Chapter Text
They called him Hood. Robin Hood, Red Hood, Hoodie, Hoodwinker — it was all the same. Robin for the petty cash he slipped into the old cronies’ tins. Red for the maroon hoodie he pulled low over his eyes. Hoodwinker for how easy it was to double-cross the underlords if someone offered a better price. Hood for the chilling outline against brick before failure was silenced. He never gave anyone his real name, and no one bothered asking anymore. He’d carried the alias since he was twelve, bartering the wheels off a veritable tank he found in Crime Alley.
They called him a thief. A looter. A lucky son of a gun. He was the muscle to hire for the job. A confident, sneaky slinger who could drop a man from a hundred paces, or drag out the job until the sewer rats scurried away to escape the screams. A turncoat, a thug for hire, a sly fox who could put a bullet in his employer just as easily as the target. He was the wild card in the deck, invaluable until the winnings soured and he slapped down the royal flush with a disparaging smile and a warm gun smoking in his hand.
This was a royal flush night. Four wannabe clowns gathered in a room, painted smiles forced beneath frightened eyes as the king of jesters pranced about his stage. The Joker was high on his pedestal, prattling on about the Bats and their birds and the end of a futile reign, and he wanted an experienced hand spreading his little tale of woe. He asked for Hood, and Jason answered.
He was already starting to regret his decision. Clowns were never on his trauma list, but the Joker always put a sour taste in Jason’s mouth. Too many kids frothing in the alleys, some of them too far gone to do anything but spread a coat over their heads and mutter a prayer. Scars and bloody smiles and limbs lying at crooked angles. He didn’t want anything to do with this bastard, but the Joker knew his rules when it came to a mob run. He’d never made an offer before. He was crazy and brutal and rapacious, but he wasn’t stupid. One didn’t bring a hellhound to a pug fight.
Tonight, the rules had changed. The Joker had an in on something nasty, and he wanted Hood for backup. Jason accepted. The pay was good; the intrigue, even better. He’d probably bolt a few thugs in the eye sockets, evade a skirmish and watch a warehouse blow while the Bats scampered about several rooftops too late. He might even shoot the Joker when the night was over.
Jason sauntered into the warehouse with specious aloofness, steel-capped boots silent, hood braced over a Knights ball cap, guns loosely holstered and hands thrust into his pockets, as if he wasn’t suspecting a trap. (With the Joker, there was always a trap.) Painted smiles crinkled with pseudo cheer as the goons backed away, giving him a wide berth. (Bulk suit coats — kevlar. Still no chance against armor piercing rounds.) The king of the show spread his hands in welcome, tossing aside a bloody knife.
“Hood, my boy! And here I thought you’d scorn my invitation.”
“Half up front and I won’t put a hole in your face mask,” Jason said tersely.
The clown laughed, a piercing cackles that made Jason’s hands twitch. “You see this, boys? This is what Gotham needs more of. Boldness. Drama. Look at these stooges.” He waved at his clowns, snorting when they averted their eyes. “Flighty little birds, aren’t they? You know, sometimes I want to shoot every one of them. Bang, bang, bang!”
Jason complied. One, two, three bullets to the face. The fourth goon drew his automatic and Jason fired blindly over his shoulder, holstering his pistol before the final thud. The Joker clapped his hands.
“You know what? I like you, Hood. I think we could make this work. The Joker and his hound, one dynamic duo ruling all of Gotham. Whadda ya say?”
“Just tell me the job,” Jason snapped, running a hand over his Sig. Maniacal eyes followed every movement, before the Joker laughed again.
“So focused. Money before mayhem, as always.” He lunged erratically and grabbed a duffel bag, flinging it at Jason’s legs, unfazed by the barrel suddenly fixed on his forehead. “There’s the prize haul, Hoodie. Half a million, courtesy of Wayne Enterprises. Seems like Daddy was willing to pay the ransom after all.”
Momentarily distracted by straps of blue peeking out of canvas folds, Jason’s head snapped up and he growled low. “You brought me here to gun a kid?”
“Hoodie, Hoodie,” the Joker cajolled, ambling closer with hands spread wide in innocence. “Don’t you trust me? Would I ask you to betray your morals for half a million?”
“Not one more step,” Jason warned, putting a new hole in the floor by the Joker’s scuffed shoe. The clown stopped, but his dead-eyed smile didn’t waver.
