Chapter Text
Jason groaned as he slowly opened his eyes, flinching at the brightness of the light hanging high above his head. A faint, incessant ringing filled his ears, and he could feel the vein in the side of his head throb in time with his heart. His mouth tasted of blood mixed with faint traces of his last cigarette. Glancing around, he guessed he was in one of the old, abandoned warehouses down by the docks, but something was preventing him from investigating further.
Looking down, he saw thick, weighty ropes biting into his arms and torso, snaking around his body, and pinning him to the chair below. The chair that seemed to have been bolted to the floor. More rope secured his legs, and a pair of handcuffs linked his wrists behind his back. This is bad. Even for me, this isn’t going to be an easy situation to get out of.
Fighting through his pounding headache, Jason tried to remember how he had ended up in this predicament. The last thing he remembered was parking his motorcycle to meet you outside that swanky restaurant Bruce had gotten him reservations at….. He realized he was still in the suit and tie he had borrowed from Dick, though now it was ripped and spotted with blood. So, that meant that Jason Todd had been captured, not the Red Hood. Just another thing to add to his growing lists of concerns….
“Jason! Jay, baby, come on, please answer me. Are you alright?”
Jason’s head snapped up, sending a shooting pain through his skull. Once it subsided, his blurry eyes finally landed on the figure positioned across the room from him.
“Y/N? What…what happened? Where are we?” Jason’s head was still clouded, and he found he was having trouble forming complete sentences. Something had definitely been done to him. He thought he could vaguely remember something stinging his neck right before he blacked out. He must have been drugged with something. Turning his focus back to you, he could see the anxiety and fear on your face soften slightly as you realized he was alive. However, his anxiety and fear only grew as he took in your current state.
Your arms were chained to the wall across from him, with the shackles spread so far apart, you were basically plastered against the wall. Your hair was a limp tousled mess, and your makeup was smeared where tears had trailed down your cheeks. The pale gold gown you had been saving up to buy for months specifically for tonight was in a similar ruined state as his suit. Yet, despite all of that, you still managed to look breathtaking. Jason just wished he wouldn’t have been running late to meet you for dinner. Maybe then he could have kept you safe, like he had promised you he would.
After everything he had gone through in his life, after seeing the person it had turned him into, Jason had never thought he would ever find someone who could love him the way that you did. And even once he had told you the truth about everything, who he was, what he had endured, what he had done afterwards, you still accepted him. You had supported his vigilante choices and never complained when you had to patch him up on a near nightly basis. The only thing you were adamant about was that you wanted no active part in that side of his life. You didn’t even like hearing tales of his or his fellow Bats’ nightly exploits and if you were both hanging out in the manor, the second anyone would head to down to the cave, you would be gone. But Jason had respected your decision, even encouraging it. He never wanted you to be in a position where you could get hurt. But it seemed as if that life had finally caught up with him and had dragged you along for the ride. You were now in danger all because you loved him.
Jason opened his mouth, trying to form an apology that could accurately convey the depths of his regret at getting you into this situation, but you cut him off with your own desperate pleas. “Jay, I’m so sorry. This is all my fault. I should have known…. I should have told you sooner. I just- I didn’t know how.” Tears streamed steadily down your cheeks, smearing your makeup further. Your desperate eyes bore into his bewildered face. “I love you. I swear on my life, no matter what he does, no matter what he tells you, every word I said to you was real. Everything between us was – is – real. I didn’t know who you were until you confessed your secret to me, and that was months after we started dating. By then, I was in too deep. I loved you too much to lose you by telling you the truth. I thought I had covered my tracks well enough that he would never find me but – I’m so sorry.”
“What are you talking about? What truth? Who is ‘he’?”
Before you could answer, the door opened behind Jason. He watched as all the blood drained from your face as you shrunk further back into the wall. Jason heard footsteps as a distinctive shadow appeared across the floor by his feet and his eyes widened in horror. He knew who it was even before the laughter started.
“Jason Todd! So, we meet again! I could’ve sworn I’ve blown you up once or twice by now. Ah well, maybe third times the charm.” The Joker winked at the former Robin then turned and waltzed over to the wall where you were restrained. “And…. Y/N L/N, is it? Well, isn’t that such a nice, normal, unassuming name. Whoever came up with that just had no originality or flair at all.”
