Oculus | J. Todd ✔

[25]

Jason sat up in bed listening closely for it seemed as if someone was crying or in conflict. Noticing that Eve was sound asleep beside him, he cautiously got off the bed and crept out of the room, his ears sharply listening to the sounds.

Muffled whimpers came from the direction of the spare room in which Tim was staying and Jay got alert, thinking that Tim was probably in danger. He rushed to his room and pushed open the door though the sight that met his eyes froze him.

Tim was thrashing in the sheets as if envisioning a nightmare, his head buried into the pillow to muffle out the whimpers escaping him. Jason stepped in but instead of turning the light on, he went straight towards Tim and grabbed him by the arms.

Tim who was already terrified drew back in shock and terror, his pale face looking even paler in the faint moonlight that filtered in through the window and his large blue eyes were wide as if traumatized.

"Timothy, look here, it's me. Jason." He shook the boy because he still seemed to be in a partially shocked state, as if he hadn't fully woken up from his nightmare. His lips parted as if to speak but no word came out, instead a choked sob gurgled in his throat.

Jason had gotten anxious to see him as such because even though he had gone through nightmares himself, he had never comforted someone else in such a state. Evelyn usually did that for him each time he woke up from his nightmares but right then she was asleep in her room and it was left upon Jay to deal with Tim. Tears were pouring down Tim's blue eyes and Jason had absolutely no idea what had caused the nightmare nor how he could make it stop.

"You were just dreaming," he tried to make him understand, stormy eyes gazing back in his terrified blue, "it was not real. Whatever you saw wasn't real."

But then he noticed Tim's hand that was clutching his own collar tightly such that his knuckles had gone white and though he didn't think it was a good idea to ask the boy what he was trying to hide just then, Jay took his hand and tore it apart from his shirt.

"Don't..." Tim choked out, eyes wrenching in pain and Jason was even more bewildered at that. The only way he could find out was to get the answers himself because the boy seemed in no state to give him a proper reply even.

"What is it? Does it hurt somewhere? Were you injured?"

"Don't..." He was slightly shivering and Jay pulled up the blanket around him, wrapping him up in its warmth.

"What happened?"

There was no reply from his side and when he got utterly frustrated on what to do, Jason took both his hands in his left hand in a firm grip so that he wouldn't pull away from him. And then with his right hand he pushed down the collar of his shirt, revealing the rather prominent collar bone and pale white skin dotted with freckles near the shoulders.

But the thing which caught his eyes was a J shaped scar right in between the wings of his collar bone, standing out on his pale skin. It seemed as if he had clawed at it in attempts to get rid of it somehow for the J was red with blood and seeing the scar pushed Jason back to a time where he never wanted to return to, not even in his worst of nightmares.

In the back of his head he could clearly see the Joker brandishing the red hot steak with a J mark that he had pushed right onto his cheek, the burning hot metal singing away his flesh until the bloodied J mark was left permanently. It was still there on his cheek, faded but not gone, a constant reminder of his traumatic past.

But seeing the same scar on Tim and seeing him writhe in pain and fear sparked up an unfathomable anger in him. That mark meant clearly that Tim too had suffered at the Joker's hands and Jay knew very well that whatever torture the maniac had inflicted on him would have been permanently scarring.

Just like that J shaped scar which both of them had and couldn't get rid of.

Tim had broken down to tears though he stopped struggling against his hold, his head falling limp onto Jay's shoulder.

Jason didn't know whether to comfort the boy first or to break into Wayne Manor and demand an answer from Bruce regarding his condition. But as the tears wetted his shoulder and he realized that Tim needed him to be there at the moment, he awkwardly wrapped his arms around the boy's frail figure.

Tim had buried himself in his chest, his shivering hadn't ceased nor had the tears stopped but gradually, his tensed body eased and the whimpers stopped. Jason knew he wasn't any good at comforting people so he tried to do what he thought would help and patted Tim's back in an attempt to soothe him down.

It seemed to work because after a while his tears stopped, the shivering ceased and then his grip on his shirt loosened as his eyes dropped shut from fatigue. Jay heard a soft sigh escape him and looked down to see that the boy had lapsed into a sleeping state at last.

Waiting for a few minutes so that his slumber would deepen and he wouldn't wake up screaming in fear again, Jay finally laid him back down on the bed, tucking in the blanket around him.

But that J shaped scar was visible even then so he pulled up the blanket to cover it as well though his brain had started running on a different track.

He could clearly see that poor Tim was traumatized despite the fact that he was able to hide it very well from them otherwise. Whatever had passed between him and the Joker still struck terror in him, much similar to Jason.

A pang of anger struck Jason once again, anger that was directed at Bruce too. He had let yet another Robin suffer at the hands of that maniac and the terrible truth was that Joker was still alive.

And though he had not wanted to face Bruce again, he could not go back to sleep without getting all his answers. So carefully shutting the door to Tim's room he stepped out and grabbing his jacket as well as his bike keys, he locked the main door and sped off towards Wayne Manor.

***