“Now for a full million, that’s something, isn’t it?” the Joker proposed, tilting his head at the canvas satchel. “That’s only half the ransom, after all. And don’t we all know that bats and birds aren’t the same as those whiny little kids you find in the parking lots.”
“Keep beating about and I’m walking out of here,” Jason warned. Left unsaid; he’d take the money with him.
“All right, all right,” the Joker simpered, rolling his eyes. “Have it your way. C’mon, I want you to see something.” He whirled on his heel, flapping his hands as he spoke, purple gloves soiled nearly black. “You see, I got it in my head, why not see what happens when the Bat loses it? I mean, he’s solid as a brass bell, not an ounce of passion in him — it’s all ‘I’m Batman, justice is now served’ — really, it gets old after a while. But what happens if Batman becomes the bad guy? What if a little accident just… pushes him over the edge. Like a failed ransom.”
He brandished his arms in a ta-da gesture and Jason cautiously stepped past the tower of crates, bracing himself for gore. Maybe the Wayne's new kid — some snarly twit with a folding katana hidden in his school jacket. Jason had caught him skulking about the downtown alone, once or twice. He steeled himself for flayed skin and broken bones, a carved smile and wide, dead eyes.
He didn’t expect to see red. Not just the deep crimson of spilt blood (which painted the floor aplenty), but scarlet cloth woven tightly around body armor, folding into a rumpled black cape, identified by a yellow R stained with burgundy.
‘It’s not a kid if it fights like a Bat, ’ Jason had professed often enough, when the grumbles surfed around the bar tables and the lower ruffians were cuffed for getting beat off by a dweeb with a staff. ‘If Robin was too young to take a bullet, they’d keep him off the streets.’
The bird’s mask had been stripped away, revealing swollen blue eyes that were traumatized, hurting, and unquestionably young, and Jason couldn’t back his own argument any longer. The kid (because it was just a kid) looked thirteen, maybe a dubious fifteen if he put on ten pounds. He was curled up like a stunted racoon kit, cuffed hands stained the same shade as his suit, bare feet mottled black and purple, legs twisted wrongly in the folds of his cape. His cheek was swollen fiercely, the crude outline of a J just beginning to peek above the mound of hot flesh, probably slashed and cauterized by a glowing knife. There were probably more burns. More blood. The bruises looked days old.
“I thought the old man paid the ransom,” Jason said woodenly. He didn’t need to ask which rich geezer palmed out a million dollars for his kid. In fact, it was insulting that the Joker demanded so little. Timothy Drake-Wayne, recently adopted prince of Gotham, star of Gotham’s gazettes, prancing around in a Robin costume? This wasn’t just a ransom opportunity — this was blackmail against the Bat himself. If Timmy was Robin, that left only one Batman, and that meant endless favors, yearly stipends for silence, power held above the most influential billionaire in the city.
And the Joker only demanded a petty million. This wasn’t a random fetch for funds. He wanted to send a message.
“So what do you expect me to do?” Jason grumbled, stepping closer. The kid flinched away from him, inching backwards, broken legs dragging across rough floorboards. “Looks to me like the job’s already done.”
“I’m looking for that special ‘Hood touch,’” the Joker condescended, bearing up on Jason’s left with a long crowbar dangling from one finger. “You know, the sort of thing that makes people like Freeze get the chills. I want Batsy to be so schizophrenic that he can’t sleep until all his birdies are tucked in their little coffins.”
Knowing the Joker, that wasn’t just an idle metaphor. Jason held out his hand for the crowbar and swung it methodically, testing the weight against the palm of his hand. The kid looked on with dull panic, blood dribbling down his chin where he’d bitten through his lip, resignation clouding blue eyes. This was Hood’s legacy, wasn’t it. Putting wannabe heroes and street urchins in their place until he couldn’t see past the shadows in his own mirror.
Spinning on his heel, Jason arched the crowbar over his head and smashed it into the Joker’s jaw. He had half a moment to cherish the awe and surprise in wild green eyes before his vision blurred red, red against purple, red against wood, green hair crumpling in bony, white and red shards, until his arms went limp and the crowbar slid from nerveless fingers.
Shuddering, Jason stepped away from the corpse, lighting a match and dropping it in the thatch of bloody hair. “You wanted the Hood touch, didn't you?” The bastard should’ve known a hellhound would turn on its summoner.
He turned around only to be assailed by the ancient, soulful eyes of a boy who played bird on school nights. The swollen jaw trembled, and the kid was shaking with exertion, propped bonelessly against one of the crates behind him, but his eyes were eerily cam. If Jason was going to kill him, there was nothing he could do about it.
