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“Jason.”
Hood had hoped it was a nightmare. He just wanted his dog back.
Ace had wandered off in the middle of a mission; Hood tracked him to the Wayne estate. To the Batman’s base of operations.
He thought he was alone; he’d just grab his dog and leave.
And then, he woke up, staring at an eternal blackness, his side laid against the bitter cold of the cave’s stone flooring.
“Jason.”
Hood could feel that his eyes were open. His helmet’s display should’ve been giving him every bit of visual data that he needed, processing more information than any set of human eyes could have even dreamed of. Joker only turned it off at his headquarters. He should have been able to see.
Unless…
“Jason.”
“He’s not responding, Bruce. Give it up.”
Fuck.
He couldn’t breathe.
He could hear it. His helmet was close by. A quiet buzzing at a unique frequency, the same as his suit.
Hood felt his muscles tighten as he tried to reach for the sound, seeing just a sliver of its red shell from his periphery.
A boot crushed into the back of his hand just inches away from his mask.
“Please,” Hood croaked, his throat shot from the cool air on his face, his nerves reeling in pain as he cradled his fractured palm.
That wasn’t his voice. Hood’s voice was lower- more metallic. Augmented, to better transmit over the radio. His voice wasn’t supposed to break like that. He wasn’t supposed to sound like some scared little kid.
“Jason, listen to me.”
He hated feeling so much at one time.
He could hear the blood rushing to his heart, feel the way his eyes jittered back and forth, still trying to get traces of information from the fraction of his retina that still functioned, felt the way his joints creaked when he was forced to stand up, felt every tendon in his body tense up when he sensed someone in front of him, examining him as if he were a stock animal.
“Bruce, he can’t see you yet. He doesn’t know you’re there.”
“He could see that hunk of metal fine enough.”
Hood tried diving for his helmet. He had to make it stop.
A hand grabbed his shoulder.
Hood grabbed for his knife.
His arms were locked behind his back in a second, pressing his face into a glass panel.
Immobilized.
Hood could feel blood dripping into his mouth.
His blood.
“Bruce! Jesus Christ!”
“You piece of fucking shit-” Hood bit, trying to scramble free like a rat in a trap.
He didn’t think much of the way he was able to speak so freely.
He couldn’t think much of anything, other than how much everything hurt.
He was supposed to be able to get out of situations like this. He’d trained for this, dammit! But his body was too weak. He couldn’t get his thoughts straight.
He felt like a rabid animal, teeth gritted into a snarl, thrashing around a stone-and-glass cage for all to see.
“Jason, calm DOWN.”
Hood paused for a moment. One precious moment.
Tim had a brother named Jason.
One of the Robins.
The one Joker killed.
This again?
“I’m not-”
“God, you’re scaring him half to death, Bruce. Let him breathe.
“I’m trying to get the neural transmitter-”
Hood could see again.
Actually see.
Hood was in a cell in the Batcave, as he had assumed. Stone-carved, with a high-tech glass panel to serve as both a window and a door.
Batman’s posse stood gawking at him. He knew each of them. Studied them. All of their names. All of their weaknesses.
Barbara Joan Gordon. Oracle. The computer bitch that made Harley abandon him.
Richard John Grayson. Nightwing. Oldest son of Bruce Wayne’s. Should have been dead.
Timothy Jackson Wayne. Middle son of Wayne’s. Heir of the Wayne fortune. The bitch that got him into this mess.
Damian Wayne. Robin. The youngest. A blood-thirsty assassin at the ripe old age of ten.
God, it looked like a family reunion.
He could see himself in the reflection of the glass. Harley had always told him not to look in a mirror, worried that he’d be too unnerved by his appearance. Maybe she had a point.
Pale skin that hadn’t seen the sun in years. Eyes even paler, milky from his accident a decade ago. Two scars running from the corners of his mouth to the bottom of his ears. Blood slowly dripping from his nose. The letter ‘J’ carved into his cheek- his namesake.
He looked like a science project. A corpse.
Hood didn’t notice that the Batman had slipped out of the cell until tears began to well in his eyes.
“Jason. Look at me.”
Before he had left, the Bat made sure to tie Hood’s hands behind his back. Smart.
He wished that Bruce Wayne was angry at him. It would make things so much less confusing. Make things make sense.
But he was unreadable. Even without his cowl. Of course he was.
“Jason,” the Bat said again.
Hood was getting real fucking tired of hearing that.
“That’s not my name,” he snapped. “You’re all out of your fuckin’ minds.”
