Chapter Text
It's been two weeks since he'd made his move, two weeks since he had switched sides and clenched himself in the Joker's lifeblood, two weeks since he became Red Hood's Red Robin.
Tim had been busy in that time, starting right as he left the Joker's cell in Arkham, dragging behind him a vibrant red duffel bag, empty, save for a head and a knife, with a metallic red handle, and of coarse, covered in blood.
The bag itself was waterproof and Tim had relished at the thought of how the blood in there would coat that green hair and white skin in the red of the metallic blood, as it would dry and become solid, it would become a poor imitation of a red helmet. All that poor precursor to the real Red Hood deserved.
Before he exited the asylum, he whispered some words in the ears of some of the inmates, 'the Joker's defenceless, take your pickings before they take him away, Harley, destroy him like he destroyed you.'
A couple of cell doors opened due to an unexpected bug in the system 5 minutes later, when 185 seconds later the guards arrive at the Joker's cell, it takes them 15 minutes to get everyone back in their cells in clean clothes and the inmates themselves, relatively clean. The next time Harley breaks out, she paints her fingernails in a gradient from crimson to a brownish red, each nail a different shade, which she had been mesmerized with in the days after the incident.
After everyone is back in their cell, the guards leave the Joker’s body as soon as they can, it’s a gruesome scene.
Tim’s last stop, before he heads to Hood’s base is the roof of the police bureau, its cameras have long been disabled for plausible deniability, he ties one end of a rope to the duffel bag, ties the other end to an air conditioning unit, and throws the bag so that the rope catches on a lamppost, when police commissioner Gorden opens his blinds later that night to ponder the state of Gotham, he sees a red duffel bag in the spotlight of a street lantern hanging right in front of his window. During the process of letting it down, he will get a call from the director of Arkham, who had finally finished his own internal investigation, to see if he was in any way liable for the incident.
By the time the commissioner finally arrived at the asylum he is greeted by nervous doctor, who was at home sleeping during the incident and was called awake by a higher up, who very sternly told her to memorise a document and talk to the nice officer about it. Everyone in that wing off the building and every single guard on duty at the time has been told in no uncertain terms that they had the night off and not to come back to work until expressly told so.
The scene is carnage, there is no evidence that any of the inmates had left their cells, safe for the blood coating the cuticles of a select few of the inmates and there is most certainly no evidence as to who could have done it, besides the head in the duffel bag.
In the morning edition of the Gotham Gazette is the front page article, written by an anonymous writer, titled "JOKER FOUND DEAD IN CELL crime lord suspected perpetrator” It contains a lot of classified information, a picture of the duffel bag hanging in the spotlight and speculation on the similarities between this act and the MO of a known crime lord, it ends with “red hood’s dead, long live The Red Hood”
No one knows who wrote it, who approved it or how no reports came through that the front page wasn’t the reported decrease in corruption in the police corps anymore. None of the paper deliverers received the calls to return and stop delivering the papers. On the Gotham Gazette’s website is the headline the first thing anyone sees, followed by another article with a warning for possibly triggering content, it has a lot a picture of the desecrated headless corpse and another of a head, coated in red.
Gotham is in celebration for the day, dozens of unauthorized gatherings spontaneously spring up all over the city and by evening there are very few alleys where ‘red hood’s dead, long live The Red Hood’ isn’t tagged, mostly in bright red paint.
The Red Hood’s reputation skyrockets during the following two weeks, he gains more followers, gathers a lot more information about the movement of various gangs throughout the city and manages to take over a few of them, without a lot of bloodshed. By the end Red Hood is a household name, in just about total control of crime ally and generally viewed as vigilante, rather than a rogue.
The Gotham city museum is rumoured to be planning to add a new permanent exhibit in it’s modern Myths and Legends wing, the room next to Batman’s is currently closed to the public, undergoing remodelling.
Robin has not been spotted recently and Timothy Drake is currently residing with an uncle in Europe, so say the rumours between the elite.
This is what Batman is greeted with, when he returns to Gotham after being on a Justice League mission of planet for 15 days, when he starts patrolling again, Robin isn’t at his side, there are rumours about that too.
Tim Drake moves into an apartment the floor under Jason’s, but most days he stays in the penthouse with him, but Bruce doesn’t know this.