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“I, Red Hood, solemnly swear I am and was fully aware and in control of my actions. I did not find myself in an altered mental state. I did it all sober, lucid, and without hesitation," Jason stated to the dismay of his psychiatrist. He would have put a hand over his heart if not for the cuffs.
Dr. Roberts browsed through Jason's empty records. As far as staff was concerned, he had spawned from hell one day at nineteen and never looked a day younger. “This is serious, Jon.”
“Don't call me that. It sounds like I'm a bloated corpse drifting ashore.”
He is outright ignored. They have been over the issue many times; apparently, calling inmates by criminal monikers is unprofessional, so he is stuck as a Jon Doe. The idea of revealing himself as the deceased son of a billionaire had briefly occurred to him and been discarded, that would destroy all of Gotham’s vigilantes in a domino effect, and feelings aside, that would be ruinous for the city. Besides, they are more likely to write him off as delusional.
The son of Bruce Wayne - a murderer. The late Bruce Wayne. Late…dead.
“Jon!” Dr. Roberts' sharp voice brings him back. “As I was saying, an infraction this serious warrants harsh disciplinary measures.”
Oh, right. Last night Jason had smothered his cellmate with a pillow.
His screams had soaked the foam blocks stuffing, a skinny guy such as him didn't put much of a fight. The squirming had ceased before the cloying knock-out gas crept its tendrils into Jason’s brain and he woke up in segregation wearing a straitjacket.
It had taken him around four minutes to free himself; still, he didn't appreciate the gesture.
“Oh no, Doc,” he widened his eyes, "Am I going to a prison?”
“You are very lucky Batman himself requested for you to not be housed in the Rogues Wing. Any idea why?”
So he wouldn't rip Joker’s eyeballs out and juggle with them. “He doesn't think my evil monologues are up to par yet.”
His gaze moved down to the chain keeping him moored to the metal table. Bat design, one of Wayne Foundation investments in corrections disguised as a collaboration with some imaginary company. Bruce had once taught him how to wriggle his way free; there was a specific position they came undone in case allies found themselves bound. That had been an old model, all he knew was outdated.
And Bruce would never get the chance to get him caught up. He sank his nails into his palms at the thought. Alive or dead, Bruce wouldn't have helped him.
“You are causing an exceptionally arduous period of adaptation.”
Well, duh. Jason would be more concerned had he been adapting fine to Arkham.
“Then transfer me to Blackgate.” He wasn't keen on visiting Wills’ dying cell, but good old-fashioned clink beat the madhouse for miles. “I can pass any psychiatric test you give me.”
“I have no doubts you can,” Dr. Roberts stated dryly; it didn't sound like a compliment. “Do you feel any guilt?”
Blood on his hands, his mouth. Sharp blows followed by sharper words that left a metallic aftertaste.
“No.”
Previously, Jason had experienced around one week of painfully dull routine.
Each dawn, a guard would stand in front of the reinforced glass window, a large panel directed to the corridor offering full vision of his cell, and shine a flashlight into his face like they had done at hourly intervals during the night; to make sure he didn't off himself or display any dangerous behaviour. He had dared to be caught crying once and got three yellow pills that gave him massive headaches shoved down his throat.
In the canteen, orderlies made him lift his tongue to prove he had swallowed the cocktail of meds of the day. Fighting the dizziness, he sipped at the lukewarm, cardboard-flavored carton of milk and took small bites of curdled oatmeal.
Therapy was a certain torture. Dr. Roberts didn't like him much. Wonder why. His every word was met with skepticism. He didn't understand why not let him go to Backgate when his psychiatrist was so sure all he did was lie. Dr. Roberts particularly appreciated every time he caught Jason in a fallacy or forced him to admit to being at fault for his misery, ranging from his current predicament to a rude shove from a guard.
