Chapter Text
Arkham Asylum – Intake, Year One
Dick Grayson is nine years old and covered in blood that isn’t his.
It’s on his shoes. His hands. His face. It makes his eyelashes stick together when he blinks too hard. Somewhere inside his chest, he’s pretty sure his heart has cracked open like a dropped snow globe—everything floating and sharp and slow-motion.
“Name?”
The intake nurse doesn't look up from her clipboard. She's chewing gum like this is the DMV and not hell's waiting room.
“Dick,” he answers hoarsely. “Grayson.”
She only writes his first
She finally glances up at him, one brow arched. “No middle name?”
He shrugs.
“Parents?”
He doesn’t answer.
She checks a box, like that’s just a normal reaction, then waves a guard over. The cuffs on her belt jingle like Christmas. “C-block. Quiet room.”
Dick doesn't scream or cry or fight. He's done all of that already, back when Zucco’s brains hit the pavement.
He remembers it too clearly.
Zucco. Blood. The screaming. The crack of the gun.
And then the second part, the one that doesn’t go in the court records. The one the newspapers didn’t report. The one no one ever talks about.
Dick Grayson killed a man.
Nine years old, with hands that still shook when he missed the trapeze. But he’d taken a gun and fired it into Zucco’s chest, over and over, until the man’s eyes didn’t move anymore.
He remembered the way it felt. Heavy. Loud. Final.
He remembered the way the crowd screamed. How they backed away from him like he was the monster now.
How no one—not the police, not the social worker, not even the bat-shaped shadow that watched from a rooftop—stepped forward to say, “He was just a child.”
So here he was.
And slowly, one by one, the others followed.
Year Three – Jason
He’s ten, and pissed about it.
Dick is twelve, and has been hoarding expired apple juice boxes under his bunk like a squirrel with anxiety. When the guards toss another kid into his room with a snarl of, “Play nice,” Dick doesn’t even flinch.
They said he was found robbing a store. Alone. No parents. No address. Just a kid with a crowbar and too many bruises.
Jason flinches enough for both of them.
He’s skinny, scraped up, and fighting like he was born punching. His fist connects with Dick’s jaw before he can even say hi.
Five minutes later, they’re both breathless, bleeding, and glaring.
“You done?” Dick asks.
Jason spits out a tooth. “For now.”
Dick slides him a juice box. “Good. That one has mold in it, but I like you.”
Jason stares at him like he just offered a bomb. Then he takes it.
Year Five – Tim
Dick’s fourteen, Jason’s twelve, and there’s a new sound in the asylum—tinier footsteps. A different kind of crying. Not rage or fear—confusion.
The door creaks open, and in walks the quietest kid Dick’s ever seen. Nine, maybe. Big eyes. Holding a cracked GameBoy like it’s a lifeline.
Tim blinks at the chaos of the room—books with half the pages torn out, Jason dangling from a pipe like a vampire bat, Dick trying to duct tape a leak in the wall—and just…walks in.
“This isn’t juvie,” he says softly.
“Nope,” Jason grins. “It’s worse.”
“This is Timothy,” the man said. “He’ll be in your room now.”
Just like that.
No crimes. No breakdowns. No incident reports. His parents—if they were his parents—signed a paper and handed him off like a malfunctioning appliance.
Dick had asked him once, in a soft moment under the covers.
“Why did they bring you here?”
Tim didn’t even look up. “Because I noticed too much.”
Dick never asked again.
Dick offers a gentle smile and a corner of his blanket. “Welcome home.”
Tim hesitates, then sits. And never leaves.
Year Seven – Damian
The last one arrives like a thrown knife. Literally—he kicks a guard in the face before he’s even through the door.
He’s seven, furious, and smells like oil and blood and incense.
“I do not share rooms,” he snarls, standing at the threshold like a feral cat daring anyone to move.
Dick—sixteen now, shoulders heavier than any kid's should be—stands up, walks over, and kneels.
“I’m Dick,” he says gently. “You’re safe here. You don’t have to fight us.”
Damian narrows his eyes. “Tt. You look ridiculous.”
Jason snorts. Tim peeks up from a book. Dick just holds out a hand.
Damian doesn’t take it.
But he doesn’t bite him either, which is progress.
They said he was found throwing knives at pedestrians in Gotham’s East End. No ID. No known relatives. Just this feral, growling thing that hissed at anyone who got close.
It wasn’t until week two that Dick realized Damian was scared. Not angry. Not psychotic. Terrified.
