Fear is more often than not a petrifying emotion. If you let it consume you, it immobilises you and muddles your mind with an endless stream of doubts and uncertainties. Bruce had learned from an early age to turn his fear into something useful. He transmuted these anxieties into a drive to act; raw determination that convinced him that he was capable of anything.

He channelled every ounce of worry over Jason into a laser focus that pushed him towards the closed amusement park. It was an unfortunate location; the cement pathways ensured that there were no footprints to follow, and therefore, no clues to be gained.

A place like this could have kept him wandering for hours, but apparently that wasn't part of Joker's grand plan. Batman came to an abrupt halt outside a relatively small building. The outside was decorated with glorified cupboard and said 'House Of Mirrors' along the top. There was a plastic clown outside, half the height of Bruce himself, but with one startling feature. It wore Robin's mask. Jason's mask.

Clearly, this was a trap...but Batman was used to Joker's antics by now. All the side entrances would be trapped, as would the back door. The safest route would be the direct approach. Joker never touched the entrances, probably because he liked the thought of Batman's only option being the obvious one; no sneaking around or crawling through air vents...just the old-fashioned front door.

Knowing this, Bruce saw no alternative. He pushed open the front door and a dim light barely revealed the room around him. There were mirrors in every single direction. It was disorienting, but Bruce held his hand out and started moving forward anyway. His gloved fingers bumped into a mirror after mirror, all angled so that they appeared like open corridors or empty pathways. Still, the way the light hit certain areas gave him hints and eventually he was weaving through the mirrors with limited mistakes.

Something caught his eye on the right. A body tied to a chair; limp, unmoving and stripped to his underwear. His dark hair shielded his face from view, ruffled and messy as Jason's always was.

Bruce pushed forward, hand knocking against another slab of glass. He thought about just smashing his way through, but these mirrors were sturdier than they looked; meant to withstand crowds knocking into them all day and reaching to the roof so that no one could climb over. He'd have to go around.

There were no signs of Joker or Harley, no matter how thoroughly he checked. The mirrors were completely dustless, which lead him to believe that they had polished them down, but there were no fingerprints either. It made finding the right path even more difficult.

Still, he managed to clear the maze and as he rounded the corner he found himself running to Jason's side...only, it wasn't Jason. It was some kid with similar hair and weight, but now that Bruce got a closer look, he was too small to be Jason.

Bruce pressed his fingers to the boy's throat. No pulse, but he hadn't been dead very long, given the colour still flushing his skin.

Anger rose in him like fire. Had this boy only been killed because he looked like Jason? Was that the sum of his life, to be used as a joke?

Bruce averted his gaze to the wall at the back of the building. It was dark, but there was definitely writing spray painted onto it. 'Just kidding, Bats,' it said. 'Look up.'

He didn't want to. Every muscle in his body tensed with anticipation, but what he saw when he finally let his gaze lift to the roof was more horrifying than anything he could have imagined. Jason's limp body seemed suspended in mid-air for a split second, and then he dropped. Bruce caught him without thought. He was acting on pure instinct now because his mind had gone completely blank.

At first, he couldn't confirm that this bloated corpse was really Jason's. It was beaten beyond recognition; missing it's eyes, nose, and even a few fingers. As Bruce stared at the mutilated right hand resting on it's chest, he saw a scar that ran the length of the knuckles...and clenched his jaw shut to contain the yell of horror that might have escaped him. Bruce had seen that scar enough to know every single angle of it.

Shock hit before the guilt or sorrow could. Despite Barbara's grief-stricken warning, Bruce had truly believed Jason to be alive. He was a survivor after all. They both were.

Jason was still wearing the Robin suit, though it was tattered around him like rags. Bruce found himself staring at the 'R' symbol on his chest because he couldn't bare to look anywhere else. It was the only thing that seemed real. The weight in his arms wasn't Jason's dead body...it couldn't be. It was just his costume. It was a mannequin. It was everything and anything at all, but it wasn't Jason.

Sirens blared down the street, rapidly growing closer and closer until it was all that Bruce could hear. His body stood of it's own accord, and he felt the corpse slip from his hands. Somewhere in the recesses of his mind he was screaming, telling his arms to pick Jason back up and take him away, but this part had been disconnected from his muscles.

Suddenly, he was a young boy again, his mother screaming in his ears and his father falling in a pool of blood. His legs were running without permission, moving him away from facing the terror of loss that was lingering behind him. The alley was far away, his parents still warm on the pavement. Never daring to look back; shock pushing him forward as if it might outrun the grief.

Reality sunk back in on him and he slowed his pace. Bruce shook his head, trying desperately to force the trauma back down where it couldn't surface. This wasn't the alley, it was an amusement park. That body wasn't his father's, or his mother's, it was Jason's. He had abandoned him there, still wrapped in his suit. He thought about going back, he almost did, until he heard the distinct sound of boots against the gravel.

"Hey, you, stay right there!"

Batman glanced over his shoulder. It was a cop, young and probably new to the force. Dozens of others swarming the building behind him. It was too late. He couldn't go back, and so he did the only thing he could think of. He started running again.

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