Negotiating with Terrorphiles

When Tim finally got to the Batcave after a long day at work – had to keep up appearances after all, even though being in charge of WE was the last thing he'd ever wanted with his life – he found Dick asleep on the keyboard. He had the video of Bruce's interrogation of Scarecrow open in one window, and what looked like eighty six pages of the letter F in another window. He was also drooling on the space bar.

Tim raised an eyebrow and grabbed the pillow Alfred had stuck in a nearby drawer for situations just like this one and put it on the desk next to the keyboard. Carefully, he moved Dick over. Then, after deleting all eighty six pages of F's, he read over the report Dick had been writing and decided enough was enough.

A week ago, Jason had been pulled out of the Batmobile laughing and screaming. He'd spent the next three days threatening cardiac arrest, then the next four in a coma. Tim could see him now, if he leaned back a bit, with a machine helping him breathe and much thinner than he'd been when they'd brought him in. He was getting nutrients now, but he was still shedding muscle mass like it was his job.

Six days ago, Batman had gone to GCPD to interrogate Scarecrow. He had learned nothing useful, and ended up getting banned from GCPD lockup for the rest of the year for assaulting a prisoner.

Tim glanced at Dick, sound asleep and likely to stay that way. He'd gotten about an hour a day since they'd found Jason. If he was in REM sleep, which he was, he probably wouldn't wake for another four hours. Still, Tim pulled a set of headphones out of a drawer and stuck them in. No need to tempt fate.

There was exactly one portion of the interview video that Tim needed. Bruce had set Dick on analyzing every word, intonation and movement Crane made, hoping to glean some more information out of him. It wouldn't work. Tim had sent the video to Cass, and she'd told him that Crane had been smugly confident the entire time. Dick hadn't gotten very far before falling asleep, so Tim fast forwarded to the part he needed.

It was right near the end, starting when Batman slammed his fist on the table. "Talk Crane! Or you'll be eating through a tube for the next six months!" The standard threats.

And they'd had the standard response. At least, the standard response for someone who went after Batman for fun. "Dreadfully sorry Batman," Crane leaned back slightly in his seat, knowing he held all the cards and showing not a one of them, "but perhaps if I had been able to finish my research, if I had had time to properly categorize my serum's effects, I may have been able to help you."

That had been the tipping point for Batman. Jason had been Scarecrow's prisoner for almost a week, and the thought was almost enough to turn Tim's stomach. And he didn't even like Jason. To tell Bruce that he should have left Jason there longer... Yeah, Crane had been asking for it.

He watched the next part too, only because it was the only place where his smug smile cracked. The next words sent shivers down Tim's spine. "Are you afraid?" The moment of panic, the instinct to fight or flee that was nearly impossible to suppress, cleared from Crane's face. Instead, his smile grew wider and his eyes lit up in triumph. "Does the Batman, feared by the fearless lowlifes of Gotham, fear the madness of one crime lord?"

Batman didn't get a chance to respond. The cops swarmed the room, separating them, and the video ended.

Tim had heard all he needed to. Dick was still logged in, so Tim used his ID to print the pages he wanted. The pages went into a folder, which went into a backpack, which fit nice and flat under his cape. After a moment's thought, he grabbed the collar that had been around Jason's neck when they'd found him and stuck it in the bag as well.

The sound of his motorcycle woke Dick up, but by the time he had turned around, Red Robin was long gone.

The road to Arkham was as familiar as it was long. That is to say, very. Tim used the time to tell himself that this was a terrible idea. That breaking into Arkham wasn't worth it. That a few months of marginally good behavior wasn't enough to exonerate Jason of his past crimes. That Tim would never forgive Jason for what he had done. And if the scar on his chest twinged painfully, telling him he was being petty, well, he thought it was fully justified. Jason could rot.

But if he did, then it would tear Tim's world apart around him. He'd seen it, last time. Batman using the same brutality and recklessness that he now berated Red Hood for. Nightwing running away to the Titans or the circus, avoiding the Manor like it carried a plague. He had no illusions that it would happen again if Jason died, never mind that Jason had been the black sheep of the family for years.

And so, Tim pulled up to Arkham Asylum's main gate and let himself in. When he got to the desk, he said, "I need to speak to Scarecrow."

The guard raised one bored eyebrow. He looked Tim up and down, apparently deciding whether he would be an annoyance today. Technically, the vigilantes weren't allowed in Arkham. But that was only technically. In reality, they did it all the time and the guards barely searched them anymore. But, sometimes, one of the guards would get a bee in his bonnet and deny them access.

Eventually, this one decided it would be too much bother to say no. "Fine. Crane only, please leave all sharps and chemicals in this," he pulled a bin out and plopped it on the counter, "and don't call him Scarecrow. The docs don't like it when we reinforce their delusions."

"Got it." The docs said the same thing about the local vigilantes, but they also didn't have any other names to call them by. Which Tim was very grateful for. He didn't want a bunch of doctors who were barely good at their jobs psychoanalyzing him behind his back, but he knew it was happening. If they knew who he was, he knew for a fact that they'd try and psychoanalyze him to his face. Probably at his house.