He asked him too, once, curled together on a particularly cold night when the power had gone out and the screams down the hall wouldn’t stop.
“Why were you out there alone?”
Damian had stared at him for a long time.
“I wasn’t alone,” he’d whispered finally. “I had a mission.”
That was the only answer he ever gave.
Arkham Asylum – Year Seven
Morning starts the same way it always does: with limbs tangled and someone snoring directly into Dick’s ear.
He doesn’t even flinch anymore. He just opens one eye, finds a mop of black curls pressed into his chest (Damian), a bony elbow digging into his ribs (Tim), and approximately one hundred and fifty pounds of grumpy older-teenager on his legs (Jason), and sighs.
“Rise and shine, gremlins,” he mumbles, voice still hoarse with sleep.
“No,” comes the grumbled choir.
Jason tightens his hold like a python. “Five more minutes.”
“You said that twenty minutes ago.”
“Time is fake in Arkham,” Tim adds, muffled against Dick’s shoulder.
Damian kicks someone—no one’s sure who—and growls, “If you make me get up before I finish this dream, I will slit your throat.”
Dick pats his hair. “Good morning to you too, sunshine.”
Eventually, with a lot of groaning and strategic blanket tug-of-war, they manage to detangle themselves and stagger to their feet. Damian, as always, refuses to wear shoes. Jason puts on someone else’s shirt. Tim’s already brushing his teeth with the precision of a surgeon.
It’s a routine. It’s all about the routine.
They get exactly seven minutes to wash up—cold water, grimy mirrors, and a bucket of supplies that smell like antiseptic and existential despair.
Then it's breakfast.
The cafeteria is gray. Always gray. Even the oatmeal is gray. The guards call them by number, not name, but the boys ignore that. Dick leads. Jason hovers near his shoulder. Tim sticks to his hip. Damian walks backward just to be contrary.
They sit at the same table every day. Table six. Closest to the corner, farthest from the Joker's cell (not that he’s let out anymore). It's the safest spot. Jason made sure of that the first time someone tried to take it from them.
(That guy still walks with a limp.)
“Don’t eat the eggs,” Dick warns, sliding his tray down.
“They’re not eggs,” Tim confirms.
Damian sniffs his and glares at it like it insulted his ancestors.
Jason shrugs. “More flavor than last week.”
Tim tilts his head. “That was rat poison, Jason.”
Jason grins. “Exactly.”
After breakfast, they get Yard Time.
It’s exactly what it sounds like—one hour in the cracked-concrete square surrounded by steel fences and more cameras than area 51. Other inmates mill around like ghosts—some dangerous, some just forgotten.
The boys keep to themselves.
Jason lifts weights made of rebar and scrap metal. Damian scales the fence just to prove he can. Tim sits on the highest ledge and reads, usually with one eye on Dick. And Dick? He does laps. He runs in slow, steady circles, because he swears if he ever stops moving, the grief will catch up to him.
Sometimes, if no one's looking, they play tag.
Just for a minute. Just to laugh.
Then it’s lunch (also gray), mandatory group therapy (they say nothing), and back to their room.
Their room is their world.
Small. Windowless. Two bunk beds jammed against the wall. A few posters Dick managed to sweet-talk out of Dr. Quinzel before she snapped and got reassigned. A chess board with pieces made of soap and string. A “radio” made of parts Jason found god-knows-where that only plays static.
And the bed.
The bottom bunk. Dick's bed. The designated snuggle zone. None of them talk about it, but they all know—that’s where the bad dreams get chased away. That’s where the nightmares can’t get in.
Dinner is forgettable. Lights-out is strict. But their little rituals remain.
Damian brushes his hair fifty times before bed. Tim checks the door three times to make sure it’s locked. Jason sharpens a toothbrush just in case. Dick hums lullabies under his breath.
When the lights go out, they all pile into the bed like it's instinct. Damian curled up in Dick’s lap like a territorial cat. Tim pressed into his side. Jason at the edge, legs dangling, but hand still resting near someone else’s.
“Tell a story,” Tim whispers, already half-asleep.
Dick does. He always does.
Tonight it’s something made-up. A story about four birds in a cage that learn how to sing in secret. About a world beyond the walls. About a future where they aren’t just surviving, but living.
He talks until his voice gets hoarse and the boys are asleep, breathing in rhythm.
Then he stays awake a little longer. Just to watch them. Just to make sure they’re still here.
The routine doesn't change.
The world spins on.
