There isn't a day when your brain doesn't feel clouded and foggy. You can do the basics of taking care of yourself. Eating, sleeping, dressing, going, coming. But you feel... wrong. Different. One day, you're sure you're Jason Todd. The next day, you don't remember who you are. You feel... angry, too. So full of rolling, boiling anger that comes without warning out of nowhere. Something vengeful and dark, unsettled.
In your mind, something repeats over and over: Batman. Batman. Batman.
On the good days, you remember. He left you. He didn't come. On the bad days, you can't place why he plagues your thoughts so much. You remember being in a casket, the lining silky under your bloody, raw fingers as you desperately try to dig your way out. Your throat was hoarse, and you think it's because you were screaming his name.
There's a beautiful woman with you in the yawning cavern beneath the earth. Her eyes are sharp and intelligent, hair long and dark down her back. It makes you think of someone you can't remember, someone you're forgetting... The woman has reminded you of her name again. Talia.
You're naked, but it doesn't bother you in the slightest. She takes you by the arm and gestures out over the mouth of what's in front of you: a wide Pit of churning, bubbling green water, glowing iridescently in the shadows of the cave. She ushers you in, and you go willingly, heavy.
The water has a strange feeling. It toils like it should be boiling, but it isn't. You can't tell if it's so scalding it's numbing, or if it's freezing. It washes up your legs and thighs as you step down into the depths of the Pit, and Talia's fingers press you forward between the shoulders before disappearing. You keep going. A hard and heavy sort of feeling begins in your core as the water sloshes up over pelvis, your waist. Your chest and shoulders, your arms. Something is crushing the last pieces of you inside back together, strangling you in the process.
You choke on a gasp, and your head goes under the water. The weight of the liquid starts pulling you down; you don't float, you can't swim. You sink. Down, and down, and down. It feels like forever, cradled in the embrace of the Pit as it puts you back together completely new. Every ache, every clouded-headed day is gone. You are a puzzle, and something is pressing the jigsaw of you back into place.
You start rising, slowly. Up, and up, and up. You remember who you are. Jason Todd. You remember: Your mother telling you that your father was in prison. Your mother telling you that he was dead. Finding your mother's cold corpse on the dirty mattress when you thought she overdosed. Batman--Bruce Wayne. The too large manor house tucked away on old money estate. The hideous green, yellow, and red outfit you felt honored to wear. The sound of your mother's pleading voice, begging.
Sneaking out as Robin.
Getting to the warehouse.
Being beaten within an inch of your life.
The sounds of your mother's sobs over the sound of the tick of the bomb.
The last question you asked: "Batman, where are you?"
You inhale sharply and loudly as you surface at the top of the water in the Pit, and your head is again full and heavy with too much of a life. Too much living. Your body feels stronger, powerful, energized. Your heart is still full of all of the rage you didn't know you hadn't left behind.
You can say only one thing as you draw yourself up and out of the pool where the woman from before is waiting on you: "Batman. Batman."
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