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Jason Todd was never a bad kid. He stole, cursed, and ran, but he was never a bad kid. He was just trying to survive. He was just so angry. He just wanted to live and to be loved. He didn’t want the love Catherine or Willis claimed to have for him while leaving him to care for himself for long stretches of time. Don’t think about Catherine and Willis.
He thought he was loved for a moment: for the slightest moment. Then, came Felipe Garzonas who slipped, then came the kiddie-porn ring, and then went Robin, Sheila Haywood, Joker, crowbar, forehand, backhand, forehand, backhand, forehand, backhand, the bomb, the bomb!
He was fifteen when he died the first time. Batman didn’t come, but death came. Don’t think about Batman.
He was sixteen when he was born the second time. In the ground. Under six feet of heavy, muddy dirt. In a stuffy suit and tie that he would never pick to wear himself.
He was sixteen when he took the belt buckle from his stuffy suit and began to chip at the wood of his coffin.
He was sixteen when the dirt fell into his eyes, and the worms wiggled in his mouth as he screamed.
He screamed!
Why me?
He was sixteen when he broke the surface of Gotham Cemetery and pulled his weak body over mounds of dirt. Gagging and spitting and gasping for air for air for air!
He couldn’t remember much at the time. He just knew that there was blood on his fingers where the nails had been torn. There was mud in his mouth. There was an ache so extreme in his head. And there was Bruce.
He remembered Bruce. Not the person, but the concept. He was waiting for Bruce. Bruce would fix this.
But instead, he stumbled around Gotham catatonic doing who knows what with no memory of anything until Talia hits him with her car on a visit to Gotham. He is brought to the League of Assassins. Made to train. Made to kill. But there is only so much a brain-dead warrior can do. It doesn’t take long for Ra’s al Gul to demand Talia get rid of him.
Talia takes this as permission to dump him into a pit of green anger. A pit that has forever changed him for the worse despite that it also healed his catatonia and the effects of his childhood’s malnutrition. He is suddenly aware that he is alive, he is big, and he is angry.
He was seventeen when he was born for the third time. From fire. From hate. He killed everyone in the room with him when he resurfaced. He tried to kill Talia, but he was brought down hard. As he laid on the floor, bleeding, melted skin stretching and pulling as his bones grew, he screamed again. This time, the scream was much deeper. It echoed throughout the pits. Throughout the caverns.
A small boy going through his own training leagues away could hear the echoes of his scream as he brought a servant down with his katana.
When Jason awoke days later, he was calmer than he was after his initial rebirthing. Talia gives him a choice. He can stay here with the league of assassins, or he can learn from the many masters of the world and return later. It was obvious what it meant to stay or to go. To stay at the league was to die again. To train with her offered masters would be to die but not soon.
He didn’t want to die again. Don’t think about Joker.
He learns many things on his travels.
He learns the art of poison. He learns to use every muscle in his body. He learns a multitude of different fighting styles and techniques. He learns how to survive on limited food. He studies under the All-Caste. He survives something no one has done in centuries, and he is eighteen when he is able to wield twin demon-killing swords that draw from his soul.
He wasn’t sure until that moment if he still had a soul. How could zombie boys have souls?
He was nineteen when he was asked to the return to the league. He had traveled for nearly two full years around the world. Learning.
“When can I go back?” Jason asked Talia when he saw her next, kneeling at her feet while she looked down at him from her ivory chair.
“There is nothing there for you. You have been replaced. Bruce does not mourn you any longer. Why would he want to see you?”
Jason’s fists clinch at his side. “I- I know, but I just want to see if-”
“Do you think Batman would be able to accept a killer as his son? A zombie?”
Jason did return to Gotham later that year. He returned as he’d left: with a boom.
He had a mission to enact, but when he stood alone in the top floor of Titan’s tower, crowbar in his hand, he just wanted to go home. He’d incapacitated the new Robin’s team. They were hurt, but they were ok. He thought he could do it. He thought he could enact his revenge. But when he stood on the other side of the control room, all he wanted to do was vomit.
He could suddenly feel the crowbar in his hand hitting against his own face. He could hear the laughter of the Joker. He could taste mud and worms and tears. He left before he could do anything else, dropping the crowbar in his hand as he went. How could he subject a kid to the same treatment he went through? A kid who was the same age as he was. He couldn’t do that to a kid when he spent every restless night wishing it hadn’t been done to him. So, he left.
The crowbar on the ground, the Robin in the control room, the titans asleep, and the memories behind.
Except the memories wouldn’t fade. What hurts more? Forehand or backhand? Forehand. Backhand.
The anger wouldn’t fade. The fear wouldn’t fade.
