Jason awoke with a thudding headache. The back of his skull throbbed like the heart of a rabbit outrunning a lion; he bit out a curse and moved his hand to inspect the damage – except that it didn't move. Something was restraining his arms. His legs, too, he noticed when he tried to get up off the chair that he was strapped to. The violent hum of electricity streaking through the air assaulted his battered head, calling forth a grimace of agony. A steady dripping echoed all around him, but it seemed to come from a single source.

A leaky roof. So it was raining...it had been clear when Jason arrived at the amusement park. How long had he been out cold?

He cracked open his eyes to better percieve how deep in shit he was. Blackness continued to engulf him. A tremor of panic vibrated in his core. He couldn't see anything...and now that he thought about it, his eyelids could barely open or shut properly, as if they were starting to swell. A tremble rocked through his body. Then he gasped. Then he yelled. Then he screamed. It wasn't too dark to see, and he didn't have a bag over his head. His eyes were gone.

This realisation was almost like a nightmare. It couldn't be real. It didn't feel real. Why wasn't he in pain? Was his body still in shock? It couldn't be real. It couldn't be.

Another cry left him, and this time it kept going. It felt like he was sitting there for an eternity, wailing at the top of his lungs. Unable to even form a complete sentence through his terror.

Jason was blind, sightless, motionless, restrained. He was as good as dead, a lamb awaiting slaughter. Poultry breathing its last lungful. That slight tremor increased in intensity until he physically shook in time with it.

He tried to wrench his arms free and felt narrow straps dig into his flesh. He cried out in pain and kept battering at the straps with his forearms. They sawed in deeper and drew blood, but he was too far gone to notice it. His every instinct forced him to fight this unseen enemy, to escape these bonds.

He snapped his head backwards, the impact dizzying him for a moment. He hit the metallic back of his chair again and again, pounding away at his restraints. The stuffy air invaded his mouth whenever he opened it to take a breath, causing him to gag. How hadn't he noticed before? The metallic scent of blood, like fingers of decay forcing their way down his throat and lodging in his heart. The blood was his, and he had lost a lot of it. He was starting to feel light-headed.

Finally, the pain slammed into him like a hurricane; a sharp, excruciating burn from where his eyes used to be. It felt like he was on fire. Maybe he was, he couldn't tell, but it all started from there and it spread out to the rest of his skull. He couldn't even scream this time. He could do nothing but writhe in his chair, mouth open like a fish suffocating, trying not to die. Willing his heart not to stop.

There were other injuries flaring up all around his body, one from deep within his stomach that felt like it had been torn open and rearranged, another from his thigh which was starting to smell of burnt flesh. So much pain. So much that he could barely comprehend it all. His mind simply couldn't process it at once, so he experienced it in waves. That was somehow worse than feeling it all together.

There was a sound, like a small thud, but Jason barely heard it over the ringing in his ears. He thought it might be his captor, but that was more of a relief than anything else. He couldn't breathe. He wanted all of it over. He couldn't bare to live another second in this agony.

But he heard something that brought him back from the precipice. A voice. The voice of the woman he had loved for years.

"Jason..." The word trembled on Barbara's lips. "Oh my god...what happened-....Jesus, I-...I...I need to-"

She touched him, the warmth of her hands on either side of his face forced him to breathe again. He couldn't see her, but her voice told him everything. It was bad. Really bad...

"B-Barb..." he tried to speak but his throat stung with the effort. He was dehydrated, and every second that he'd spent screaming had only made it worse.

"Don't speak," Barbara tried to hide her own sobbing, but she failed terribly. He could hear her crying, and her hands were shaking against his cheeks. "I don't...know if I can move you. Your stomach it's...oh god, Jason, your eyes-"

"I know..." Through the haze, a memory was returning to him; having his eyes dug out one by one then cut free of his head. Joker. It was Joker. His laugh assaulted Jason's memory, and the look from Harley before he'd done it...almost sympathetic. "You need to get out of here. Now."

"No, you know I can't-"

"I'm dead," Jason retorted, and there was a tremor of fear in his voice as he said it. A chilling cold had settled over him and numbed some of the pain, at least enough so that he could focus on his own terror at the prospect of dying at sixteen. He wished that he could actually see Barbara again, the world-shattering blue of her eyes and the fire in her hair, but he could find comfort in hearing her voice and keeping it in his mind in those last moments. Even if he was always a little too young for her, he had hoped that one day she would see him as more than just some street kid. "There's...nothing you can do for me. You need to go before he comes back."

But it was too late. Jason knew it as soon as he heard the door slammed open.

There was an almighty bang that echoed across the room. Everything went silent, and for a moment, he thought that he had been given the mercy of death. Then there was a wail of despair. Barbara's hands were no longer touching his face...but he could hear her groaning and gasping as she pulled herself across the floor.

"Barbara!" Jason sobbed, trying to find her in his blindness. Trying to Will the universe to shift and give him his sight back. "Please...fuck, please tell me you're okay..."

"Oh, look at this, Harley," Joker cackled, "I set a trap to catch a bat and ended up with two pups."

"What luck, Mistah Jay!" Harley chimed, her steps coming closer and closer. "Two for the price of one!"

A series of thumps came from Barbara's direction, each followed by a cry. Her breathing was heavy, hollow, and quick all at once. "I-I can't stand...I can't feel my legs..."

Joker laughed once more, "poor little thing. Let me put you out of your misery."

"No!" Jason screamed so loudly that the sound filled the entire building. "Don't fucking touch her! Please... PLEASE! Don't touch her!"

"But it would be so cruel to leave her like this, don't you think?"

"You can't...you can't kill her. Please, I'm begging you...I'll do anything!" Jason thrashed against his restraints desperately, hissing as it slashed further through his skin.

Jason's heart raced in his chest, threatening to burst from his chest altogether. He couldn't even see what they were doing. He couldn't see how close they were to Barbara. He tried harder to break free, pulling until he felt the straps dig passed skin and into muscle.

"Aww, I do hate to see you so distressed," Joker mocked. Jason could hear the grin on his face. "I'm such a bleeding heart, I simply can't upset you any further. Besides, two dead pups would be overkill. Gotta give Bats a mixed bag."

"Whaddaya want me to do with her then?" Harley asked from somewhere in the background.

"Chuck her in the gutter, somewhere she'll be found."

Barbara had stopped making any kind of noise when Jason heard Harley drag her out. He wanted to cry, but he wasn't sure if he could.

"Now, it's just you and me again," Joker sang joyfully. "And I have a few more pieces to cut off."

If Jason thought he was in pain when he woke up, it was nothing compared to what came after. He had his fingers cut off, one by one, then his hands...then arms...and the same with his toes, feet, and legs. Joker chopped at each section, moving his way up until there was nothing much left of Jason Todd. He carved words into his flesh, with both blade and fire, and sawed off his nose. Still, Jason simply wouldn't die.

It ended with a crowbar. A dozen hits across the temple, splitting open his head. Then finally, with great relief, death took him.

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