Wayne didn’t let up.
“I know what the hell my son looks like, Jason. You don’t have to-”
Hood’s head felt like it was being split open. Torn apart, piece by piece.
“Jason Todd is dead, you fuck! Joker fuckin’ killed him. Beat him to death with a goddamn crowbar, then blew up the remains. I watched the damn footage!”
Wayne was desperate for closure. That was the answer. He never found his son’s body because there was no body.
“I’m sorry. I’m not him.”
Hood crumpled to the floor, his legs giving out from under him. His mind was racing with possibilities. Images- too faint and too blurry to make out- swarmed him. Too many thoughts. He felt like he was about to explode.
There was a long pause. Dreadfully long. Hood couldn’t find his helmet, so he, laid pitifully on his back, staring up at the rock above him, was forced to hear only the vague mutterings of his captors, and feel only the aches of his body, drained of all will to keep fighting.
“You heard him, Bruce. It was wishful thinking.”
Dick.
“Waste of time. I don’t know why I even came down here in the first place.”
Damian.
“But, we saw the same guy, right? Everything matches-”
Tim.
“Bruce, give it a rest already. If he won’t talk, you can’t make him. He’ll just-”
Barbara.
The Bat wasn’t listening to any of them.
Hood heard him enter the cell, and drop a familiar chunk of titanium right next to him.
“One condition,” the Batman said, a shadow blending into the cell’s darkness. “Start. Talking.”
Hood could barely half-ass a reply. “You broke my hand, Bat. I can’t put that on by myself.”
He was on his feet after a moment, adjusting the helmet’s settings to ease the pressure of his skull. He could tell that the freaks cut the communications line. That didn’t matter: just meant he’d have to activate the safety features manually.
“My guns, as well. I know you took them.” Hood spoke, his voice recognizable once more. He could feel his nerves fall numb once more- become stable, as they were supposed to be. A diluted solution of Joker gas, Boss had explained once. Crowskie helped me out with that one. Would’a killed you otherwise.
The Batman complied with the request, handing Hood his twin pistols, before closing the cell door once more, with both of them inside. The wrong move.
“Are you planning another tantrum? Or can we finally-”
Hood placed the barrel of his gun to Wayne’s forehead, clicking off the safety.
“Never thought I’d hold the Bats for ransom.” Hood’s internal display scanned the Batman’s skull, detailing the optimal point for bullet entry- both to kill him instantly, or make him bleed out for as long as possible.
“Now give me my damn dog, asshole.”
Hood could hear shouting from outside of his cell, muffled by the glass.
The Batman didn’t budge.
“Jason, put it down.”
Hood felt rage for the first time in a long time. Boss wasn’t here to actively monitor his stress levels.
“You say that kid’s name one more time, and I swear, I’ll-”
“Then do it. Kill me. But, that would be your decision, wouldn’t it?”
What?
What the fuck did that even mean?
Hood tried to pull the trigger.
His finger wouldn’t budge.
“You did something. That neuron-transinator thing-”
“Only sends visual information to the brain. Repairs some neural networking on the way, too. Nothing more.”
“Don’t bullshit me. I’m not dumb.”
Wayne scrambled his nerves. Had to’ve.
“Your file says that your name is Jay Quinn.” The Batman was testing his luck. “Harley confessed that she gave you that name when she and Joker took you in.”
Hood cocked his head. “So?”
“I want you to tell me why she gave you that name.”
Hood wanted to refer to the scar on his face- that was the easy answer. And it was an answer- she’d thought of the name because of his scar, but that wasn’t why she settled on the name. Hood wanted to give the easy answer, but something in Bruce’s tone swayed him against it.
“It’s from an old folk song. ‘Jaybird laughs’. Slang for a prisoner. That was their best guess as to where I came from. I’m sure the laughs part is self explanatory.” He didn’t mention how Joker used the nickname to taunt him.
Hood adjusted his hold on the gun. Wayne was just wasting time. Trying to get in his head. Just like Tim did.
“And the title of ‘that old folk song’?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Pick Poor Robin Clean.”
Robin.
That goddamn name again.
Hood dropped his gun.
If he couldn’t shoot the Bat, he’d just beat him to a bloody pulp.
Just like how Jason Todd died.
Hood’s mind was focused now. When he threw his first punch, it hit the Batman square in the jaw.
It felt nice to see the Bat bleed.
But, a second later, Hood was slammed into the floor, armor cracking underneath the sheer force of the attack.