The only parts of the day he could have described as pleasant, and with that he meant the only ones that didn't make him want to carve a hole in his throat, were the daily trip to the yard, where he would sit on a bench looking motionless at the sky, and the single time he had been allowed into a small room with paper backs, soft pencils and puzzles. An orderly had told him in which chair to sit and that he wasn't allowed to move from there, then made a comment about ‘not putting it in any holes’ when he picked up a blue pencil that, paired with the lewd look, made his skin crawl.
Segregation had sucked out any reprieve he might have been blessed with.
Time muddled at each new chemical injected in his bloodstream. Adjusting his doses, they said, still stubbornly insisting his more recent crime had been the result of a psychosis.
From so long confined within it, he got to know his solitary cell intimately and how much he despised it. The rust on his bunk, the clumps of hair and cotton on the scratched floor, the flaking beige paint near efflorescence.
Here no one minded if he wept; the red rims of his eyes were a constant fixture.
He woke up to nibbling on his feet.
In the dim light cast from the corridor, he could vaguely see a grey shape scurrying under the bunk. A guard appeared a few moments later, watching him wave his anti suicide blacked around like a bullfighter to scare the pest out.
“What the fuck are you doing?” He growled, pointing the flashlight directly into Jason’s eyes.
He raised a hand as an awning, blinking away floating spots. “There is a rat.”
“Hmm hmm, back to bed with you.”
“I'm not making it up.” As an apology, the rat decided to let out two loud squeaks, but from the guard’s unchanging expression, the glass didn't let sound pass as smoothly as Jason had assumed.
“Bed. Now.” He spoke slowly as if Jason was an especially slow child. “Or I'm writing this down, and you get to eat a nice candy that makes you sleep a lot.”
Funny, in a morbid angle, as he watched the khaki uniform retreat, that the guard thought he was hallucinating a real rat, when a dead man stood in the corner.
Jason didn't know if it was a ghost or him losing it, he would rather be insane. This Batman was never kind, although that was a point in favour of the ghost theory.
There were no wounds at least, but he would prefer Bruce to haunt him out of uniform.
He just wanted to see his dad's face one more time.
“Is this what you wanted?” Jason asked. All that preaching about him being broke and needing help only to die and leave him drowning in the septic tank of their choices. “I wasn't trying to hurt them. I was doing what you do, I was helping Gotham, and if he had listened to me, we could have done it together. You never listen.”
A heavy fist slammed on the window.
Jason rubbed his face and slid under the suicide prevention blanket.
There was a time limit they could keep him in isolation before violating human rights.
Some years prior, that wouldn't have been a concern. Wayne Foundation had launched many initiatives for inmates’ rights, including regulation of inhumane punishments, with varying degrees of success.
On paper, he was no longer in solitary confinement; instead, it was a conditioned regime or whatever name they came up with to escape activist lawyers. The only change was that he got a few moments in the yard every day again, so he spent twenty-three hours in his cell instead of twenty-four; ignoring therapy, which should count as a cruel and unusual punishment.
He wasn't allowed outside his cell without chains. The guard made him turn around, then cuffed his hands. Naively, he assumed they would either be removed once outside, or he would simply keep them on. Instead, the guard led him to a chain-link cage on the yard's edge against the wall of the main building.
“Fuck my life,” he muttered as he was simultaneously freed and pushed inside.
“See you in an hour, have fun,” she said while placing the padlock.
It was roughly the size of an average man standing up. There was a palm's distance from the top of his head to the top of the cage, but no room for him to take a single meaningful step in any direction.
Enervated, he let himself fall against the wall. He had shadow and could still see the sky through rhombuses, a Buddhist monk would have found pleasure in the small things - he didn't.
“You look awful."
“Go suck a d- Dent?” He stumbled on his words. “What are you doing here?”
“Years as a crime lord if you mean Arkham, good behavior if you mean out of the Rogues' dungeons.”
He pushed a strand of overgrown, frizzy hair from his vision. “I mean speaking to me.”
