Dick's POV:

My jaw fell unhinged from my face. The notorious clown’s smug grin filled the screen. There was another figure on the screen. It appeared to be a girl and she was tied to a chair. Before my heart even had time to start pounding, the girl said her name; it was Annie.

Her casual everyday make-up was smudged beneath her eyes. The normal healthy glisten of her skin was gone and replaced with a pale, sickly look. She hung her head, refusing to look at the camera. My stomach folded itself into knots.

 I watched in horror as the Joker specifically called me out. My heart stopped as he called Annie, my girlfriend. Does he know I’m Dick Grayson?

Bruce seemed to pick up on this too, as he shot me a deadly look. I thought about it for a moment and then I shook my head. “I visited her as Robin once…he must have seen. If he knew who we were, he would have already attacked us by now.”

The video continued.  I watched as he paced around the chair that held Annie captive. The closer he got to her, the tighter my fists clenched. He then abruptly knelt down beside her, his face right next to hers.

Then all of a sudden, he pulled out his notorious switchblade and held it to her cheek.

“NO!” I screamed. If he hurt her, I would never be able to forgive myself.

I exhaled a massive sigh of relief when the Joker put the knife down and untied her. I cringed as the image of Annie with Joker scars popped into my head.

The footage crew shaky as I realized that they we were walking to a different room. I could hear Harley’s delicate breathing coming from behind the camera.

The new room they entered was blindingly white with mirrors covering the walls. My eyes grew wide as the image of an operating table and some sort of dunk tank came into focus.

I listened to the Joker’s words carefully.

 “Now, Bratboy, I’m talking directly to you...”

“I want you to watch...I want you to watch…” he said this as he slowly pushed Annie into a corner of the room; cold sweat ran down my body.

What is he going to do to her?

 “I want you to watch as I torture this girl, and I want you to know that you caused it” he said.

I could feel my heart beats grow louder and faster. I knew the Joker, I knew how truly despicable he could be. He loved to torture, it was practically a sport for him… and I had just given him a new victim. Torturing Annie would be a way he could get at me.

Annie screamed out as he picked her up by her long brown hair. She began to flail desperately. I had to choke back tears knowing that there was nothing I could do to stop whatever Joker was planning on doing to her.  

The next thing I knew, he threw her into the massive tank of water.

“THAT BASTARD!!” I screamed, nearly charging the computer screen. Bruce had to hold me back.

He’s going to drown her!

The Joker pulled Annie’s head out of the water and began talking. “Now, I want you to look right in that camera and say that this is all Batboy’s fault. Tell him that you hate him.” The Joker cackled.

She must hate me so much; I would if I was her.  

I was completely shocked when Annie blatantly refused to say it.

If times were different, I would have had smiled knowing that he cared about me enough to be tortured rather than say she hated me.

But then he dunked her back into the water, and I knew there was only so much the human body could take. Eventually she broke.

 “IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT!!!” she wailed and her words cut me like daggers.

I hung my head in defeat but I could only pry my eyes away from the horrors that were taking place on the screen for so long.  

The Joker pulled her out of the water. My heart sympathized for her tremendously. Annie loved wearing denim shorts; she even wore them when it was relatively cold outside. Unfortunately for her, she was wearing them when the Joker kidnapped her. Her t-shirt and shorts clung to her body and her sneakers were sopping wet. Her lips had turned blue and as she was strapped down to some sort of table, I could see how badly she was shivering.

I wanted to run to her and hold her tight, I wanted to tell her that I was so sorry.  I wanted her to be safe but all I could do was sit and watch in horror as the Joker explained his plan.

 All the words seemed to mesh together when he explained what he was going to do with her. Apparently, Ivy had been dealing the Joker some kind of neurotoxin that she used to control men but the Joker had somehow altered it to work on Annie.

The Joker’s gruesome words drew me from my trance.  “It was really quite careless of you, Boy Blunder. You left her out in the open, with no protection. So exposed…” He stroked her cheek as he said this, making my insides churn in disgust.

He picked up a large syringe and said “With this your girlfriend will be mine”  

Then Hugo Strange entered the room. Another one of Gotham’s villains was in on Joker’s schemes. I couldn’t figure out why they were all working together.

I could feel my eyes turn glassy as the Doctor began poking Annie and sticking all sorts of needles into her. I watched her squirm feverishly on the table.

Then Dr. Strange picked up the needle containing the neurotoxin and he struck it into her neck.

“NO!” I wailed, falling helplessly to my knees unable to do anything but stare at the screen.

The effect of the neurotoxin was truly frightening. As soon as it made its way into her system, her veins began to glow a deep shade of green. Her dark brown eyes widened and changed to a strange shade of evergreen. Then her body began to shake. I thought she was having some sort of seizure.  Her back arched up, giving the illusion that she was floating off the table. Then she started screaming.

Her wailing dug itself into my skin, making me cringe. To hear a human make that kind of noise was terrifying. Annie never showed any sign of pain, that’s what made the screaming so horrifying.

Then just as suddenly as had started, everything stopped. Annie just laid motionless on the table. Her veins had stopped glowing and her eyes were closed.

Nothing happened for a good forty seconds. Then the Joker spoke up, his voice giggly.

 “Well, he did say the survival rate was less than 23%” His cackles rattled through my head.

No. She can’t be dead.

A hard lump formed at the back of my throat and hot tears streamed down my face.

I got this girl killed.

I buried my head in my hands and drowned in pain.

Bruce said motionless in the chair.

Then there was a loud snapping noise and my eyes darted to the screen. The cuffs on the operating table had been ripped off and a girl sat up on the operating table. Her eyes were a glowing shade of dark green. Her face remained expressionless.

This was not the Annie that I knew. This was a monster.