In the two years Jason had known you, he had never seen you get truly angry. Frustrated? Sure. Slightly miffed? Frequently. Annoyed? You were dating him, so of course. But this deep, soul crushing fury that was currently etched into your features? No, this was a side of you Jason had never seen before, and he couldn’t help but feel a surge of pride as you stared down the monster before you. Your eyes blazed brightly with a fiery hatred and your jaw tightened sharply as you faced Gotham’s most deranged villain. Never wavering, never blinking, never showing an ounce of fear. That’s my girl.
Finally, the Joker broke your stare off as he turned around and pulled something from his pocket. “I bet you two are wondering why you’re here. Well, you can imagine my surprise when I sat down to my breakfast yesterday morning and saw your lovely faces smiling back at me.”
He threw a newspaper to the ground, and Jason made a mental note to kill his brothers as he saw the all-too-familiar front-page layout. When the two of you had told Jason’s family about your engagement, they had wanted to celebrate and share the happy news. You had practically begged them not to place the announcement in the paper. Regardless of how rich Bruce was, you had argued that it was a waste of money and not a great idea since you wanted to make it a small affair with as little press involvement as possible. You also reminded everyone that since revealing he was alive to the public, Jason had tried to maintain a low profile, which would not happen if he publicly announced he was engaged. But Dick and Tim had ignored your objections and bought a full-page colored ad on the front of the Gotham Gazette (using Bruce’s swiped credit card, of course). When you found out, Jason had to spend hours trying to calm you down. At first, you had claimed your issue with the ad came from his brothers’ complete disregard of their wishes and the fact that they had gone behind their backs even after specifically being told not to, but Jason could tell something deeper was bothering you. Eventually, he was able to coax the truth out of you; that you were afraid of the targets this public announcement might place on both of your backs. It seemed now that your concerns were more than valid.
The Joker chuckled as he continued on his rant. “When I saw the big news, I just knew I had to congratulate the happy couple in person! Who would have guessed that out of all the people in the world, you two somehow found each other and created a perfect little life for yourselves! But then, I had to go and ruin your special engagement dinner! If I had known you had plans tonight, I would have brought flowers…. Then again, you were never a fan of flowers, were you?”
Jason could feel his fury building with every word the clown said. Once again, he silently cursed Bruce for not killing him years ago, and for stopping Jason from killing him when he got back to town. Instead, the Joker just continued escaping from Arkham over and over, committing one atrocity after another without any real repercussions. And now Jason had gotten you mixed up in all of this – no. His drugged brain tried to process what the Joker had just said. He mentioned someone not liking flowers…… you hated flowers…… Meaning that I wasn’t the one he was talking to……
Your voice rang out across the warehouse, a steely harsh sound that Jason had never heard from you before. “Don’t do this. Haven’t you done enough to him already! Haven’t you taken enough from him! Just let Jason go and I’ll stay here with you. I promise. Whatever you want to do to me, I won’t fight back. No more escape attempts, no more running away, just …. let him go.”
Jason’s head swiveled between you and the Joker like he was watching a tennis match. Even in his slightly hazy state, he was able to recognize that you two obviously had some sort of history that you had never mentioned, but he couldn’t figure out what.
His confusion did not go unnoticed by the Clown Prince of Crime. A smile, crueler even than his normal grin, slowly crawled across his face. “She never told you, did she? For two years, she hid it from you. You of all people!”
You strained violently against your chains as you growled, “Don’t. Do. This. Just let him go. Please!”
“Oh, finally! There are those manners I taught you! But come now, I think we all should get better acquainted, don’t you? Especially if I’m going to be walking my daughter down the aisle on her wedding day!”
Jason’s blood froze in his veins. His…daughter? His eyes snapped to you, silently begging for any indication that it wasn’t true, that it was just another one of his sick games. But all remaining hope evaporated when he watched as your body slumped as far as the chains would allow, head hung low on your chest. Your shoulders shook with silent sobs as tears rained down onto the cold, hard ground below. He could faintly hear you mumbling, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” over and over again like a mantra.
