Chapter Text
Jason Todd had a plan for his second chance at life—rid the world of as many clam-slurping, toe-sucking ass wipes as he possibly could, starting with Gotham's dark underbellies.
Really, it wasn’t that different from Jason’s plan for his first life when he had been Robin. But his perspective had shifted after living, dying, then living again. Now he knew that the only way to beat the lowlife criminals was to crawl down after them.
Batman was a shadow in the night and a beacon in the sky. A hero to be whispered all throughout Gotham. He had morals . Principles that could be relied upon. Principles that would never waver. For anything or anyone.
Red Hood would be relied upon to put bullets through bad guys' eyes.
~
“Red Hood. I’ve been anticipating this meeting for a long time.”
“Ghostface,” Jason replied, his normal tone warped by his helmet. “So’ve I.”
The well-dressed man sitting across the desk from him leaned forward. His face was obscured by a mask that looked to Jason like a copyright infringement. The producers of Stab 1 through 6 would love to know that their shitty movies were coming in handy for this guy.
“You and your temper have made quite a name for yourself. I’ve been told you don’t like working with others. Yet—” The man spread his hands. Jason noted the bright metal gleam of a watch on his wrist that looked high tech and expensive. “—Here you are.”
“Here I am.”
“What do you seek from me?”
“You sell weapons. The best to be had in Gotham, if the word on the street is to be believed. And I like killing things.” Jason patted his gun holsters for emphasis. “I’m here to make a simple purchase."
This was only partially true. Jason wanted weapons, if only to study where they came from to figure out Ghostface’s suppliers and take them out. Ghostface’s weapons cache was likely sourced from some illegal lab, profiting off of the leftovers of the alien tech that had been left after the Reach had been kicked out. Gotham criminals were dangerous, but add in some illegal magical weapons into the mix and the rogue gallery would just get that much larger and deadly.
Jason was also here to meet Ghostface and get to know his motives, his assets and his weaknesses. Any chink in his armor Jason could use to destroy his whole operation for good.
Ghostface nodded. “I’ve heard rumors about you too, Hood. About your brewing turf war with the Black Mask. Selling to you might get me mixed up in that.”
Jason shrugged. “Sell to me. Sell to him too. I’m not trying to get you to join me. Just let me buy some shit from you.”
Ghostface sat back in his chair and steepled his fingers together in front of his face. He tilted his head to look down at his guest. Ghostface’s chair was positioned to be higher in the room so Jason was forced to crane his neck to look at him.
He was starting to get irked by his high and mighty attitude. The green voice of the Pit whispered in his ear Just kill him. Gut him with your knife and watch him bleed.
Jason ignored the green. He was finally getting better at that. It had been touch and go for a couple months but after some big mistakes, Jason finally managed to put a cork in it. They were big mistakes Jason would have to live with forever and he wasn’t keen on repeating some of them.
Ghostface’s smug voice pulled him back to the present.
“Fetch Nightingale.”
One of the underlings that had been standing at the door quickly jumped to attention. He slipped out the door, leaving Ghostface’s smiling mask to stare at Red Hood.
“Who’s Nightingale?” Jason asked after a long moment.
“She’s my canary in the coal mine. My little birdie.”
So this Nightingale was being fetched to suss out Red Hood’s true intentions? Some kind of mind reader? Jason searched his memory for the training he had done with Zatanna as a young Robin. Being able to defend from mental attacks was difficult but not impossible. Luckily for Jason, the flurry of micro expressions across his face were hidden by his helmet. He calmly replied, “Nightingale will vouch for me and then we can finally get to business?”
“That’s the idea.” There was a hint of amusement in Ghostface’s voice, like he knew this was something Red Hood hadn’t anticipated and was reveling in it. This guy liked having the upper hand, a lot .
Jason grit his teeth and weighed his options. If he didn’t pass this test, he’d have to fight his way out of here. Doable but very annoying and it lost him any potential insider information about Ghostface’s operations. But there was the possibility that this Nightingale was the secret key to Ghostface. He had never heard of her.
The door behind him opened and Jason resisted the urge to whip his head around to assess the new arrival. Instead he waited, slouched in his chair in a relaxed position as Nightingale stepped to Ghostface’s side.
It was a woman in a long deep blue dress that trailed along the ground. She had a veil on that covered her head, obscuring her face. All the fabric she wore was loose and slightly reflected the dim light like an oil slick. The effect was of an unearthly being made of living water. No doubt, her appearance was intended to be off-putting to the average criminal. But Jason wasn’t fazed. He had practically grown up fighting the worst rouges of Gotham. A woman in a veil was nothing interesting compared to the Joker or Scarecrow.
“Hello, birdie,” Ghostface greeted her warmly.
She didn’t reply, simply nodding.
“Meet Red Hood,” the crime boss continued, gesturing at his guest. “He has come here to purchase some of my premium merchandise.”
Jason gave her a mock salute, unmoved from his comfortable position in the chair. “‘Sup.”
“Would you mind?” Ghostface swept an arm out, gesturing for her to approach Red Hood.
The blue figure turned to him, stepping close. He saw now that she was barefoot. Against the hardwood floor in winter, she must have been cold, though she didn’t seem to feel it.
Out of her formless figure, a hand emerged from a flowing sleeve and reached out for him.
Jason tensed, trying to project his thoughts in the correct direction, focusing on being the Red Hood, crime lord, cold-blooded killer instead of Jason Todd. Maybe he should let the green take over for a moment.
