Chapter Text
When he was just a dumb twelve-year-old kid, Jason Todd boosted the tires off the wrong car. He had hoped when the moment caused Batman to laugh at how outrageous the situation was, that he'd be able to at least get to go free. Nope. Bat's managed to get a calming breath enough to grab Jason by the collar of his shirt, and angled him back down the alley to make him put the tires back on. After that? Straight to juvie.
It wasn't a week later, however, that he was let go since Batman didn't press charges. He was put into the care of an older looking guy with a cookie duster mustache who took him home and became his legal guardian. From the way the guy explained it on the ride to his house, Batman had contacted him with concern over Jason and offered to pay the expenses if the man would take the young delinquent in. Jason had just rolled his eyes, it just sounded like the guy didn't want anything to do with Jason which meant Jason didn't want anything to do with him. He silently made his escape plans the whole car ride.
Once at the guy's house, Jason was introduced to a tall, beautiful red-haired college girl who was introduced to him as his new foster-sister; Barbara. She was nice enough, though she acted very cordial with him as if she was just remembering her manners, and less that she actually cared about Jason's opinion of her. Jason did not return the courtesy, deciding to glower at her from his spot next to her dad instead.
Jason was then shown the upstairs where he'd be sharing a room with his new foster-brother; James. James lived with their mother, however, and therefore wouldn't be there more often than not. Jason took this as a blessing as it meant more opportunity to sneak out and get his butt back to Crime Alley where it belongs.
His plans stalled after he found out during dinner that the man taking him in was the Gotham City Police Commissioner Jim Gordon himself. He's not too big of a man to admit that he put off his plans that night mostly out of fear.
The next day Barbara had to go to class and Jim had to go to work, but he didn't trust Jason home alone. Which, while it irked Jason, it was pretty smart since the kid was just going to cut loose and make a run for it the moment he was left alone. So instead, Jim took him with to his office at the precinct.
Jason had been worried about being bored the whole day while Jim worked, but he couldn't help but start chatting up some of the officers sitting bored at their desks. The cops seemed to enjoy the distraction too, telling Jason stories about their victories and defeats, as well as sharing bits and pieces of office gossip. By the time Jim declared it time to go home, Jason was completely enthralled with a story that one detective was telling, and he couldn't help but whine about the guy just getting to the good part. The officers all laughed and Jim ruffled his hair, letting him know that he can finish it the next day.
This became a routine for the next week until Jim announced that he had finally gotten around to enrolling Jason into public school. At first, Jason had rebelled the very idea all the way into the night before. He ended up throwing up his dinner out of nerves alone, scared and unsure about what school was going to be like. That was when Barbara finally decided to break the ice that had been forming between the two of them to tell him stories about her time at Gotham High.
"It's not that bad," she kept insisting. Jason was just glad to see that his foster-sister didn't hate him as much as he originally thought she did.
The next day Jason went to school and discovered that it was his second favorite place in the world, his first quickly becoming the public library. Jason loved it so much, that it was the worst tragedy to befall any living soul placed on Earth that he couldn't go one day due to the flu.
"Gotta admit, I was first worried I'd catch him skipping most days. That kid really does love school though, doesn't he?" Jim had said after one of Jason's blotched attempts to prove that he was well enough to go.
"Guess he's just the kind of guy who doesn't like to miss an opportunity," Barbara had laughed with him. This only prompted Jason to go into a long, Shakesperian inspired speech about the maliciousness of his 'captures'. He was then shooed back to bed.
A few years later found Jason granted a Rhodes Scholarship not long before he graduated as valedictorian of his class. While the Gordon's were excited for him to get a chance to study at the extremely prestigious 'University of Oxford', Jason decided to turn it down. It had left the family floored and concerned. Jim even went as far as to call in a favor from his good friend Bruce Wayne, to fly Jason to England and take a tour of the school in person. Jason knew that Wayne had been asked to try and change his mind about it, but Jason was firm in that he didn't want to leave Gotham, and he wasn't sure he'd be comfortable in a place like Oxford.
During that trip, Bruce Wayne made a deal with him; Jason gave the Ivy League a year's try, and if by the end of the year Jason still wanted to leave then he'd pay for his schooling in Gotham himself. Jason took Wayne up on his deal and spent a year abroad. And then another year abroad. And then two more to just go ahead and get his bachelor's out of the way.
Graduation from College saw not just the Gordon's, but Bruce Wayne, Alfred Pennyworth, and their charge Tim Drake in the audience to see him get his degree. Tim was an alright kid, and the two of them got along just fine, though he hated the way Tim and Barbara would look at each other and then back at him as if they were laughing at a shared secret that he didn't get to know.
When the topic of where Jason would study next and where he was going to go for his 'master's, Jason popped everybody's bubbles stating that he was going back to Gotham. And then to their horror, he announced that he was going to enroll in a Police Academy.
Babs is a hacking jerk, however, and Jason let her know as such the moment he finally arrived at the address that he's supposed to start his police training at. He was well aware that she switched up his programs on him, sending him to a law enforcement academy on the 'federal' level and not the one on the 'local' level like he had wanted. She just teased him about being up for a challenge and he sent her a middle-finger emoji in response.
Yes, he was up for the challenge, that wasn't the point.
He still went through with it, and he still graduated top of the class. And he still came back to Gotham after being gone for months. He took his overqualified resume right up to Jim Gordon's desk and demanded a job. Jim agreed on the condition that Jason doesn't just settle for being a 'beat cop' for the rest of his life. Jason promises he won't.
