Jason didn’t know why it’d taken this long for him to be sent to the medical unit.

After a whole year (at least he was pretty sure it had been a year, time was… tough) of being beaten black and blue by the Joker, it was a measly seizure that brought him down to the never-before-seen wing of Arkham.

The clown didn’t want his prey to die, Jason supposes. Not all the way.

…And at least the medical ward was mostly nice. There were endless amounts of tests, sure, getting stabbed with needles and being forced onto what he swore were just rebranded torture devices all day long, but he got to sleep, between that.

Nurses always brought him little cartons of apple juice, scratchy blankets, ice chips, when he asked, spoke to him gentler than anyone had in a long time, and it was so much better than his usual assignment with the Joker that it was almost unimaginable.

He’d have to go back. He knew that, if nothing else. Eventually, someone would figure out what was wrong with him, and he’d be sent right back to his normal ward with a prescription for meds he wouldn’t be given.

But for now, it was easy to pretend that he’d get to stay in that clean, bright place forever.

He let the day-to-day of it pass by him like a dream, and before he knew it he’d been in there for a whole month. And every day, he feels his bruises heal a little more.

“...ow,” He mumbles, a barely-there little protest, blinking heavily up at his nurse. For a routine IV change, the kind he got every single day, it hurt. What was this nurse trying to do, use him as a pincushion?

If it weren’t for how tired he was and the way the nurse’s hands shook with inexperience and their eyes were more scared than Jason’s, he’d almost complain.

…Complain more, that was. He’d earned the right to bitch a little.

“Couldn’t be any gentler with’at..? I’m sick, not dead, I can feel that…”