Chapter Text
Red Hood appears on the Gotham streets a few months after Jason first meets Bernard.
They’re quiet and sharp, stepping into play with a backpack full of severed hands and a plan. The small-time trafficking rings and low scale cartels are sniffed out in an instant with proper efficiency. There are never dead bodies, only crippled survivors. The Red Hood doesn’t seem to kill, but they do push the line.
Jason honestly thinks that maybe they are a slight benefit to Gotham, even if their methods are a bit brutal, and Damian never says a word. He was always a bit more inclined to violence than one might think. However, Bruce thinks otherwise.
He keeps constant tabs on any sightings, always trying to find a constant in the flood of hits that seem to come in.
Jason brushes it off. After all, he’s no criminal, so why should he worry?
He should have worried.
Jason should have worried because apparently Red Hood has a bone to pick with Batman.
He’s on patrol, split off to a separate path after finally convincing Bruce that he could handle a single neighborhood by himself, and suddenly he feels the presence of an ever looming shadow towering over him.
Red Hood isn’t tall by any means, probably a few inches shorter than Damian or Bernard, about on par with Stephanie if he thinks about it, but there’s something about them that makes Jason feel… small.
They wear a full body suit and reinforced face mask, a plain black domino slicked over their eyes, and a utility belt strapped around their waist holding a menagerie of electrical tools and small knives.
Jason ends up snagging his ankle on a trip wire as he stumbles backward. Hood only steps forward, hands casually hooked on his jacket pockets, and leans over Jason. He tries to scramble away, hands struggling to grasp onto the ground below him, but Hood simply stomps on his ankle and holds it there. Jason yelps and his bo staff rolls away.
“Figures,” they hiss, “Can’t even defend yourself yet. Bat just moved on and got a new baby bird.”
Baby Bird. Look, look at our video!
“What do you want?” Jason growls. Hood scoffs and leans down to get close to his face.
“He doesn’t actually care about you, you know that right?” they start, “He moved on from the last one pretty quick to you. Big old bat needs a little bird to soften the landing and he doesn’t care who it is.”
“You don’t know what you're talking about!”
“Oh but I do little wing. They aren’t fit to be who they claim to be. They’re selfish . Your Nightwing and Batman are liars . They didn't care about their last fledgling and they certainly don't care about you .”
They grip Jason’s hair and look him dead in the eye.
“So do yourself a favor and quit.”
Jason spits on his mask and Hood sighs, dropping Jason’s hair and stepping off his ankle.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you kid,” they begin, but are suddenly struck in the side. Bruce reaches quickly to lock Hood in a hold but Hood moves faster. They swing past his arm, aiming for Bruce’s gut, and are met with a gauntlet to the neck. It tears through a chunk of the suit and Hood hisses, twisting quickly to the side towards Jason and vaulting over him.
Jason watches with wide eyes as an exposed neck with a tiny scar passes over him.
“Remember what I said little Robin,” they say, diving into the dark of the streets and disappearing off into the night.
“Are you all right?” Bruce says in his ordering and emotionless Batman way. Jason pushes himself up finally and takes heaving breaths.
“My ankle, I think Hood broke it. It got wrapped up by the wire and smashed under his fucking boot,” he grinds out. Bruce grunts and puts a finger up to his comm.
“Bring in for a pick up, broken ankle, sending location,” he says dully. He then wraps Jason’s ankle and stands up.
“I’m going after Hood. You stay right here until Agent A comes and retrieves you.”
“You’re just leaving?!”
“Hood is still in close quarters. Stay here.”
With that he leaves Jason behind, the words Hood told him still whispering in the back of his head.
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Alfred wraps his ankle in the Batcave and is ordered to stay off of it for 8 weeks. Jason begrudgingly follows through and spends his time alone rifling through Tim’s old closet. He finds a few hoodies that he figures Bernard will like and smuggles them over at any chance he can get.
The room is starting to look a little bare, and Jason can’t tell if he should be glad or put off by it. On one hand, he was giving it to its rightful owner, or atleast to the one person Jason thinks is deserving of it all. But on the other hand, it feels a little like he’s intruding on a space that was once awake and ever growing. It’s almost like exorcizing a ghost, but if there was no ill intent in the first place. He thinks it’s unhealthy, hoarding things like that and never letting a life move on, so he clears his mind and continues.
Bernard is pretty concerned when he shows up with a cast and an armful of hoodies, but Jason just waves it off and demands to know how his college classes are going.
Eventually he heals and is let out to patrol again, even if he can no longer go alone.
It still doesn’t work.
Hood lays out another trap and they walk right into it. Jason falls down two stories and fractures his wrist.
Another month of no patrolling or training and Jason is stuck complaining to Stephanie and Bernard for the entire healing period.
He heals again and goes out.
He breaks again and gets stuck in.
Bruce becomes increasingly more frustrated, and Bernard becomes increasingly more concerned, and Jason starts to wonder if Hood’s words had some truth to them.
He wonders if what he saw was real.
That scar on their neck.
Jason had seen pictures, he had watched the video.
He wonders if Tim Drake had really risen from the dead.