He was probably hoping it would be quick.
“So you’re the Drake kid,” Jason stated, stepping closer to assess the damage. The moment his name was mentioned the kid drew into himself again, breathing spiking to frantic levels as he tried to gather his broken limbs into something resembling a crouch. Oh, please. As if he could bat aside a field mouse in his state.
“Relax, Kid,” Jason insisted, crouching down to the teen’s level. “If I wanted to kill you I’d blow this warehouse and let the Joker take the blame. I don’t need a Bat hounding me every waking day of my life.”
Wary silence. Not like he could say much with that swollen jaw. Jason sighed, dipping forward before the kid could start wriggling again. He tried to be gentle, bracing crooked legs and lumpy shoulders with steady strength, but the squawk of alarm still sharpened into a low shriek, tapering into a drawn out, agonized wail. The kid really needed to pass out already.
“Shhh. It’s almost over. You’re okay,” Jason whispered, stepping over puddles of blood that slicked the floor. “Gonna get you some help. They’ll put you on the good drugs and you’ll feel better in no time.”
Swollen fingers scrabbled at his jacket and tugged until he was forced to look down and see the kid frantically shaking his head. He knew that plea. No hospitals. Nobody has to know. Don’t let them see me like this.
“I’m not taking a ‘no’ for this one,” Jason established. Contrary to his reputation, he did not leave battered kids lying alone in sketchy warehouses until the masquerade party dropped by for a pickup. “You’re getting blood all over my jacket. Hospital it is.”
“Plesss!” the kid hissed, tears sparkling from the effort. “Cnnnn…. Nnnnn….. Rob’n….”
Oh. Oh.
The costume would be a dead giveaway, Jason realized, cursing the inconvenience. Timmy Wayne shows up in a Robin suit with multiple broken bones and no Batman in sight. The media would have a hayday, but not before CPS showed up. Some kids desperately needed to be rescued from broken homes, but Jason had seen old man Wayne pick up his kids from school, smiles and chatter erupting the moment he stepped out of his fancy car. There were some moments that didn’t deserve to be shattered.
Muttering a gruff apology in forewarning, he settled the kid on the floor, flipped out a switchblade and sawed through bright red and kevlar and the soft, woven cape until the kid was left in his undershirt and black leggings. The choked cries ended at some point when Tim finally passed out. At least now… now he just looked like a kid the Joker had snatched off the streets, instead of the bird-boy he’d dangled out for Bruce Batman Wayne to beg for until he broke.
Disgust rising anew, Jason left his charge for a few minutes longer, gathering a few loose ends in the warehouse. Setting the charges that were meant for someone else.
Heat blasted the back of his neck three blocks down, followed inerrantly by the howl of sirens.
The Joker should’ve known better than to hire out the Hood.
Jason didn’t expect a follow-up to his escapade. The kid got his blood transfusions and bone splints and the media got their cover story on the Joker charring in his own warehouse fire. There was some grandiose statement from Bruce Wayne offering a reward to the unknown Samaritan who had rescued his son.
Hush money. They wanted to know who linked Timmy to Robin to make sure he didn’t reserve his favors for an opportune moment.
All they had to do was ask.
Jason still didn’t expect a visitor at his safe house at two in the morning. Cerulean bands and escrima sticks, a European jawline and gushy blue eyes; the big blue bird himself (or should he start calling him Grayson, since now that he looked hard enough it was really obvious that the costume gig was a family operation).
“Whatever it is, I didn’t do it,” Jason said automatically, polishing his Sig and aiming it thoughtfully at the exposed forehead. That was usually his excuse when one of the Bats showed up to question a recent bloodbath. Ten percent of the time it wasn’t actually a lie.
“What do you want?” Nightwing demanded, arms held loosely at his sides, ready to roll and spring with battering sticks in hand.
“Six hours of undisturbed silence,” Jason said tartly. What did it take for a scumbag to get any sleep around here?
To his astonishment, Nightwing grit his jaw like he expected the punchline of a joke. “And...?”
“And?” Jason snorted. “Coffee. A better safehouse. A million dollars.” Kind of a shame he let his conscience get the better of him and left the ransom money to burn with the rest of the swill.
“Fine. Whatever you want,” Nightwing said raggedly. “Just leave the kid alone. He’s been through enough.”