“Born on August 16th, 24 years ago. The same day as Jason Todd.”
“Along with like 500 other kids. Did you kidnap them, too?”
Hood flipped onto his feet, readying his stance. He wouldn’t let himself be caught off-guard again.
“You watched the footage, Jason. You saw what he did to you. How many people carve goddamn smiles into their victim’s faces?”
Hood tried to block Bruce’s words out.
“Jason Todd is dead,” Hood repeated.
“He has been dead for more than a decade,” he pleaded.
What about that is so hard to understand?
“Just think about it for one goddamn second, Jason! YOU have his face. YOU have his birthday. YOU. Not anybody else. Harley named you after your childhood nickname, goddammit!”
Hood tackled the Bat to the ground before he could get another word in.
Bruce’s cowl was still down.
It wouldn’t take much to crush his skull.
But Bruce caught his fist just as Hood’s jaw began to shake.
He tried to turn Bruce’s face into a bloody mess.
“I wouldn’t lie to you, Jason.”
Almost the exact same words that Joker told him, time and time again.
His good arm went just as slack as the broken one.
“I hate you.
I hate you so fucking much.”
He hoped the Hood would mask the sound of his crying.
---
“You knew. You knew this whole damn time, and you just strung me along, like some goddamn puppet.”
Hood had tracked his boss down to the top service landing of the Amusement Mile- at the peak of the park’s iconic roller coaster.
“Jason. Todd. You remember that name?
The clown prince of crime was smoking from one of Hood’s collector’s packs.
“Doesn’t ring a bell, Jaybird. Sorry.”
Hood grabbed him by the collar.
Lifted him over the hundred-foot-drop.
The night had brought with it a flurry of tearing winds.
One simple movement, and his boss’s body would be ripped into the bay, found weeks later in the belly of one of the monsters held within her water.
“Woah, woah, hey! Hey! What’s this all about?”
Hood looked at the foot of the coaster, where Ace was sitting, patiently, as any good dog should.
Joker had threatened to kill the dog when Harley first gave him to Hood as a birthday present. You can’t trust her anymore. Probably trained the poor thing to slit your throat while you’re sleepin’.
Hood should’ve seen the signs well before now.
“Don’t lie to me, you rat bastard.”
Joker struggled against his grip, hanging onto Hood’s arm like a lifeline, as if dancing mid-air.
“I was… gonna tell you, kid. One of these-”
“I ain’t your goddamn kid.”
Joker seemed to press one of the buttons on his wrist.
Hood had once summed it up to a nervous tick for whenever Hood got a little bit too "emotional.”
That he always calmed down seconds after by some sheer dumb luck.
But, he knew better now.
His helmet couldn’t receive to external commands any more.
“Trying to sedate me? Some mentor you are.” Hood fully extended his arm, to the point that even a stray wind would cause the Joker to fall to his demise.
“Hood, c’mon, I practically raised you!
Who clothed you, fed you, made sure your weaponry was always nice and shiny?
I’ll tell you, it wasn’t the Batman.”
“You butchered the footage of Jason’s death. Cut and pasted it to where I wouldn’t see the scars on his face- on my face. Made me think the body was incinerated.
Barbara Gordon showed me the real footage. The one posted all over the dark web. The one shown all over the news that night.”
Joker kept running his mouth. “He knew you were there, in that warehouse. But he wanted to test your mettle. Blame him, not me!”
The clown wasn’t even denying it. Somehow, that was even worse.
“And I will, once you’re-”
A splintering golden light, as if the sun itself had exploded, blinded Hood just before he could let go of Joker’s collar.
He didn’t recognize the voice that spoke.
“Red Hood. Release Mr. Doe at once. Safely.”
Hood swung Joker’s body in the direction of the voice, only to find that the light came a whole-ass person, radiating like a fuckin’ disco ball.
The man on the opposite side of the platform caught the clown as if he were nothing but a sack of pillows.
“Oh, thank you, brave hero! I was just-”
It seemed that Mr. Gold had a roll of golden duct-tape specifically for situations like this.
It had to be a new type of humiliation, mouth taped, torso cocooned to the top of the tallest platform of your base of operations.
Hood turned his attention back to the eyesore of a man, whose eyes were trained on the shadows of the nearby buildings, as if looking for something- or someone.
He spoke to Hood without even turning to face him. Answered his questions before he even asked.
“Beacon,” he stated. “But, Duke works just as well. I figure since I overheard your legal, you deserve to know mine.”
“Duke,” Hood repeated.
“Duke Thomas.”
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