“Forgive a man for trying to be charitable and approach the unlucky bastard on a kennel.”
Dent did look all right, all things considered. Only a God, or Dick Grayson, would have managed to be nice on the eye while wearing orange scrubs, but his posture was relaxed, there were no bags under his eyes, and he didn't look emaciated from the subpar food.
So Dent talked himself out of the Rogues Wing, good for him. That didn't make Jason desire his company any more than he desired to get rabies.
“Good action of the decade achieved, you can go back to your two-man show.”
“I’m handling that.”
“Amazing,” Jason deadpaned. “So what, are you sane now?”
Dent glanced around. “Is it true that there is a new Batman?”
The knot on his throat tightened. He bit his lip and looked away in an attempt to block the corners of his lips from turning downwards.
“Shit,” Dent whispered, “I'm sorry.”
Harvey and Bruce had been best friends once, and that was excessive sorrow for a villain mourning his enemy. “How much do you know?”
“I connected the dots, Jason. Don't worry, Two-Face never did, and now I don't think he will be making a reappearance."
He should be much more worried; instead, he burrowed his head on his knees. “It doesn't matter.”
A fruit drop fell in front of his feet: cherry. The hard, cheap kind stores kept bowls for children. “Where did you get this from?”
“Commissary.”
Shortly after arriving, he had tried to get a grey jacket like the one Dent was wearing from there. His books had been full, the clerk double-checked when Jason's account showed the max credits allowed. He tried hard to not lose sleep about who had bothered to transfer five grand. He didn't get the jacket; the clerk told him he didn't have permission. He asked why, since the material was so thin any noose would rip, the woman had done a crude gesture at scratching her arms in reply. Short sleeves for him it was.
The candy hit Dent square in the forehead.
Turns out that wasn't enough to make him leave.
Every day he came near the cage and stood abreast of it, joining Jason in his silent contemplation of cracked asphalt and weeds and ignoring the foul looks.
“You killed my dad,” Jason blurted out once.
“What? I wasn't- Oh, you mean the other one,” Dent bristled, then relaxed as the memory returned. “You screamed that and tried to strangle me the first time we fought.”
That had the opposite effect of what he aimed for. “You talk very fondly of being choked. Is that a kink?”
“You were eight, don't be disgusting.”
“I wasn't-”
“I'm sorry about your dad.” That made the protest die in Jason’s throat. “I know it doesn't mean much, but I do.”
Bringing up Willis had been a terrible idea. Bruce was a fresh wound - Willis had scabbed and gone septic.
Of course it doesn't mean much, it means nothing.
“I'll never forgive you.” The intensity in his tone took him by surprise. “I was ten, living on the streets, but I knew his release date. I came to the door of our old apartment building and waited. For an entire week, I slept on that threshold thinking that he had abandoned me. But he was being cremated because of you.
“Do you know what happens to children living alone in Crime Alley? No, because you don't give a fuck about that. You only care that things ended bitter between you and Bruce.
“I won't give you absolution, no matter how much candy you throw at me, no matter how sad you feel. You could save the world, and that would change nothing. I hate you. I will always hate you, and Bruce did too.”
Dent closed his fists. “Fine, hold on to your grudges. Kill me once you get out of that cage.” He got up to leave. “No wonder you ended up here.”
The conversation played in his mind all the next days he sat alone in the yard.
He couldn't forgive nor forget.
None of the cuts he ever got healed right; people like Dick had also suffered, but their wounds stitched themselves into scars, non-crippling reminders to show what they overcame. Jason dragged himself through the earth with open gashes and broken bones; his blood was diseased, poisoned with Lazarus, his heart kept bleeding unbridled.
Existing had become an unbearable chore. At night he lay in the anti-ligature mattress dreading the ever-approaching moment where he would be forced up.