Jason felt his world explode for the second time in his life. For the past two years, you have been by my side without saying a word about who you truly are. And all the while you knew what your father did to me, what he stole from me, what he turned me into. Yet, you just sat there and held my hand, kissed my lips, caressed my scars –
That final thought was too much for him to handle. Doubling over as far as the restraints would allow, Jason vomited violently across the floor. It had taken him a long time to build up the courage and trust to let you see the scars that decorated his body. They varied by size, shape, and texture depending on if they were caused by crowbar or explosion, but you had spent that first night kissing every one and decorating them with your tears. Tears, he now realized, that were not just for his pain and suffering.
He thought back to your earlier pleas for him to remember that you loved him, and the statement that your feelings were real. But how could you do that to someone you claimed to love? How could you lie about something like this and still expect him to believe everything else had been the truth? No, the truth was…. he didn’t really know you at all.
You started calling out to Jason again, begging him to just look at you, just say a single word to you. But he ignored both requests. With a wounded sob, you turned your anguish on the Joker. “Is this what you wanted! To destroy the only happiness I have ever known! Well, fine. Congratulations, you did it.”
“Oh no, my little jester, you did it.” The Joker’s voice suddenly took on a deranged menace that was out of character even for him. “I raised you, taught you everything you know, and then you vanished without so much as a note or a goodbye. For eight years I have searched for you, on every continent on this planet. And then I found out that you were right under my nose this whole time and shacking up with one of the Robins! With this Robin! My Robin!” He gestured wildly at Jason, but Jason couldn’t muster up the energy to even flinch. “You changed your name, dyed your hair, started a whole other life without me in it! Well, if that’s what you want, then fine. Who am I to stand in your way?” The Joker pulled out a large knife from his jacket. Your eyes widened and you struggled against your chains. “But I am going to make sure, once and for all, that no matter where you go, no matter what you change your name to, no matter how you try to change your appearance, no one will be able to forget who you are ever again!”
The Joker approached you, knife raised. He positioned himself between you and Jason, so his body blocked what he was doing. Jason could only stare at the Joker’s back as he listened as your screams of panic and protest morph into screams of agony then faded into a wet, gurgling whine.
As he finished, the Joker stepped back to reveal your limp form, the chains around your wrist the only things still holding you upright. Your head was once again buried deep in your chest, but this time it wasn’t tears that were pooling beneath you onto the floor below. The Joker roughly grabbed your hair and wrenched your head back so Jason could admire his handiwork. And even in his shock-addled state, Jason couldn’t help but gasp in horror.
Starting from each corner of your mouth and stretching up to just below your cheekbones, the Joker had carved two jagged, upturned arches into your face. Dark, crimson blood seeped from each deep gash, flowing down your neck and onto the remains of your dress. Your teary eyes barely fluttered as you struggled to remain conscious.
The Joker looked at you with a thoughtful gaze. “Something is still missing…. Ahh!” He took his thumb and, starting high up on one wound, ran it harshly though the gore and over your lips, staining them red and creating a continuous, bloody smile that stretched widely across your face. An agonized moan squeezed out of your mouth and the Joker cackled at his finished product. “There we are! Perfect!”
He let the bloody knife clatter to the ground as he released his grip on your hair. Your head immediately slumped weakly back into your chest with another feeble moan. Then the Joker turned to Jason, tossing the keys to his handcuffs at his feet. “She’s all yours, loverboy! I’ll be waiting for my wedding invitation in the mail.” He glanced over at your limp form, “Well, if she survives.” And with those final words, he walked out of the building leaving both of you still bound by your restraints.
It took Jason a few minutes to force himself to look back at you. You weren’t moving but the pool of blood at your feet was slowly expanding. However, even if he hadn’t been tied to the chair, in his current state of shock mixed with the linger effects of the drugs that had been used to knock him out, Jason couldn’t help you. At that moment all he could do was stare blankly across at his fiancé as the same thought repeated over and over in his head. Joker’s daughter. I’m in love with the Joker’s daughter.