And in the heart of Gotham’s darkest place, four broken boys keep each other whole.
The room smells like bleach and disappointment.
It always does.
Four metal chairs sit in a semi-circle in the far corner of the room—exactly four, always. The plastic cushions are cracked, the paint peeling off the legs in flecks like dead skin. The floor is cold linoleum, the kind that echoes footsteps too loudly, and the walls are off-white in that specifically Arkham way—like they were white once, long ago, but got tired of trying.
The boys enter together.
Always together.
Dick leads—he’s the tallest, the oldest, the one who knows how to smile just enough to keep the staff from looking too closely. Jason walks half a step behind him, arms crossed, radiating the kind of energy that makes even the guards take the long way around. Tim is practically glued to Dick’s side, holding a beat-up Rubik’s Cube he never actually solves. And Damian trails slightly behind, glaring at everything and everyone like he’s ready to declare war over a coffee stain.
They don’t ask where to sit. They never have to.
Like always, they pull their chairs closer together—just slightly, enough to touch shoulders. Enough to feel the warmth of each other through threadbare shirts. Enough to say we’re here, we’re here, we’re still here, without speaking.
The nurse—today it’s Karen, the “gentle” one—smiles in that brittle, practiced way that doesn’t reach her eyes.
“Good morning, boys.”
No one answers.
She sits in her own chair across from them, clipboard resting on her knees like a shield. Her pen is already uncapped. She's dressed in pale blue scrubs, hair tied back neatly, and her smile only falters for a second when she looks at them—four pairs of eyes, four still bodies, four children who haven’t made a sound in three weeks of sessions.
“I thought today,” she begins, chipper, pretending not to notice Jason’s very slow blink of irritation, “we might talk about things we like.”
The silence is immediate. Heavy. Like a fog settling in.
Karen pushes forward, undeterred. “Not big things. Just small ones. Maybe a favorite food? A memory? Something that makes you feel…good.”
Jason shifts in his seat. The chair groans beneath him.
Damian picks at the sleeve of his shirt like there’s something beneath the fabric only he can feel.
Tim spins one line of the cube. Not fast. Not focused. Just…moving.
Dick meets her eyes. Calm. Blank.
Karen smiles harder. It wobbles at the corners.
“I’ll go first,” she says, like this is some kind of trust exercise and not a state-mandated therapy session in the basement of Gotham’s most notorious asylum. “I like coffee. French roast, especially. I like reading books on my lunch break. I like birds.”
Jason’s jaw twitches.
“You know,” she tries again, “there used to be a robin that nested outside my apartment window. It sang every morning. It reminded me of—”
“Stop,” Jason says.
It’s quiet, but firm. Final. Like a door closing.
Karen blinks. “Jason—”
“You don’t care what we like.”
Her face falls into that soft, concerned look they all know too well. The one that says I’m going to write this down and pretend it helps.
“Of course I care. That’s why we’re here.”
Tim’s voice cuts in this time. Barely above a whisper.
“Then let us go.”
That gets her. Just for a second. Her smile cracks so faintly it could be mistaken for a twitch.
“You know that’s not possible, Tim.”
“Then why ask us what we like?” Damian snaps, arms folded tight across his chest. “There is nothing to like here.”
“Sure there is,” Karen insists. “There’s sunshine in the yard. There’s books in the rec room. There’s breakfast—”
“Gray oatmeal,” Dick says softly. Not accusing. Not angry. Just…truth.
She looks at him.
He doesn’t blink.
“Gray walls,” he continues. “Gray uniforms. Gray food. Gray days. You want to know what we like?”
Karen nods, hopeful.
“We like not being dead,” Dick says.
It’s not loud. It’s not dramatic. It’s just honest.
“We like knowing that when we go to bed, someone will be there. We like not waking up alone. We like counting footsteps in the hall so we know where the guards are. We like remembering which ones don’t hit hard. We like quiet. Because it means no one’s screaming. And we like each other. Because no one else ever stayed.”
He looks down at his hands.
“They didn’t send us here to get better. They sent us here to be forgotten. And if we’re lucky, they’ll forget long enough that we won’t have to come back to this stupid room anymore.”
Silence.
Not the heavy kind from before. Not quite.
This one feels…hollow. Like the aftermath of a bomb. The kind of silence that means there’s nothing left to say.
Karen clears her throat. Writes something down.
Tim’s cube clicks again.
Jason looks away.
Damian mutters, “This is a waste of time.”