He detached, vaguely aware that the condescending remarks were thrown his way, that the last dosage made his chest burn, that the guard watching him shower while chained to the wall was staring at his body, that that pile of limbs was him and not a character in a Kafka book.
Gregor Samsa had been onto something.
“I was informed you are spending time with Harvey,” Dr. Roberts said at the start of their daily session.
All the positive generic posters on the walls faded under the fluorescent light.
Jason shook his head. “Not anymore.”
“He has made admirable progress, it's an association that I encourage.” He also liked to ignore what Jason said. “Have you thought about the murder?”
Not at all, and he didn't see why Dr. Roberts insisted so much on it. “He deserved it.”
“Why?”
The only sound was metallic clinking from under the table, in addition to the cuffs they had started fastening leg irons. Those he didn't know if Bat production were, he didn't bother to check.
Dr. Roberts wrote in his notes. Jason wondered if Dick read them, if every damning word was more proof he had done right. “I can't help you if you don't want to be helped.” At the lack of response, he tried another angle. “Do you consider yourself superior to others?”
Jason didn't see how he could ever. “No.”
“But you behave as such. You have bestowed upon yourself the idea that you are worthy of deciding who deserves to live.”
“That's not something one is worthy of. It's a burden.”
Dr. Roberts leaned forward, fully attentive to the first deep conversation Jason allowed him. “Your burden?”
“No one else will do it.”
“So you want Batman and other vigilantes to kill?”
Just one kill, the only one on that matter to prove he was worth more than a moral code.
“It also came to my knowledge that you have been speaking to yourself,” Dr. Roberts pushed. “Hallucinations?”
A spirit came to torment him, or offer comfort and fail horribly. Bruce always had a way to lose eloquence in personal matters; he somehow thought his last message would be well received.
“I can raise your antipsychotics prescription."
“No need,” Jason replied instantly. His stomach and head hurt too much on a daily basis for more medication to be wise.
Dr. Roberts smiled smugly as if he had caught him in the act. “You never had hallucinations of any sort before, and they only appear once you are placed in isolation, severe enough for several shows of distress but not enough for you to accept help.” He placed the pen down. “I would wager as soon as you are released into gen pop they will vanish.”
“I'm not lying.”
“You aren't getting out of isolation either.”
“Fine!” He snapped. “I don't give a shit!”
“Explosive overreactions at being confronted,” Doc mused. “I have been working here for thirty years, you can't fool or scare me.” The loud buzz signaled he had touched the button under the table to finish the session earlier. “We won't make more progress today, but if I receive another report about hallucinations, you will be medicated.”
He pressed his finger against the chain-link until flesh bleached white, then slid upwards, leaving a trail of blossoming red behind.
He knew it had been stupid, killing that man.
But he had been talking about him.
He had told Jason what he did, bragging that he got the judge to deem him unfit to stand trial and how he would bribe his way into discharge soon. All the details of how he put a bomb under his ex-girlfriend’s car and Batman apprehending him.
That would have been bearable, but then the piece of shit had to add, “You should kill him when you get out, Hood. The Batfreak was better off in pieces.”
The smell of burned flesh had sieged his senses. There hadn't been a body left. He couldn't stop thinking that there were little bits of him around. Shards of bone and teeth scattered.
He had seen death; he had met it. Bodies mutilated beyond recognition, limbs a yard away, somehow, he couldn't process that being Bruce. The same hands that had held him as an underfed child gone, not rotting underground, even though that would still be painful, but fully gone. Dust people walked over, unaware that it used to be his dad.
The sun was a dull silver coin, ignoring all advice thrown around, he stared directly at it. Going blind would be preferable to one more second watching barbed razor fences and guard towers.
He missed him, and also hated him.
It wasn't the same as Willis, but somehow it was. Both hurt him, both would be screamed at for hours had they been alive, but he would give a lung to have them back.
Jason trailed the scar on his neck.