It takes a year before Jason has a repertoire build with locals all over the city and for him to get settled back in his home town. Now feeling confident, Jason took the detective's exam, using that fancy degree of his to help him skip out on years of experience he'd have needed otherwise. He of course aced it and got put in the Narcotics Unit.
Only the 'slightly-older-than-Jason' Detectives and Officers were gruffed by it. But the older, more seasoned police had known Jason since the day Jim Gordon took him in and knew full well how hard Jason had worked to be in their number. His partner, Hank Fallon, is not one of these more seasoned gentlemen but was kind to Jason all the same. Though he did tend to over-explain things to Jason when there needed no explanation to the rookie detective in the first place. Fallon was from Metropolis and therefore tended to take the back seat to Jason on a couple of their cases anyway so Jason wasn't entirely sure why the guy bothered. Maybe trying to remind himself that he was the 'veteran' of their team?
The two don't get anything really all that big. They just mostly gather information to assist another pair who were in the middle of trying to uncover a drug ring on the East Side. Jason and Fallon usually just stuck to collecting warrants and invading homes to look for incriminating evidence they were told was 'certain' to be there.
It's following one of these 'tips', that Jason and Fallon finally find something worth noting. A man with multiple warrants out for his arrest was using illegal substances and was so high that his neighbors called in strange noises coming from 'that stoner Hanner's house. The house they found him in was filthy with dirty plates and rotting food, trash that stinks like it hadn't been taken out in months, and an underlying stench of decay.
It's that last one that freezes Jason to the spot when he notices it. Fallon was too eager to get out of the house and was already cussing Jason out for trying to stick around. Jason noticed a grossly soiled, stuffed bunny rabbit and pointed out that he didn't think that Hanner was the 'plush collecting' type. Unimpressed, Fallon didn't let up on his insistence to leave the disgusting home. Giving in, Jason rolled his eyes and made for the exit. It was when Jason walked back down the hall to his partner that he got a whiff of that stench again. He only paused for a moment before he began to kick in the door of a hall closet.
Inside were two dead girls, neither older than ten, stuffed in the small closet where they had no doubt been put to wait out 'daddy's high. Fallon vomited on the spot and Homicide was brought in. After Fallon and Jason wrapped up their business with Hanner's drugs, Homicide tried to recruit Jason on the spot. Instead, Jason asked to be transferred over to Missing Persons where he had a better shot of finding his victims alive.
His request was granted and he is partnered up with a weasely man named George Wright. The two get along alright at first, even if Wright turns out to be a jumpy, skittish kind of guy. He doesn't really start to get on Jason's nerves until they're assigned a case looking into a woman named Lavina Hernandez. Looking into her background it was clear as day that she was a 'Lady of the Night'. She had been reported missing by her sixteen-year-old daughter Yadira who was now staying with her grandmother.
Wright immediately wanted to just kick the case under the table. Jason was bound and determined to find Ms. Hernandez and make certain they get her safely home. The two ended up butting heads on the case the whole time until Jason finds out that it's not just because Wright is racists and elitist, but also because the guy took at freaking bribe from the Falcon's to make certain that the Hernandez case never became a 'big deal'.
The moment Jason finds out, he outs Wright to the whole prescient and gets the guy arrested. Lavina's body showed up at the foot of the prescient a day later with the message 'To Todd' carved in her back. Shaken, Jason went to Gordon over the incident, debating on if he really was cut out to be a cop. Gordon agrees that he wasn't made for the job, that he was capable of so much more, but if being a cop was what he wanted then the last people he should let stand in his way is a local mafia crime boss. After Gordon points out that Hernandez was going to be found dead either way and was in no-way Jason's fault, Jason lets his foster-father's words comfort him and goes back into work the next day to meet his new partner.
Rosa Montgomery is an older, hot-headed, ill-tempered, loud-mouthed woman with a slight pension for violence and an extremely long history of suspensions. Captian Oscar doesn't have anyone else for either of them and figures at least he'll only have one team to keep an eye on instead of two. It doesn't take long for the two partners to become fast friends. Montgomery acts like the crazy aunt he never really had growing up and treats Jason like he's the little sh!t-headed nephew she's always wanted.
The two quickly start to become the new star team of the prescient. Oscar even mentions a couple of times that he was wise to put them together as Montgomery hadn't had a single suspension since partnering with Jay. Montgomery, in that time, notices a few things about Jason that includes some rumors she's heard about him. Her favorite was how he solved the mystery of the Hanner Case with his nose. This earns him three nick-names alone; Blood-Hound Todd, Sly-nose McGee, and Snozz.
After a couple of cases, Montgomery finally asks why Jason hadn't moved to the big-timers over in Homicide. He explains it evenly that he enjoys being able to find the victim alive whenever they can. Montgomery points out that it's more selfless than her reason as she never wants to go to Homocide due to the lack of information they have to start with. In missing persons, they start with the name, age, last known locations, family, place of employment, favorite places to visit, etc. etc. Homicide usually just has a body and more often than not, that's it.
That's why it seems so ironic when a week later, Captin Oscar drops a file on their desk that almost looks empty. The only things in it are two pictures and the name of a very concerned ATM company that sent those pictures. The pictures themselves are of a little blond-haired girl in a pink jacket, crying, and a second one is a blurry image of someone in a black hoodie grabbing her.
Jason is grateful that it's not a specified murder and they are hoping to find the girl alive. He's frustrated with the fact that the evidence they have is less than a body.