Karen looks up. Tries one more time. She always does.
“You don’t have to talk about the bad things. Just something small. Something that makes you feel like…you.”
There’s a long pause.
Then Dick says, very quietly, “Tim likes grape juice. Jason likes poetry, but don’t tell anyone or he’ll punch you. Damian steals pencils and hides them under the mattress. I think he’s building something.”
Damian doesn’t deny it.
Tim nudges Dick’s arm.
Jason grunts.
Karen doesn’t speak. She just…writes.
Then, softly, Dick adds:
“But none of us like being asked what we like by someone who’s going to leave the room in ten minutes and never think about us again.”
And that’s the end of it.
The rest of the session ticks by in more silence.
At the thirty-minute mark, the guard knocks on the door. Karen stands. The clipboard closes. The pen is capped.
“Same time next week,” she says.
None of them answer.
They leave the room the same way they came in—together, tight-shouldered, touching elbows and backs brushing.
A silent unit. A single organism made of four broken pieces.
And behind them, the room falls quiet again.
Karen sits alone. Staring at the wall—she knows she can do nothing about it–because these are the kids that slip through the system. They're out of the way, contained, and no one will ever bother to help.
It’s sad, but a true fate
It’s Checkup Day.
They always know it’s coming. The way the lights flicker just a little longer in the hallway. The way breakfast arrives lukewarm, already pre-chewed by time. The way the nurses avoid eye contact, like guilt is contagious.
It’s bi-monthly. Regular. Scheduled.
Unavoidable.
They come for them just after breakfast. Two guards, one nurse, all with stun batons clipped to their belts, like anyone’s going to riot with oatmeal in their stomach and sleep still crusted in their eyes.
They don’t resist. Not anymore.
They used to.
Jason got three cracked ribs for biting a guard the first time. Damian bit the doctor. Tim tried to run and got tased so hard he pissed himself and didn’t talk for a week. Dick? Dick tried to throw himself between them and the door.
Now?
They just…go.
Together, of course. Always together.
The guards march them down the hall like prisoners—not that there’s any difference in Arkham—and herd them into the medical ward.
The room is cold. Always is. Too cold for comfort, but just warm enough that no one can officially complain.
There’s one bed. One manky, stained, too-narrow thing with cracked vinyl and a metal base that squeals when anyone shifts on it. They’re expected to sit on it together—like sardines, elbows knocking, knees overlapping.
The walls are yellowing. The overhead light buzzes.
And then he comes in.
Dr. Ives.
The name on the badge is too clean. The coat is too white. The smile too sharp.
He always has that look—like he’s about to dissect something interesting, and oh, what a treat that it happens to still be breathing.
“Well, if it isn’t the four horsemen of the kiddie apocalypse,” he announces, flipping through a clipboard like their lives are grocery lists.
Jason glares. Damian bares his teeth.
Dick puts an arm around Tim, whose fingers are already twitching with panic.
“Now, now,” Dr. Ives says, strapping on a pair of latex gloves with a snap. “Let’s be on our best behavior, boys. Don’t want to break another rib, do we?”
The nurse doesn’t laugh. Neither do the guards. But the doctor grins anyway.
They start with the restraints. Standard procedure now. Too many incidents.
Thick leather cuffs around each wrist, attached to the bed frame with short, tight straps. They have just enough give to flinch. Not enough to swing.
Damian spits on the floor as the last one clicks in.
Ives only smirks.
“Still so spirited”
He starts with the light test. Snaps a penlight out of his coat and flicks it in each of their eyes.
“Eyes forward.”
Tim flinches. The light hurts. It always does.
“Hmm. Pupils reactive. Shame about the expression. You know, they used to say the eyes are the windows to the soul.” He leans closer to Dick. “Yours must be empty, hmm?”
Dick doesn’t respond. He just keeps his hand clamped around Jason’s wrist, as much as he can, thumb pressing rhythmically. It helps. A little.
Ives moves on.
Ears. Mouth. “Say ahhh.” Tongue depressors that taste like glue and gloves that smell like chemicals and the unshakable feeling that none of this is for their benefit.
Then: blood draw.
“Oh, here’s the fun part.”
The boys tense as one.
Even with the restraints, it’s chaos. Jason curses. Tim starts shaking. Damian tries to headbutt the nurse. Dick just holds his breath and counts ceiling tiles while the needle goes in, sharp and slow, like a punishment.
“One vial each, gentlemen. For science, of course.”
The doctor always makes it sound like a joke.