The last words his dad left him were about all the manners he was wrong in the heart and head, and he couldn't bring himself to be angry; the hot coals had burned all their colour, turning into grey ashes.
It didn't matter anymore.
He would swallow his words soon.
Inmates with good behavior were allowed privileges. More time outside, personal objects in the cells, most importantly, television time.
Jason never got to walk inside, but on the way to therapy he always passed the observation window of the room. Three circular tables and a single old square television inside a steel enclosure.
Shows considered violent or upsetting were banned, leading it to remain in permanent limbo between sports and documentaries with a semi-break for news. Dent, the asshole, got access and had kept him somehow updated on the Gotham Knight’s season before Jason also burned that bridge.
He heard the news anchor's energetic voice before turning the corner. Chirpy, so no disasters for the week.
He glanced uninterested. The grip socks squeaked on the linoleum floor as he froze.
That was Batman, standing next to Nightwing and Robin.
It couldn't be Dick under the suit.
He knew those movements, studied them to exhaustion to move in tandem. Not Superman, or any other imposter, that was him. Alive, breathing, punching Riddler on the mouth.
The guard pushed him to keep moving, but his legs had turned to jelly.
For the next few days he waited.
His cell had no connection to the outside, so he paced with his eyes glued to the hallway window.
Almost obsessively, he ran his fingers through his hair to tame it, even started requesting showers daily, that and food were the only two things the staff was prohibited from denying.
He wanted to look strong when Bruce came.
Would die before admitting how relief had flooded his body as an aftershock. Bruce would see nothing on his face but contempt.
He tried to practice what he would say. The posturing and fake nonchalance. The venom he believed would spoil in his chest swirled, ready to strike.
How long had he been back for? It could have been so much longer before Jason saw it on the news. Did he spend weeks observing himself being mourned in some sick voyeurism?
He stopped sleeping. Not that he did much before, but he was sure Bruce would appear at night. On the scarce occasion he surrendered to exhaustion, the regular intervals of guards' rounds roused him from his slumber, sure the footsteps were his.
Dr. Roberts noticed the slow deterioration of his already precarious state. It was severe enough to move the man to give him an extra hour of yard time every day.
Jason wasn't sure why he believed an extra hour of sitting alone in a cage would help.
A week flew by, then another, then three. He saw the news sometimes, another criminal caught, another victory - nothing for him.
He sat cross-legged on the floor, waiting, always waiting.
Dinner sat untouched by his side. Rubbery bread that would be like sandpaper on his dry mouth.
Footsteps. A guard passed by, giving him a quick look of disgust before proceeding.
Another day it repeated.
More than he could count.
He asked for a newspaper and wasn't allowed, despite not causing a single problem for months. The orderly told him to shut it when he insisted.
His hands trembled as he reached for the daily tray and hurled it against the door. He circled the cell, leaned against the wall, and slammed his head against it. His pounding headache intensified into white agony, as if someone had taken a crowbar to it and didn't rest until his brain was mush.
A sob ripped its way out of his chest.
“Do you love me?” He asks his hallucination of Batman.
“Not enough,” it responds.
His eyes burned. “You are my dad, and you will always be no matter how much you hate it!”
The shouts attracted the same guard from last time. This time he didn't bother with warnings; he returned with a nurse and orderly, muttering, “My toddler cries less,” while watching Jason be forced to take the yellow pills.
In the next session, he must look particularly miserable for his psychiatrist to be treading so carefully.
He had briefly inquired about the dark bruise on Jason's forehead before moving to safer questions about how his week went, useless considering Jason's eyes glazed over as soon as he sat on the metal chair.
“Jon? Jon!”
Maybe if he didn't reply, they would finish early.
“Answer to me, or I will increase your medication.”
Well fuck. “What?”
“Look who woke up.” A small cross on the notes; Jason wondered what it meant. “What has gotten into you?”
Exhaustion is the only reason he speaks, trying to avoid an entire hour of prodding and teasing. “My dad…I thought he was dead, turns out he isn't, and I have been waiting for him to visit.”
