged on my hands and knees for Batman or Dick or Barbara or Alfred, just for "someone please help me!"

When we got out of there, safely away from both the Lounge and Gordon, I ditched Dick with a muttered 'thanks' and Tim with a cold glance. My suit was shredded in some places, and my resolve in others. I ran, jumping from rooftop to rooftop, the thunder overhead catching up with me and soon the booming collided with that place deep in me where the grudge resides, the grudge against everyone I knew that knew about me and Joker.

The answer was kinda simple. I needed someone who hadn't gotten the memo.

OTISBURG

When I finally got to her fire escape, where I knew I shouldn't be but somehow found myself, I saw her curled up in her armchair. Her blonde hair twisted up into a bun at the back of her head. Elvis was playing from her record player, a song I recognized. My mom used to sing it to me…Soft guitar, the 'oo's of the background singers.

"Are you lonesome...tonight? Do you miss me tonight? Are you sorry we drifted apart?"

I stepped into the room, and promised myself that I would leave as soon as I calmed down. Abigail was holding a book to her chest, and I picked out the word 'Alice' over the woven bracelet on her wrist. Her eyes were red and puffy, shining streaks down her cheeks. A lock of hair by her half-open mouth swayed with her inhales and exhales, but sometimes the inhales would hitch like the pain she must have been feeling to cry herself asleep was raw.

"Does your memory stray, to a brighter summer day...when I kissed you and called you 'sweetheart'?"

Behind me, on the couch, was a baby blue fleece blanket. When I lifted it from there, a waft of her yellowed books and sunflower scent. Carefully, I draped it over her little body. She didn't wake, and I was vaguely grateful that I was good at being invisible. I sat on the floor by her chair, my soaked right shoulder dampening the dark corduroy and my head against the armrest.

"Is your heart filled with pain? Shall I come back again?"

Some time later, after my lungs stopped aching and I buried Joker again in that deep, dark place of me, I left Abigail's side. But the song was stuck in my head for days…

"Tell me dear, are you lonesome...tonight?"