But it isn’t funny.
It never is.
There’s no bedside manner. No distractions. Just the sting of the needle and the slow suck of blood into glass.
Dick watches it, always.
The red in the vial. The way it swirls when tilted. Like he can will it to mean something.
He wonders what they test for. If it’s even about health. Or if the doctors here are still trying to find out what’s wrong with them, like this is some kind of experiment.
He doesn’t ask. He doesn’t want to know the answer.
“Still bleeding,” Ives hums, pressing a too-rough cotton pad to Jason’s arm. “Not so tough without your crowbar, are you?”
Jason lunges forward with a snarl, and the cuff jerks taut, snapping his arm back with a metallic clang.
Dr. Ives laughs.
“Oh, you boys are always the highlight of my day.”
It lasts maybe fifteen minutes.
Fifteen minutes of poking, prodding, cold hands and colder words. There’s no privacy. No warmth. No kindness. Just the clinical indifference of a man who sees children and thinks subjects.
By the end, Tim is leaning into Dick’s side, eyes glassy. Damian’s breathing fast and shallow, his knuckles white around the edge of the bed. Jason’s fuming silently, lip curled. Dick sits in the middle, arms unable to hold them, staring straight ahead at nothing.
They don’t cry. Not in front of him. Not anymore.
“You can unstrap them,” Ives says with a wave of his hand. “They’re done pretending to be dangerous.”
The nurse undoes the cuffs. One by one.
The skin underneath is red. Raw.
Dick helps the others down. Slowly. Jason almost trips—his knees are shaking. Damian mutters something in Arabic under his breath that Dick doesn’t need to translate to know it’s a curse.
They file out silently, guards flanking them.
Dr. Ives calls after them, chipper as ever:
“See you in two months, boys! Don’t miss me too much.”
No one answers.
Back in their room, they don’t speak.
Jason kicks the wall once, hard, then sits down with his head in his hands.
Tim crawls into bed and pulls the blanket over his head.
Damian climbs into Dick’s lap without a word.
And Dick just holds them.
That’s all he can do.
Because there’s no fixing this.
Only enduring it.
Until next time.
Arkham Asylum – Cafeteria,
There in the cafeteria again. Dick’s picking at his food like it might bite him back. Jason’s already stabbed his meatloaf into submission. Tim's rearranged his mashed potatoes, Damian is glaring at his peas like If he stared them down long enough, they would become something different.
And then—
Click. Clack.
The sound of boots. And heels.
The cafeteria turns like a single organism—everyone knows that sound.
Two women stroll in, side by side like they own the place.
Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy.
Harley’s got that spring in her step, that wide grin that promises mischief and trouble and a little bit of glitter in your hair. Her straitjacket long gone—staff gave up trying to keep her in one—and instead she’s in red-and-black scrubs, mismatched socks, hair up in twin ponytails that bounce with every step.
Beside her, Ivy is calm, regal, floating more than walking, her green eyes half-lidded in polite disinterest—until they land on the boys. Then she smiles.
The boys light up.
Jason’s the first to speak, his grin spreading like fire.
“Hey, Aunt Harley. Aunt Ivy.” He leans back and nudges Damian with his shoulder. “you got caught again?”
Harley plops down across from them like she’s diving into a pool. “Ohhh shush, Jay. I’ll have ya know it was strategic surrender. I was tryin’ to make a point!”
Tim raises a brow. “That point being… faceplanting into a police cruiser?, that was the recent rumor,”
“Exactly!” she chirps, finger-gunning. “You get it, kiddo!”
Ivy slides onto the bench beside Damian, who—despite his very Damian scowl—immediately leans into her side like a cat in denial. She rests a hand on his head, gentle fingers threading through his hair. He pretends not to melt. Fails spectacularly.
“I set off the fire sprinklers at the GCPD archives,” Ivy murmurs. “It was supposed to be subtle.”
“Bet Bats loved that,” Jason snorts, ruffling his own hair like he’s imagining the chaos.
Dick smiles for real, soft and easy. “He let you off with a warning again, didn’t he?”
Harley wiggles her eyebrows. “What can I say, puddin’ still has a soft spot. Deep, deep down under all that gravel and broody nonsense.”
“He tased you,” Ivy deadpans.
“Love hurts,” Harley sing-songs.
The boys laugh.
It’s real. That rare, precious sound. No edge to it. No fear. Just joy. Genuine.
“Alright, alright,” Dick says, scooting forward. “You promised us last time—story time. C’mon.”