“I assume you didn't have a good relationship. It lines up with your behaviour,” Dr. Roberts states dispassionately. “Why did you assume he would visit?”
That gets him to wake up. “Because he is my dad.”
“I understand that family ties are complicated, but in light of an already strained relationship and your actions, he might not feel obliged to come.”
“So it was the last strand? He doesn't care about me anymore?”
The soft breeze of air conditioning made him shiver, Dr. Roberts kept the room an igloo.
“Relationships can be mended,” Dr. Roberts stated conciliatory. “But no one owes you love or care, you have to deserve it.”
The and you don't, went unsaid.
It's not near the top ten most cruel things someone said or did to him. The implicit insult should slide off his back, instead, his breathing catches.
“I don't say this to be callous," Dr. Roberts adds when he sees Jason furiously rub his eyes with his fist. “But the first step for healing is acceptance, think of it as tough love.”
He had extensive experience with that concept.
Once the one-month mark was hit, Jason resigned himself. No one was coming.
Time passed, uncaring of his newfound clarity. The bright white lights still burned the cone cells of his retina, leaving the world in dull grays. The medication still made a new part of his body ache at every dosage adjustment. The guards still pulled him around like a marionette.
“So…he is back,” Harvey approached him for the first time since the fight to bring up the elephant in the room.
Jason merely curled more into himself. “I don't want to talk about it.”
A candy drop passed through the mesh, falling on his lap. He didn't mind that, they might not speak anymore, but the sweets were nice. Some he ate immediately, the others he hid on his clothes with the pills.
Without sleeves, it was more difficult to nick them, but from the seven inside the paper cup the nurses handed him every morning, he regularly managed to slip one with a sleight of hand.
His cell was searched at irregular intervals; the same for pat-downs. The only pattern he deciphered was that they alternated. Cell search, pat-down, followed again by a cell search, and so on, never repeating the same procedure twice in a row. So after they did the cell, he kept them inside the pillow, before, on a tied improvised pocket in his calf.
He watched the collection grow into a small pile, waiting for the inevitable moment where he would change his mind. It never came.
Fifteen little white pills.
He wasn't going to take them, just wanted the option.
The fight with Dick had been different; in the heat of the moment, while fighting rough and with a little less self-preservation than he ought to, he could justify risky moves. This would be different, no plausible deniability.
He swallowed three at once.
With five in his palm, he tried to stop, to think about what he was doing, but couldn't conjure anything except the compulsion to finish what he started.
The sharp edges scratched his throat on the way down.
By number ten, white noise had filled his ears.
Another two.
His insides cramped like he had munched razors.
He could barely lift his arm to take the last one to his lips with jerky movements.
Tears prickled his eyes and sweat covered his forehead in a matter of seconds. He let out a strangled yelp at a particularly sharp sting on his gut.
“Fuck, fuck,” he gasped in the midst of spasms.
Air struggled to reach his lungs, the more he gasped the more the sound turned akin to death rattles.
A bright light burned his vision.
A halo around soft curls and a softer smile. Himself or how he used to be. The original version to the twisted mirror Jason had become.
Robin extended him a beckoning hand, offering him deliverance.
A single touch and they would be together again.
He couldn't get up. Tears ran sideways down his face over his nosebridge.
Jason stretched his arm to reach the angel, index straining just an inch short.
Then he went numb.
.
.
.
.
.
“Shit, he looks dead.”
“Nope, still got a pulse. Code Red, requesting medical in Wing B.”
“Does it come out of our paycheck if he kicks the bucket?”
“It's not our fault, everyone saw it coming. If there is a will, there is a way and all that jazz. Might be for the better.”
“Don't be stupid. I don't want a kid dying on my watch.”
.
.
.
.
.
Beep beep beep.
“Stable, give me a cannula.”
.
.
