AN: I have trouble with analog clocks to this day. I have no idea if it's a Scary thing or an autism thing, but there it is. (With Jason, my personal headcanon is that's just a weird thing for him. He can't make oatmeal, either, no matter how hard he tries. :p)
Guest-Bruce needs to mind his own business. He had his chance.-Jason
Riddler1948-3 Stay safe out there!
Jason, after Bruce took him in, figured out that analog clocks were created by the devil and that they absolutely refused to be read by little boys. He'd had his share of trouble with 'em before, when he was a kid, but he hadn't really...he'd thought maybe...maybe he'd get better. But nope, they were still hard and it took a bit of squinting to figure out the time.
He can read them, but it takes more effort than he'd like and when he'd finally mentioned it, shamefacedly, to Alfred, a digital clock had appeared in his room and that was the end of it.
And then had come the Joker, and for the longest time there'd been no clock of any kind, and honestly, Jason had taken enough knocks to the head that it wouldn't have mattered.
It had been maybe three months in when a digital clock appeared. Well. Of a sort. It had red numbers and at first he'd thought it was some sort of psychological thing. 'Look at the time I've had you here' or...or something.
But then the numbers started going backwards, and he'd spotted the wires, and the dynamite they were attached to.
At first, for a minute or two, he hadn't cared. He remembers thinking he was just grateful to be done, to be out of his misery. But then it had been fifteen minutes left, and he'd been hanging from the ceiling, ankle too damaged to run even if he'd wanted to.
Fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes is plenty of time to have regrets, to be scared. He'd screamed for help, knowing it wouldn't do any good but still hoping somebody, anybody, would come and get him.
He'd stopped screaming when there were two minutes left.
Closed his eyes at ten seconds, tried to breathe.
Apologized to Bruce at two.
Got a lungful of Joker gas at zero and rebroke his ankle thrashing in the chains. Rebroke a rib, too.
After that, he'd happily gone clock-free in his room. Nothing like waking up at night to see red numbers! Not.
And then had come Sheila, and everything after that, and...and waking up in the darkā¦
He'd broken down, eventually, and bought a night light at the dollar store, but that had been too bright. So he'd gotten a damn clock and turned it to the wall. All the light without the numbers.
But sometimes...sometimes he'd wake up, and the red light threw laughing shadows above his head.
He didn't go back to sleep on those nights.
THE END