Wait… what? Jason stared mutely, his brain trying to prioritize whether he ought to be insulted that they thought he’d hurt Tim, or if he had just accepted a million dollars to keep his mouth shut.
“Fine. Whatever,” his traitorous mouth blabbed. It was the usual litany he reserved for dealing with the Bats. Cue law enforcement to raid his newest safe house? Sure, whatever. Batten him down if he seemed liable to teeter off the edge? Fine, take a number. Threaten him with social company in the form of girly bats and birds and purple-caped crusaders bonking into him around random corners? No biggie. Bribe him with the Joker’s ransom to be nice to a beat-up kid? Fine. Whatever. That was… expected.
For Hood.
Jason didn’t care much for the implications.
Nightwing was gone before Jason could make a solid stance on his ambiguous moral standards. He checked his account the next morning and discovered he was suddenly well-to-do for the next ten years.
It felt as nauseating as the handful of crisp bills in his palm after he delivered his first kill.
The little green monster turned up next. Jason just wanted a smoke in peace, and the rooftop was empty when he came up here.
“My balcony, my solitude,” he warned, flicking a knife at the kid’s shoulder. The brat didn’t even flinch as it plinked off the wall behind him.
“It has come to my knowledge that a part of the bargain was left unfulfilled,” Robin stated.
Bargain? What the…. Jason blew out a slow stream, trying to remember his apparent bargaining with the night menace. “Six hours undisturbed,” he quoted. “You’re breaking the contract.”
“That agreement was already concluded,” Robin said, although he sounded uncertain. “I have come to settle the final account.” He stepped forward with pompous grandeur, brandishing a knobby, squat packet that looked and smelled like heaven. “Our concordant is finalized. You will not speak of your findings to anyone.”
Jason plucked up the packet of coffee beans, squinting at the Arabic script. “Whatever. You still haven’t found me a safehouse yet.”
Dang, he should have asked for ten million dollars. And a yacht. Or at least a lifetime supply of this coffee.
He woke up to a set of keys by his pillow. He didn’t need to ask if they were the matching set for a loft in the swells of Gotham where the filthy rich peddled their wealth on furs and floofy pillows and imported decadences.
It was everything he ever dreamed of as a kid spinning bolts off the Batmobile tires, and it was all thanks to some off-hand comment. Covering up for a kid he’d plucked out of the Joker's clutches.
Growling under his breath, Jason snatched up the keys and grabbed his motorbike helmet, stalking out the front door in his sweats with his hair in a bed-tangled mess. It was time to put an end to this nonsense.
The staff who greeted him at the door instantly struck Jason as the noble type; part of that bygone age where people tipped their hats and the ladies wore bonnets and poofy dresses. He looked Jason over like he knew his type in an instant, and he still opened the door and welcomed him in like an expected guest.
Jason had the urge to shuck his shoes lest he tread Gotham’s street dirt into the carpets.
“If you’ll wait here one moment, Master…..?”
“Jason.” The word flew out of his mouth, and Jason gaped for a moment, startled by his own admission. “I mean….”
The older man waited with unhurried expectation.
“I mean Jay. People call me Jay,” Jason said weakly. Wait, no. Where did that come from?
“Very well, Master Jason,” the staff said with a gracious smile. “Please make yourself comfortable.”
“I’m not here to visit long,” Jason blustered, trying to steal back lost ground. “It’s strictly business.”
The smile faltered for an instant, and gentle eyes filled with chide. Jason ducked his head, scratching a nail down the groove in his helmet.
“I shall inform Master Bruce, then,” the man said with far less cheer. Well, there went the welcoming committee.
Jason idled around the room after the staff left, eyeing the trinkets on the mantle and wondering if it was bad karma to filch a piece while he was returning an entire loft. Probably too counterproductive to bother. Even the picture frames were worth a pretty pinch, though. Gold frames and hand-crafted accents emboldened family photo ops with all of the ….
Oh. The kids.
There was the little green monster, all rigid spine and churning eyes and uncertain hands knit behind his back. Blue-wing the limber lemur with his long arms stretched to encompass both of his younger siblings. Robin Prototype II with his blemish-free face relaxed in a shy smile. A winking blond who danced across the streets in purple; a brunette edging to the side whom Jason had seen snapping limbs without conscience; the new kid on the block who looked just as unsure in the family photo as he did on the playing team. Surrounded by his children was the Bat himself, harsh mask and gruff exterior stripped away, leaving a man gentled by his family, uncertain from his own faults, satisfied by the smiles and peaceful stances that no money could buy.