.
.
.
“There goes our one-year streak. Who was in charge of his meds?”
.
.
.
.
.
“What do we do with the body if he doesn't make it? Throw it out in the sea?”
“What? We hand it to the morgue.”
“Don't look at me like that, it's my first week.”
.
.
.
.
.
“Should I call his emergency contact? He has an uncle called Matches Malone.”
“Matches? Sounds like a stripper. No, let's wait. Hold on the report too.”
“Why?”
“There is an inspection coming up. I'm not losing that promotion over a tantrum.”
.
.
.
.
.
Beep beep beep beep.
Someone was touching his face. “Mom,” he mumbles, “are you okay?”
“Not mom, sweetheart,” Catherine whispered while fixing a hoop around his ear. “Do you know where you are?”
“Hell…?”
Her ginger locks sway under the dim light, clean and bright, not falling in lumps as he remembers. “No, but you are very lucky to be alive.”
“I died once.”
He can't remember if she had been there. It was heaven, so now they were together in hell. That wasn't fair. She hadn't been that bad.
“You don't deserve to be in hell.”
“Thank you.” She approached from the side. “Let's get you back to sleep.”
.
.
.
.
.
“I must look like his mother. He asked me for dad the other day.”
“Oh, that's kind of sad. He does look young.”
.
.
.
.
.
Beep beep beep.
His head pounded fiercely.
He stared at the ceiling.
If that was how an overdose felt, mom must have spent her last moment in agony. He prayed heroin was kinder than antipsychotics. That she didn't feel life slipping away.
Beep beep beep.
His heart, still beating despite Jason's best efforts.
Between Robin and walking up there is only a dark blur like the bottom of a well, hearing faint echoes ricochet until voice becomes indistinct clusters of sound.
He might have died.
Being brought back from death twice.
He chuckled. Was he supposed to be relieved? Disappointed? How could he when he could barely process it was reality?
There should be more weight to the moment, he thinks, instead, he is hungry and chained to a stupid hospital bed, still in his stupid scrubs, and can't have a single deep thought about his mortality except, “that's it?”
He tried, he failed, moving on.
The nurse, who doesn't look at all like Catherine now that he is sober, her hair dirty blonde rather than ginger and her face much narrower than Catherine’s, brings him water and red Jell-O. Guards talk about their legal responsibility in case he had died as if he wasn't in the room. Dr. Roberts passed by to tell him he will be moved back to his cell in a few days.
It's surreal how much it didn't matter.
Not that he expected Arkham staff to break down in tears, but the levity struck him as surreal.
He hadn't crossed some awful line into a point of no return - he tried to kill himself, and no one gave a shit.
“Has anyone come to visit?” He asked the nurse despite knowing the answer.
The pity on her expression was revolting. “Not yet, but you can call your approved numbers if you want.”
He didn't. He wasn't aware if he had approved numbers, he hadn't been allowed to roam free in a concrete block, much less grab a phone, but the answer wouldn't change.
He waited three more days.
Tells himself it's a matter of regaining his strength and almost believes it.
The soft restraints on his wrists and ankles were old. Worn and rough and a much different model from the ones donated by Wayne Foundation. Prolonged use gave him chaffed skin the new ones wouldn't, but he forgives them due to being immensely simpler to slip off.
He moans in a mummery of agony loud enough for the guard stationed for the night to check. Then knocks him out cold.
Taking the coat, keys, and gun, unfortunately the shoes weren't his number, he makes his way through the facility.
His cell had been number forty-six of Wing A. Dent told him his number once, but Jason hadn't paid attention, too distracted wondering if with skill the grippy socks could make a noose.
He goes through three rows of cells before recognising charred skin. Of course the punctilious jerk had a pile of books and a desk with writing materials.
The door slides open soundlessly, the same can't be said for Dent when Jason shakes him awake.
“Shush, you want me to get caught?”