The cell door closed with a deep thud behind him. Tim suspected that it was on purpose, to make the inmates think that they'd never leave. Which probably didn't help their recovery, but Tim wasn't a psychologist. The only psychologist in the room was sitting in the corner of his cell, staring at Tim with a wide smile on his face. "Hello Red Robin. Come to do what your mentor cannot?"

Tim quirked a grin at him. "Only always. I hear that you have knowledge that could help Red Hood?"

"Of course. But wait. Isn't Red Hood a criminal?" Scarecrow smiled wider at Tim's barely perceptible wince. "Why do you care so much?"

"We don't." It was kind of a lie. Tim didn't. Not really. Not Bruce and Dick cared, so Tim had to as well. "But no one deserves what you did."

Crane chuckled. "If he's lost his mind, you should put him in here with me. I'll take good care of him."

"I'm sure you would," Tim said, "you may even cure him, as smart as you are, but we'd like to try first if you don't mind."

The man preened under the praise. "Pity. He was such a good test subject. Very well. You do know that I'll need access to my notes? Even genius such as mine can't work without all the variables."

Tim slipped his backpack from his back. "It's all in here." Scarecrow lunged for it, would have reached for it greedily if he hadn't been in a straitjacket. "Ah ah, not yet. I have to untie you first. And, if you behave-"

"Oh? Scared of what I'll do when you let me free?"

Red Robin threw his most unamused look at Scarecrow. "No. It'll just be a hassle to get answers out of you if your behaviour forces me to knock you unconscious. If you do behave though, I'll tell you something that'll make all of this," he gave the backpack a fond pat, "seem worthless."

Crane's breath caught. Tim could see the gears moving in his head, the greed on his face. "What? What is it? A formula? An equation?"

"You'll just have to find out. So we have a deal? Help in exchange for a look at the notes, and if you don't try and escape or attack me-"

"You'll tell me what you know! Yes! I accept!" They couldn't shake to seal the bargain, not with the straitjacket in the way, but Crane's nod was good enough. He tended to keep his bargains, when they suited him.

So Tim unbuckled Scarecrow's straitjacket and gave him the folder from the bag.

The notes were an extensive file of Jason's reaction to the serum. It included every scan Bruce had made, which was a lot, and pages and pages of blood work. Bruce had insisted on samples being taken every hour. There were also observer reports, which were made when Jason had a particularly violent nightmare and consisted of what he said, if it was coherent, and how long the nightmare was. Those had been... painful to type. Definitely not something Tim wanted to live through again.

There was a long twenty minutes of Crane reading the notes. Sometimes interspersed with comments like, "Oh that's interesting," or, "I've never seen that reaction before," as well as many hums and haws and self congratulation. Red Robin stayed on guard the whole time. Scarecrow may be as thin as straw, but he was tricky, and deceptively strong.

"Did you bring my device?" Scarecrow pointed at a diagram on page 43, one of the box that had been strapped to Jason's neck.

Tim pulled it out of his bag. "You can look at it, but I'll be holding it." Scarecrow nodded, motioning for Tim to open the ports. Twenty of them. Nine doses of sedative. One port full of saline used to sterilize the needle after use. Eight for the first four serums, two doses each. Thanks to Crane's notes and recordings, they knew exactly what those did.

The first formula was for past physical injuries. Whatever trauma the victim had had in their life, they would relive it. From that and the video, it was pretty obvious what Jason had seen. Joker. And because his mind had believed it was real, he'd broken a few bones before the sedative kicked in. Mind over matter could be terrifying.

The second formula was, according to Scarecrow, believable betrayal by the ones the victim held most dear. It was the believable part that caused Dick to rage and break lab equipment, and rush to Jason's unconscious side and shower him with words of encouragement that he couldn't hear. From the audio, Jason had thought that Nightwing wouldn't help him escape. That he was no longer part of the family. From the way his face had turned, jumping from one empty space to another, it wasn't just Nightwing saying these things.

Tim had counted the number of "people" Jason had looked at. Eight. Just enough for their immediate family. The same number of people in the arena simulation.

The third formula was a combination of the first two. It was designed to break the mind. To shatter it to pieces. Which would make it easier for the fourth formula to do its work.

The fourth one was designed to make a person kill. To snap and destroy all that the victim loved. Hence the arena of crates and the eight dead bodies Batman had found in the pier closest to the warehouse.

But the fifth formula, the one that Jason had gotten two doses of, was an unknown. They didn't know what it was supposed to have done by itself, let alone at double strength and mixed with four other toxins.

All of the ports lead to a needle which had been in Jason's carotid. All of the serums had gone directly to Jason's brain with no filter.

Scarecrow glanced into the container, noting that all the ports were completely empty, then returned to his notes. Tim stowed it away.

Another half hour later, Scarecrow put down his notes. "Unfortunately, there's nothing I can do to help. My original toxin worked its way out of my rats within twenty-four hours. Even mixed with the others, there's no reason for Red Hood to be in a coma. I must say though, it is a miracle he's still alive. Here, you said his heart nearly stopped?" He pointed to a part of the summary on the first page. "With the amount of stress he was under, his heart shouldn't have restarted."