Her hand took his and she slipped one finger under his glove to touch his bare skin. Her hands were freezing.
He expected to feel her presence in his mind, forcing entry. He expected a flurry of attacks on the walls he had put up around his secrets.
Instead, Jason felt nothing.
She stood too close to him for nearly thirty seconds, her finger on his pulse. Then she pulled away, taking one step back, away from him. She nearly stumbled, as if out of fear.
What had she done? What had she seen?
Ghostface stood suddenly, his chair scraping along the wood floor. Red Hood matched him.
The air in the room grew tense.
“Birdie?” Ghost asked. He looked down at his watch then back at her.
Jason noticed something there was blinking on the display.
“Birdie,” he said, more sharply.
Nightingale still was fixed on Red Hood.
What had she done? The green screamed at him to shake it out of her then snap her neck.
Nightingale turned to Ghostface and slowly shook her head. “No,” she whispered. Her voice was a mere flutter. “He’s here to take you down.”
He checked the display on his watch again then yelled, “Guards!”
But Jason was faster. He had his guns out, already pulling the trigger on the two men flanking Ghostface. They dropped, screaming. He shot a hand out at Ghostface’s mask and ripped it off, getting a good look at the man there. Then he slammed his hand down onto his rich mahogany desk. Ghostface screamed as the bones of his nose cracked.
Jason heard a swoosh from behind him and ducked just in time for a club to pass over his helmet. He kicked backwards and felt something crack in his attacker’s leg. The man crumpled to the ground, bat tumbling from his hands. Jason picked it up.
“Oh, am I up to bat already?” He swung, slamming the weapon into the temple of the goon closest to him. “Home run, I think,” he mused as the blood splattered. The green in him hummed in satisfaction.
Through the open door, two more henchmen entered and Jason saw down the hall more coming. He was going to have to stem the tide then get the fuck out. He used the bat to take down the two that had just entered then jammed it through the door’s lock. Not an elegant solution but he didn’t have time to debate about it.
Bang!
A bullet slammed through his armor and into his lower back. Grunting in pain, he turned to see the man who called himself Ghostface sneering at him, face covered in blood. An odd looking gun was in his hands. Smoke curled out of its barrel.
Jason drew his own weapon and fired three times, aiming rapidly. Left shoulder. Right shoulder. Right hand.
The crime lord shrieked in pain and fury, staggering backwards to slump in his carved wooden desk chair, breathing heavily.
Right back where he started, Jason thought in smug satisfaction.
He walked over to him and picked up the weapon off the desk.
“Huh,” he said. “Strong stuff.” He stuck it in his holster. “I would have paid for it if you had let me. Instead...”
Jason suddenly remembered the reason for this mess. Nightingale. She was frozen, standing in a corner of the room. As he approached her, she curled in on herself.
“What did you do?” he asked. The voice modulation made his question seem harsh and threatening.
She didn’t move.
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
She didn’t seem to believe him. Jason really couldn’t blame her, especially since the violence of the last several minutes had green flickering in his vision.
“Alright, let’s go.”
He took her upper arm and pulled her gently but firmly up. It took him a lot of brain power not to squeeze too hard, to force the green to calm.
“No!” Ghostface was trying to rise from his desk. He screeched, “Birdie is mine! She’s mine!”
“Nah,” Jason said. “I don’t think so.”
But at his words, Nightingale flinched away from Red Hood, going boneless and clutching her heart in fear. Like she really was his. For a brief moment, he wondered if they loved each other.
That thought lasted only a fleeting moment. Ghostface screamed, “If I can’t have her, no one can!” He lifted his wrist, touching his watch screen.
“No, please,” Nightingale whimpered. Jason dropped her and she fell to her knees. He rushed forward, seizing Ghostface’s wrist before he could touch anything else. The screen on his watch had a large red button that said Terminate on it. Jason had caught his hand just as his finger was about to press it.
“You sick fuck,” Jason hissed. “You’ve got her planted with something.”
“Something you can’t remove without killing her.” The crime boss’s voice was now full of crazed laughter.
Jason twisted his wrist sharply, looking for the watch’s latch. There was none. The band was smooth metal.
“And if you break it, she’ll die. If she leaves my presence, she dies.” Ghostface wheezed. “I’m not letting her go alive. So leave what’s mine to me.”
Jason hadn’t really been planning on kidnapping Nightingale when Ghostface’s little freakout had started. He had just wanted to know what kind of metahuman she was. But now? Looking at the man laughing like a lunatic?
It was too reminiscent.
It made the blood roar in his ears and green fill his vision.
Jason took his wrist in both hands and twisted. His bones snapped almost too easily. Howling in pain and fury, Ghostface writhed in agony, trying to pull away. But the Pit made Jason strong. He squeezed the man’s wrist until the metal band slipped off his grossly twisted hand. He stuffed it in his jacket pocket then threw the man back down. Ghostface grabbed his wrist and sobbed pathetically.
Finish him! Slit his throat and watch him bleed! The green urged.
But Jason needed to know where he was getting his weapons and killing him would send his contacts crawling into the woodworks. So he contented himself with kicking Ghostface in the chest, sending him and the chair backwards.
There was a commotion at the office door. The goons would be inside in a moment. He turned to Nightingale and scooped her up, throwing her over one shoulder.
Then he took two running steps and leapt out of the window into Gotham’s night air, the shouts and gun shots following them.