Swallowing the uneasy burn in the back of his throat, Jason cupped the keys into one of the Ming vases on the mantel, backing towards the door. He shouldn’t be here.
He made his retreat too late. Sweeping footsteps blundered from the adjoining room as Bruce emerged, hair tousled and suit haphazardly pulled on, as though he had been sleeping off his night exploits when he discovered the enemy had wandering into his den. Anger, anticipation, and trepidation rounded on Jason as Bruce closed the door behind him.
“I know what you’re here for,” Bruce stated, cold and civil and stern. A business man laying out the terms. “You want me to buy your silence. Tell me what it’s worth to you.”
Jason tried to speak up and managed an awful croak.
“I know what kind of man you are, Hood,” Bruce pressed on, “And you know that I’ll do anything for my children. So name your price.”
No… that wasn’t… he just wanted to give back the keys and call it done. They weren’t supposed to be haggling over a kid who couldn’t walk on his own.
“I just came to give back the keys,” Jason said queasily.
Confusion washed into despair. “What do you want, then?” Bruce countered. “Gotham isn’t the pinnacle of society. I can set you up in Metropolis, or somewhere outside of the country if you’d prefer — ”
“No, it’s….” Jason swallowed, raking a hand through his hair. Why was this so ridiculously complicated? “I don’t want anything. At all.”
Too much suspicion bled through haggard, sleepless blue eyes. “Then why are you here?” Bruce asked. Resigned, it seemed, to the revelation that nothing would ever be enough, and Jason was going to blab it all over the media for the fame and savage triumph that he had unveiled the man behind the Bat.
“I just came to give back the keys,” Jason muttered. “I didn’t mean it. What I said to Dick — I mean Nightwing.” Bruce blanched. “Look, I don’t threaten kids," Jason said in a rush. "He was in the warehouse and I dropped him off at a clinic. I didn’t ask for a stupid reward.” He was keeping the coffee, though, and he’d shoot the demon brat if he tried to take it back.
“Then what do you want?” Bruce asked, softer. It must be difficult for a billionaire to be indebted to someone who didn’t want the prize money.
“Just leave me alone,” Jason said wearily. “Stop haunting my hideout, let me do my thing, don’t get in the way. I protect the kids along my route. If I round up a couple of skulls, just be glad those pervs aren't out there shooting down your Robins.”
Shock rippled through Bruce’s expression, but he still echoed the same protest, “I can’t condone your murders, Hood.”
And that’s why he and the Bat brigade could never coexist on the same block. “Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Jason said, flipping up his hood. “Tell the little bird I said hi. Hope his feathers heal up. Try to take better care of your kids.”
He paused at the door, indignation muddling with disappointment, and the familiar burn of anarchy. “I meant what I said. Stay out of my business. People like the Joker deserve to burn.”
He didn’t wait for the fancy butler to let him out. He dug his hands in his pockets and slunk to his bike, gunning the engine for home. Back to the cramped alleys, the moldering walls, and the screaming fights erupting from bars.
Batman didn’t understand the gutters of his city. He didn’t see the layers of crime like Hood did. He would never understand the pillars that bolstered fiends like the Joker, building them up in tales of blood and cinders, until children cried themselves to sleep at night for fear that a monster would snatch them away.
He didn’t know how close he was to losing his children every second, but Hood saw past the safety lines. He knew the cradle robbers, the serial killers, the larcenists, the hired fists, the black market dealers. He knew what crawled beneath Gotham, and those same low-lifes feared him. He was their last glimpse of darkness. The hunter bathed in blood. The hound tearing through Gotham’s underbelly, deposing the snappy dogs who thought they could use him as their weapon. He wasn’t Jason, and he wasn’t Jay. He didn’t need to have a name.
But maybe someday, not too long after he thought he left the Bat brigade behind, he would come across a little bird hobbling around on crutches, scouting the nasty parts of Gotham until someone had to rescue him from ne’er-do-goods. Perhaps over time, Hood would realize that there was more to a reputation than a name. That something deep within was still waiting to step out of Crime Alley and accept the invitation to come inside from the cold. That home and family weren’t just fairy tale sentiments echoed to rich kids as they were tucked into their snug little beds. That second and third and fourth chances were possible, if he just had the courage to ask.
Maybe someday he would learn that underneath the crusty exterior of Hood, Jason still wanted a place to belong. And that place had never been denied to him. He just had to take the offered hand.