He's awake again. Well, that kind of suggests he wasn't awake before. He might have been, or he might not have been, it's hard to say. The entire experience is blurry, viewed through a haze at best and unable to be remembered at worst. So maybe he's awake again, or maybe he's still awake. But before, he wasn't really aware.
Now, he's aware again, at least partially.
Opening his eyes, although not sure when they had closed, he stares up at the ceiling of an unknown room. The ceiling is plain, a bit metallic, rather nondescript. The walls, when he slides his eyes to one side and then the other, are equally nondescript.
He blinks at the ceiling and at the walls. They seem to fade in and out of focus for a while, for how long, he's not certain.
Gradually, he becomes more aware. The ceiling and the walls sharpen into detail, boring detail, but detail to be sure. The blanket over him is now noticeable. It's soft, on the heavy side. The sheet under him is soft too. Sounds begin to filter in alongside the sights and the textures: the quiet hum of some kind of air system, the sound of his own heartbeat in his ears, and the measured pacing of steady footsteps, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
Batman told Superman to take Robin to the Watchtower. He remembers that. He doesn't remember Batman saying that they were going to the Watchtower too, but that's almost certainly what's happened.
He's on the Watchtower.
He's captured by the Justice League.
He's away from Father.
A rush of emotions threaten to break through, but he forces them down and away. He can't let himself feel. He doesn't have that luxury, not unless he's completely alone, and usually not even then. He can't feel.
Instead, he plans.
There are two options available. He has JJ and he has Timothy. He can be JJ and try to please and do his best to be right-wrong, or he can be Timothy and try to blend in and do his best to seem right-right. Neither would be what Father would want, because Father wouldn't want him to be here at all. So he has two options, and neither one is good.
He tries to sit up to think better, to consider his options, pushing against the soft sheets with his hands. But his arms tremble, and his body aches, and he can barely move. The thing Batman gave him, which he assumes is a version of the antidote Batman uses to help against Joker venom, must still be having an effect.
It's not enough of an effect, though. The thought of Batman trying to "help" him wriggles in his chest, and his breathing catches in his throat, and his mouth opens, and peals of laughter start to spill out of him. He hates the laughter, he loves the laughter, he hates-loves-hates-loves the laughter, the laughter is in him and around him and out-out-out of him, and he doesn't know what to do.
The laughter keeps spilling out of him. It covers the sound of the air system's hum. It covers the sound of his heartbeat in his ears.
It doesn't cover the sound of the steady footsteps changing.
The footsteps go unsteady in their pacing. Then they pause. They shuffle a little, then they come closer, closer, closer-
With all his might and willpower, he grabs the blanket over him and flings it over his head. It probably doesn't stifle the sound of the laughter coming out of him toward the world, but it stifles the world coming toward him, just for a moment, just for a few moments.
"Oh," a voice mutters from somewhere above him and off to the side. "Yeah. Okay. Let's… Let's deal with this."
He laughs and he laughs and he laughs. He doesn't know what else to do. He doesn't know if there even is anything else he can do. The laughter grows, it bursts out and it grows, the laughter spills and bursts and grows, and it hurts. The laughter hurts. It makes him want to cry. He can't cry, but it hurts and he wants to cry.
The voice mutters something else, but he doesn't know what it is. He's too busy trying to hold back and away from crying, to control himself, to contain himself, to keep himself to himself, to be exactly what he needs to be.
"Batman!" The voice says loudly enough that it's audible through the laughter still growing from him. "Batman can deal with this!"
Batman isn't supposed to know about him. Batman's supposed to be focused on the Joker. Batman isn't supposed to know there's even the idea of a Joker Junior.
He keeps laughing, always laughing, always sounding just like Father and laughing and laughing and laughing, but now he does start to cry too.