“Ohhhh right!” Harley smacks the table, startling three guards. “Okay, okay, what d’ya wanna hear, boys? The one with the inflatable dinosaur, or the time Red put Joker in a planter and left him on a roof?”
Jason’s face splits into a devilish grin. “Both.”
Tim leans in, chin on his fists. “Please.”
Harley grins like Christmas came early.
“Well, picture this—Gotham, three weeks ago. There’s this fancy gala, all glitter and snobs, and yours truly decides to crash it—”
“She was dressed as a champagne waitress,” Ivy cuts in, voice dry.
“I was blending in! Until I started juggling the glasses.”
“She threw them at the mayor.”
“He started it!”
Damian’s watching them like it’s a masterclass in chaos. “Did you at least hit him?”
“Right in the toupee,” Harley cackles. “That sucker flew six feet. Landed in the punch bowl.”
Even Dick laughs. It's loud. Honest.
“And then,” Harley barrels on, “this big security goon comes runnin’ over, thinkin’ he’s the hero of the night. I give him the ol’ one-two, Ivy vines him to a chandelier, and bam, I’m on the mic giving a speech about tax fraud!”
“It was deeply unhinged,” Ivy sighs, fond. “I took pictures.”
Jason wipes a tear from his eye, gasping, “God, I miss the outside.”
They all do.
For a moment, the cafeteria fades. The guards blur. The walls aren’t closing in, the lights aren’t flickering, the food doesn’t taste like sadness and old soap. It’s just them. Their aunts. Stories of Gotham. Of freedom. Of the man who put them all here but somehow still gets told like a mythic hero.
Harley leans forward, elbows on the table, face lit with excitement.
“And then—Batman shows up.”
“Of course he does,” Tim murmurs, excited
Harley throws her arms up. “Right as I’m stealin’ the auction paddle to slap some dude in the face! I turn around, boom, there’s Bats. Lookin’ all broody and heroic and talkin’ like he swallowed a gravel pit. ‘This ends now, Quinn.’” She deepens her voice into a terrible Batman impression. “‘Step away from the endangered flamingo.’”
There’s a beat.
Dick blinks. “Endangered… flamingo?”
Harley slaps the table again. “Long story!”
“I rescued it,” Ivy says, as if that makes any of this make sense.
Tim whispers, “I love this place.”
“You shouldn’t,” Jason replies, but he’s grinning too.
They stay like that for almost the whole lunch hour.
Just…talking.
Listening.
Living.
Until the guards start shifting closer. Ivy catches the movement first. She frowns.
“Time’s up.”
“Noooo,” Harley groans, leaning dramatically over the table to clutch Damian’s sleeve. “Don’t make me go back to Solitaire! It’s boring! My only friend’s a cockroach named Greg!”
“I killed Greg,” Ivy says without remorse.
“Noooo!”
The boys snicker, even as the warmth starts to ebb.
Jason pats her hand. “You’ll be back. Batsy’s got a weak spot for you.”
Harley smirks. “Damn right he does. I’m charming.”
The women stand.
Ivy presses a kiss to Damian’s head. “Stay safe, my little vipers.”
Harley twirls a finger at them all. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do—which ain’t sayin’ much!”
They watch them go, chattering between themselves, Harley waving at every camera she sees, Ivy pretending not to care but very pointedly blocking Harley from bumping into walls.
When they’re gone, the cafeteria feels colder.
Quieter.
But the boys are still smiling.
Tim finally picks up his spoon and takes a bite of his terrible pudding. “Next time, I’m asking about the Joker-in-a-planter story.”
“Please don’t,” Dick groans.
Jason leans back, arms behind his head. “I dunno. Sounds rooted in humor.”
Damian throws a pea at him.
The laughter returns.
Even if just for a moment.
And in Arkham? Moments like that are everything
Arkham Asylum – Their Room, Nightfall
The day passes like any other in Arkham.
Bleak skies. Cold breakfast. White walls that seem to shrink tighter every time you blink.
And nobody says a word about it.
No one even glances at Tim with anything resembling recognition. Not the nurses. Not the guards. Not the orderlies who bring the same trays at the same time with the same expressionless stares.
Just another Tuesday in Gotham’s most infamous cage.
Except… it’s not.
Not for them.
Not for the four boys who huddle together on the same battered bed each night. Not for the brothers who’ve clawed a life out of concrete and nightmares. Not for Tim Drake—turning twelve today.
He doesn’t say anything about it.
