Panic. Eyes open. eyesopeneyesopeneyesopenEYESOPEN.

Stings. Burns. Burningburningburningburning… Doesn't stop.

Open eyes sting. Burning. He sees dark. He feels darkness. He smells darkness. Cold. Too cold. So tired of cold no more cold no more cold no morecoldnomoreplease

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Hears darkness. Too small too cold too hot. Hurts. Fingers hurt.

Scratch. Pain. Too small too cold too hot. Out out out.

Scratch scratch pain. Out out out.

Barbara knew what she was seeing, but she also had no idea what the fuck she was seeing.

A hand trying to claw its way out of the ground. A hand that was much smaller and much bloodier than she remembered. A hand that was followed by a kid. He was so much smaller than she remembered. He pushed his way out of the earth, and gasped in a massive lungful of air. The video had no sound, but she could hear him in the way he moved. She could see his wails and sobs so painfully that she had to stop the video. She tried to imagine the punk she taught how to read moving like that, and then she saw his eyes. Paused. A single frame, and she saw the complete and utter fear and pain and emptiness. It scared her.

And so, like she did with any information that scared her, Barbara passed it on. She called Tim at the cave.

He picked up before the first ring even started.

"Hey, what have you found?"

His eagerness inflamed the sadness she was suppressing, and she wasn't even trying to keep her eyes dry.

Barbara did her best to reply as briskly as possible.

"Is Bruce there?"

Tim hesitated. He must have heard the emotion in her voice. "Yeah… He just got back. Wait a minute?"

There was a shuffling for a few seconds at the other end of the line as Oracle prepared to send the video. Bruce (or was it Batman?) took over the call.

"Oracle. Tell me what you found." His voice was low and completely devoid of any animation. So she was talking to Batman. Good. Bruce couldn't deal with this today.

"I'm sending a video. Starts November second at 1:51. Also, sit down."

"Oracle?" Batman remarked questioningly. She hung up.

Bruce had been fighting Batman for control since he had seen that loose dirt. The entire drive back had been with knuckles gripped white on the steering wheel, and mouth pinched in Batman's characteristic scowl. He debated calling Dick, but somewhere along the way he realized that he didn't even know if Dick ever even knew Jason in any other light than resentment. Bruce just thought Dick wouldn't care.

And besides, Bruce reasoned, he's busy. He has a life and the Titans. We don't need to bother him.

And so Batman drove in silence. He didn't even bother going to the manor first. He drove his fancy sports car straight into the cave. He was pulling up just as Tim answered the phone.

"Hey, what have you found?"

Batman was about to change out of Bruce's clothes when he saw Tim's face. He grabbed the phone.

"Oracle. Tell me what you found."

Her response confused him. Did she think he was so delicate that some punk teens being disrespectful would break him?

The video popped up on his monitor.

Batman, sans the cowl, sat down to watch and observe. He hit play.

There was a minute or so before anything happened in which the three people awaited something in tense silence. Alfred gave Bruce a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder, and suddenly it began.

The earth was moving, being pushed up. Pushed up from underneath.

Batman had been around a long time. Long enough to see heroes rise and fall and rise again. He hoped to whatever gods existed that he wasn't watching what he thought he was. He also hoped that it was.

Then the small, bloody had scratched its way out.

Alfred gasped, his body involuntarily moving away from the screen. His eyes stayed glued.

Tim just paled.

And Batman did absolutely nothing. Batman had gone. The second that Bruce had seen his son, Batman was gone. But Bruce, the man, the father, was pretty damn emotionally constipated as well. He didn't make any sound, he just got minutely closer to the screen and continued to watch, worry and sadness bubbling in his gut.

He watched as the boy clawed the earth away, and he saw the tremors wracking the small body. He'd forgotten how small the boy… Jason… had been.

Bruce was glad that the security feed had no sound. He saw Jason's face, and knew what it would sound like. He could hear the keening wail that he saw fall from Jason's mouth. In that imagined noise, in that tiny image on a screen, Bruce could feel what Jason felt, and it was pain. The boy knelt in his own blood and dirt, sobbing, and Bruce couldn't help flashing back to himself, kneeling in blood that wasn't his own, sobbing like the child on the screen.

He couldn't stand it. He couldn't stand watching his son weep and scream. He looked so cold. Bruce, hiding his tremors, went to pause the video when he saw the screams abruptly stop. The boy gasped for air and held his battered hands to his chest. And then he got up.

Jason just got up and walked away.

Bruce's jaw clenched.

"Call Dick."

Hurt too muchHAHAHAtoo cold too wet.

CANTBREATHE.

Can…? Breathe…?

Air is coldcoldcoldcold.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

HurtshurtsHURTShurtscoldcoldHAHAHAHA need.

Need.