Scarecrow looked the page over. "Perhaps if he recovers, he would make a good subject for other projects." He rubbed his chin. "He clearly has great stamina and will to survive."

Tim took the notes back, stowing them in his bag. Then he strapped Crane back into his jacket. "He does. Is there really nothing you can do for him?"

Crane shook his head. "There's no chemical reason for him to be in a coma. The liver and kidneys would have worked their way through all of my serums days ago. None of these were designed to be long lasting." That was one failing Scarecrow had never been able to work through. All his longest lasting toxins were also his least potent. "Now. I did my part. Tell me."

"Sure." Tim leaned forward, conspiratorially. "What I'm about to tell you will make all of this worthless." His hand brushed over the bag lightly. Crane was expecting a formula. Some compound that would make the five serums he tested on Jason seem like trivial garbage. He opened the zipper on the bag again, pulling out one of the pages Crane had spent long minutes mulling over. One of the pages with Jason's blood work. "Red Hood has been in the Lazarus Pit. It changed the composition of his blood, just enough for him to react differently to drugs, chemicals, and toxins, enough to make him an outlier. He is the absolute worst test subject you could have chosen."

When Red Robin leaned back, Crane was frozen, a look of abject horror all over his face. He was likely going through all the notes in his mind, looking for inconsistencies. Jason's Lazarus Syndrome was well known throughout the family, and had been well documented ages ago. The notes Tim had printed hardly referred to the condition, simply directing the reader to look up Med History R3-042 for more information.

It wasn't until he shut the door to Scarecrow's cell that the man started screaming.

All that work for nothing.

He'd never go after Red Hood as a subject again.

Tim leaned against the wall for a moment. Just a moment, to get his bearings, then he headed out. He collected his belongings, including the Red Robin disks that the guard had tried to sneak out. (They sold for a lot of money on eBay.) His phone showed fifteen missed calls and thirty seven texts, but he ignored all of them for the while. He needed to think.

The best thinking place – when it wasn't raining that is – was a crane overlooking the bay. High, lonesome, far enough from the city to only hear hints of traffic, close enough that the lights reached him. He could only use this place a few more times before Dick figured out it was one of his favourites, but until then, it was just what he needed.

Jason wasn't needed. When he'd died the first time, Bruce had gone insane. Tim had been the one to pull him out of that, but he knew Batman would never be the same. Now, Jason was alive. He was stable, but he was in a coma. And Bruce would stop at nothing to try and wake him up. But that was the thing, there was no way to wake him up. Medically, coma's were a mystery. Doctors hadn't found a reliable way to wake the comatose up. Even magically or mentally, nothing could be done. Bruce would probably call J'onn or Zatanna, but Tim knew that wouldn't work. Jason would wake up when he would wake up. And until then, he wasn't needed.

Gotham would be fine without the murdering crime lord. It wouldn't fall into chaos like it would if – like it had when – Batman died. It wouldn't fall apart like it had after the plague, after the earthquake. And eventually, when he accepted that the ghost who used to be his son wouldn't wake up, Batman would go back to patrol like he had before. So would Nightwing. So would Robin. So would Red Robin. It would be better if he didn't wake up.

It was probably cruel of him to think so, but it was the objective truth. The scar on his chest, where Jason had once stabbed him with a batarang reminded him that it might not be as objective as he claimed, but Tim ignored that. If Red Hood didn't wake up, then it would take him off the board without having to throw him into Arkham or Blackgate, both of which were proven to be horrible ideas.

And if Red Hood did wake up, well. Tim had done his part. If Scarecrow had had a deux ex machina to wake up Jason, he would have used it and then things could go back to how they had been. Jason shunning them, them shunning him back, guilt everywhere. Only talking to him on special occasions (like the birthday breakfast Dick had planned for Jason, so similar to the lunches he'd used to plan for Tim). It would have been easier, and well worth the risk Tim had taken when he'd given Scarecrow those files.

It was still worth the risk. But now, as his phone lit up for the eighth time since he sat down on the crane, he had to call Dick and explain why he'd taken the notes and how he had nothing to show for it. This time, when Dick called, he answered. "Hey. I can expl-"

"Jason woke up."

Tim raised his eyebrows. So Jason had chosen the easier option. Tim would have preferred better (although a rather large part of him felt guilty about that, because Dick and Bruce would never be happy about Jason's coma). "That's good."

And, because Jason had never chosen the easy option ever in his life, Dick said, "He's gone. We need your help to find him. It's all hands on deck."

Tim sighed. "I'm on my way."

AN: Haha, whoops. I was supposed to post this a month ago. My bad.

Some people might be angry about Tim's thoughts about Jason. Those people should know that in this continuity, Jason beat Tim up once and tried to kill him once. Jason's really not on great terms with anyone, although he wants to be. Dick sees that and is trying as well, hence the plans for Jason's birthday. Tim is more hesitant. Probably none of that will show up in the story, but we'll see where it goes in a year when my writer's block for this fic mysteriously lifts and I am able to write more than four disjointed sentences.

Read and enjoy folks!