Not at breakfast. Not during yard time. Not even when they’re lined up for meds and one of the nurses forgets his name again and calls him “the pale one.”
But the others—they know.
They always know.
So when the lights go out and the guards shuffle away, when the hallway goes quiet except for the low hum of flickering bulbs and distant, tired screams—that’s when it happens.
Dick rolls over first, squinting through the dark with a smile that’s too big to be hidden.
“Hey, Tim.”
Tim blinks at him from his spot on the edge of the bed, already curled up like a half-woken cat. “Yeah?”
“Happy birthday, Timmy.”
Tim blinks again.
And then grins. A tiny, shy thing. “You remembered.”
Jason groans from somewhere under the blanket. “We always remember, you cryptid. You think we’d forget the day you showed up and started alphabetizing the board game shelf?”
“I was optimizing our resources,” Tim mutters, but he’s grinning wider now, shifting to sit up.
“Shut up,” Damian snaps sleepily from the other side of the mattress. “It’s present time.”
There’s a pause.
Then a rustle as Damian dives—headfirst—between the mattress and the bunk frame like he’s burrowing for treasure.
“Is he—” Tim starts.
“He does this every time,” Dick says, fond.
“Swears it’s secure storage,” Jason adds.
Damian finally resurfaces, hair mussed, holding something carefully wrapped in an old sock. He thrusts it at Tim with all the grace of a hostile raccoon offering a shiny object.
“Here,” he says.
Tim takes it gently. Pulls off the sock.
Inside: a carefully tied bundle of colored pencils. Some are broken. Some worn down to the stub. But there’s a full rainbow, hoarded over months, maybe longer. Burnt sienna. Sky blue. One green so sharp it could stab someone. Maybe it already has.
Tim stares.
“You always hog the ones in the common room,” Damian says, like this is a war crime. “Now you don’t have to.”
Tim’s throat works. “Thanks, Dami.”
Damian grunts. Folds his arms. “Whatever.”
Jason’s next. He tosses a tied-up shirt bundle at Tim like it’s a grenade.
“Catch.”
Tim catches it, nearly loses it, unties it with quick fingers. Inside: rocks.
So many rocks.
Polished ones, gray ones, sparkly ones. One shaped like a tiny tooth. Another that kind of looks like a mini Gotham skyline if you squint. A few have scratches on them like Jason’s been testing their durability against the walls. One's just... very suspiciously red.
“These are…” Tim blinks. “Actually really cool.”
Jason grins. “Right?! That one’s from the east yard corner under the loose grate. Pretty sure it’s haunted.”
Tim holds it like it’s priceless.
“Do not lick it,” Damian warns.
“No promises,” Tim whispers.
Then Dick sits up, cross-legged, something cupped in his palms.
He offers it out with gentle hands.
A single flower.
Small. Fragile. Pale purple with thin petals and a stem that’s clearly been patched up with a twist of dental floss. It trembles like it doesn’t belong in Arkham. Like it shouldn’t be able to survive here—and yet it does.
“Ivy gave it to me last week,” Dick says softly. “Said it was a ‘resilient little thing.’ Reminded her of us. I’ve been hiding it behind the vent with the warm air stream.”
Tim takes it like it’s made of glass.
It’s the prettiest thing he’s seen in weeks.
“Happy birthday, Timmy,” Dick murmurs, pulling him into a loose hug. “You’re our bright spot. Don’t let this place dim you, okay?”
Tim swallows hard.
Because he hadn’t expected anything. And now he has everything.
A sock full of pencils. A treasure chest of rocks. A flower held together with floss and hope. And three brothers watching him with varying levels of awkward affection and feral devotion.
In a better world, he’d be blowing out candles right now. Opening shiny-wrapped boxes. Being hugged by parents who remembered.
But this isn’t a better world.
It’s Arkham.
And somehow—somehow—this still feels like love.
They all settle back down, curling in tighter than usual. Damian claims the far side. Jason flops half on top of Tim like a protective bear cub. Dick hooks an arm over both of them like a living shield.
The flower rests on the pillow between them.
Tim closes his eyes, a smile still playing on his lips.
It’s not much.
But it’s theirs.
And in Arkham, that means everything.
It started with a siren.
Not the usual ones. Not the tinny alarms they’re used to, not the half-broken buzzers that shriek when someone tries to pick a lock with a fork or when Ivy sneezes near a motion detector.
No.