Dent blinked an exaggerated number of times, an even number of times. “Why are you here?”
“You don't want to see me?”
“I don't want you in my bed.”
“Title of your sex tape.”
The look he gets is so dour it reminds him of Talia when he quipped mid-training.
“Where have you been?” Dent sits up, groaning about his back. “You vanished one day.”
“Infirmary, I got a fever,” Jason replies.
Had he told the truth, Dent would get the wrong idea that Jason is suicidal. He isn't; it was just an impulse that he isn't inclined to repeat. He had been suicidal two weeks ago but wasn't anymore.
Thinking about it, he might not have been suicidal while taking the pills. Dr. Roberts was right, he wanted attention, not to die. That's why he kept expecting Bruce to show up.
God, he had overdosed to force a man who was done with Jason's bullshit to come see him and hold his hand. He was fucking pathetic, he couldn't confess to Dent.
His lie didn't land as smoothly as expected, he isn't sure what gives him away, but from the twist in Dent’s mouth, something did. “So you came to kill me?”
“No.”
“What about all that talk about hating me forever?”
“I don't forgive you,” Jason states bluntly. “But I don't want you dead. You aren't irredeemable. And…I do think you can do some good still. So do you want to leave?”
“You want me to come with you?”
“Just out of the building, then we can go our separate ways,” Jason clarified.
“Sweet, but it's not happening.”
“Why not? This place is a nightmare.”
Dent waved around to the cell, it had more than the desk and books. Pictures surrounded a calendar on the wall, a rudimentary radio sat atop a small metal cupboard. Dent picked up a letter and placed it on Jason's hands.
A discharge letter. In a month, Harvey Dent would be considered legally sane.
“This is…congratulations.” Surprisingly, he did feel glad for him. “I think you are the first person they heal.”
“Of the famous cases I am, but sometimes it happens.” He glanced at the paper, signing his imminent freedom almost mournfully. “I studied forensic hospitals while still an attorney, places like Metropolis have great ones. Recidivism rate lower than five percent and medium stays of five years. It's a shame this city is what it is.”
“What will you do outside?”
“My one true calling: practice law.” Jason didn't want his skepticism to be so obvious. “I know I won't be winning any cases, but an assistant consultant, that I could do.”
“I can call you next time I'm in trouble.” He forced a tight-lipped smile. “Free of charge due to the dead dad business, of course.”
Dent snatched back his letter. “You won't want to look at my face.”
“Yes, you are ugly, but that didn't stop me from looking before.”
They froze at the sound of a guard approaching. Dent lay down, and Jason curled under the bunk. Once the danger was over, they resumed the conversation as if nothing had happened.
“I mean that you are going to push all this to the back of your mind and I won't be anything more than a reminder of one of the worst moments in your life.” There was a sort of cruel vindication in his words. “You will do everything to not think about me again.”
Jason tensed, unsure why he felt so attacked. “That isn't true.”
“We will see…where are you going now?”
“Away,” Jason replied instantly.
Didn't matter where. He could take a hint. Bruce made it abundantly clear he didn't want him anymore; it took him some time to realize - embarrassingly long - but finally got there.
Bruce wasn't his dad. He might have never been.
Dent nodded. “I wondered why you didn't leave before.”
“Chains, cameras, electromagnetic sensors, guards, it's a long list,” he replied.
“Save it, you could get out here any time you want, you choose not to.” Jason holds back the instinctive insult as Dent lies back down. “I wish you well, don't do anything stupid.”
“You too.” He stops before locking the door again. “Thanks for the candy.”
In the morning, Arkham wakes up to an empty bed and two hours of deleted footage.
Batman is called, he scours the city intensively for a week until determining that the Red Hood is long gone. He tells the commissioner he will stay alert, privately instructs the other vigilantes to stop searching.
When interrogated about the circumstances of the escape, the answer is unanimous. The Red Hood had been in the infirmary for a fever.