This one is low. Deep. Rumbling through the floor like it’s being dragged up from the earth’s core. It groans—alive—setting the walls to humming and the lights to strobe.
Then comes the explosion.
BOOM.
It rocks the building sideways. The boys are already out of their bunks, already on their feet. Dick’s pulling Damian back from the vent. Jason’s pushing Tim behind the dresser. No one speaks.
More explosions follow. Not subtle. Not targeted.
Destruction.
The sound of walls coming down.
The lights flicker—off, on, off again—and stay that way.
Red emergency bulbs flash in steady, slow heartbeats.
Then: screaming.
Doors are opening. Doors that shouldn’t. Cells bursting open. Metal screeching against stone. Laughter. Screeching. Running. Footsteps like thunder on every level.
Arkham is falling.
The door to their room is open now.
No guards.
No staff.
Just silence… and the world waiting beyond it.
The boys don’t move at first.
They just stare at the open hallway.
“…I think someone broke the prison,” Jason says finally, voice weirdly flat.
“No,” Dick says quietly. “Someone freed it.”
Tim’s already at the edge of the door, peeking out with eyes that have never looked out windows without bars. Never known a hallway that didn’t end in a locked checkpoint.
“…Are we going?” he asks.
He sounds like he doesn’t even believe himself.
Damian’s behind him, clutching his own elbows. “We… could.”
Jason looks over. “Could. Not should?”
Silence.
Because that’s the problem, isn’t it?
There’s no one left to tell them what to do. No nurse. No guard. No therapist pretending they’re fixing them. No hallway they’re allowed to walk only when watched.
The air smells like smoke now.
And something else.
Freedom.
And fear.
They edge forward together, through the hallway, hands held tightly, stepping over dropped keys, broken glass, a guard’s cap. No bodies, not here. Not yet. But the walls tremble like they’re holding their breath.
When they reach the yard, the wind hits them first.
Cold.
Real.
They stop as one.
The fence is gone.
The high, electrified metal wall that has kept them in for years—blown to twisted shrapnel, curling outward like fingers snapping under strain.
Beyond it?
Gotham.
Real Gotham.
Not the slivers through barred windows. Not the grainy TV feeds in the rec room. Not the half-dreamed stories Harley and Ivy painted like bedtime myths.
The real city.
Streetlights and skyline. Sirens and smoke. Cars rushing past in the distance. A cat darting across a rooftop. Laughter, somewhere far away. Tires screeching. The flicker of a bat-shaped silhouette vanishing into the clouds.
It’s right there.
And the boys?
They don’t move.
Not yet.
Just stand in the broken archway of their prison, watching the chaos storm around them. Inmates running. Some screaming. Some laughing. Some fighting each other in the yard like caged animals finally unlatched.
And the boys?
Still.
Quiet.
Jason is the first to speak, barely above a whisper.
“…We could just go.”
Damian nods slowly, but his eyes stay locked on the skyline. “There’s… no one to stop us.”
Tim’s breathing shallow, fists clenched. “There’s no one to protect us either.”
Dick swallows. “It’s been years.”
Another silence.
A long one.
Because it’s not a simple choice. It’s not "run or stay." Not for them. They weren’t raised in Arkham. They were formed in it. Forged like steel in a furnace too hot to escape from.
Arkham is all they know.
Piles onto beds together.
Whispers under the covers.
One flower saved. A sock full of pencils. Rock collections.
Holding hands during checkups. Harley’s laugh. Ivy’s stories. That hallway that groans. That corner where you can hear the bats at night. Those four square tiles in their cell they used to play chess on with bottle caps. That small board game collection they were given to keep them sane. That small book shelf that they read in the night. Those faded posters they had persuaded the guards for that hang loosely on the walls.
It’s home.
Horrible, broken, cruel—and still...home.
So they stand there.
Four boys who could be free.
But don’t know how.
Dick steps forward first, just one step past the yard, his boots crunching against rubble and ash. The wind tosses his hair. He blinks at the city, wide-eyed and too quiet.
Jason is next, muttering a soft, “This is a bad idea,” even as he follows.
Tim drifts after, like he’s in a dream, eyes flicking left and right like he expects a guard to drag him back any second.
And Damian stands at the edge of the destroyed fence for a long moment, staring down at his feet.
Then he looks up.
Tim’s waiting. Holding out a hand.
Damian scowls.
But takes it anyway.
They walk.
Together.
Past the ruins of their cage.
Into the chaos of Gotham.
Slow. Silent. Unsure.
But free.
At least—for now.