Was this supposed to be his afterlife? Was he supposed to torture himself like this for all eternity? Was he supposed to live like a zombie forever? Could he never know peace?
He was out as the Red Hood more and more often now. He couldn’t be anyone but the Red Hood. Jason Todd was dead. Is dead…? Whatever. He hasn’t been caught doing anything yet. Operations are still small, though, they were moving faster after he had dumped off a duffel bag of heads to GCPD. The heads weren’t of innocent people. They were all members of Black Mask’s gang. All of them were wanted for crimes that warranted life in prison. He was doing GCPD a favor in his opinion.
It wasn’t long after that, though, that people finally began to take notice of what he was doing. Before, he was a small fish in a big pond, but the heads had flipped a switch for the people of Gotham. He was something to be feared now. Someone to avoid.
He prowled the streets. No longer the prey that is Robin, but instead someone to respect and follow. He kept crime off the street of Crime Alley a significant amount. He personally walked children back to their homes when he found them. He built shelters for the ones without proper homes to return to. But this isn’t what people saw when they thought of the Red Hood. Many in Crime Alley understood, but many others didn’t. Most just saw what he did during the nighttime.
He was nineteen when Batman finally came for him. He was nineteen when he turned a corner and came face to face with his father. He had never been face to face with his father. He was stunned for a moment. Taking in bat ears and black kevlar, the same earie, grim look that Bruce always wore when he donned the cowl. He was nineteen when Bruce hit him for the first time. A kick to the leg meant to be discombobulating, a grip on his shoulder to pull him forward, but Jason was wrenching himself from his stupor before he could be caught. He lifted the tire iron in his hand, meant to help fix a flat for Mrs. Inez, and smacked it into Batman’s chest, letting it drop when Batman goes to grip hold of the tool.
Mrs. Inez will have to wait.
Jason is nineteen when he finds himself shoved between two dumpsters in an alley, knees to his chest, and shaky hands wrapped around his legs. He is a kid on the streets again, hiding from a police officer. He is thirteen, running from the Batman after jacking his tires. It is terrifying. Try and catch me, you big boob!
Jason is still nineteen when his own drug bust is intercepted by one of Batman’s. He is in the rafters, waiting for the deal when a Robin crashes through a window, feet first, into a criminal in a room full of goons with guns. Batman does not follow him from the window, so it is up to Jason to jump from the rafters next. He comes down on a couple goons’ heads. Hard.
He clicks the safety off his guns mid jump, shooting the moment his feet hit the ground. He shoves Robin into a corner behind him as he aims for those he deems most deadly. It is when every gun holder lays bleeding on the ground that the Red Hood lets up on guarding the Robin that reminds him too much of himself. He shouldn’t have let his guard down. That’s what happened with Sheila. Don’t think about Sheila.
When Jason turns to check his six, he comes face-to-face with someone who had picked up one of the pistols on the ground and had it shoved into the side of Robin’s temple.
Robin’s face twists in a cringe, eyes wide and pleading, body slack in his captor’s hold. Did Jason look like that? Is that what he looked like before he died? Does this new and improved Robin ever worry he will be next? Does he worry he will follow Jason and the female Robin into the grave? No more dead Robins.
Multiple things happen at once: Jason aims, Batman bursts through the ceiling, and the boy whimpers. Because that’s all he is. That’s all Jason was at fifteen: a boy.
He kills for the first time in front of Bruce and goes home sick at the thought of another dead Robin.
Jason celebrates his twentieth birthday with a stroll through Crime Alley. He wonders if he was meant to live this long. He wonders if the Alley needed him as much as he wanted to believe it did. He wonders if his death meant anything. He wonders if his rebirth meant anything. Don’t think about your family. Don’t think about college. Don’t think. Don’t think!
It is his birthday when Robin finds him. Robin’s dead. He’s dead! He died!
Robin waits on a roof in Crime Alley, pizza box in hand with the word’s Marco’s Authentic Pizzeria printed across the top, greasy handprints a stark contrast from the off-white box.
“I’ve told Bats to keep out of the Alley,” is the first thing Red Hood says when he approaches after stalking the kid from a distance. His voice modulator is gravely, deep, threatening. He tries to take up as much space as he can to seem intimidating. Like Willis used to do before they took him to Blackgate Penitentiary. Don’t think about Willis.
“He won’t know I’m here if you don’t tell him.” The boy is suddenly in front of Jason, pizza box open to show a pepperoni pizza with a perfect oily sheen. “I brought ‘thank you’ pizza for killing that guy.” Jason is stunned, but he hasn’t had Marco’s in a long time.
A helmet is removed and a slice of pizza grabbed. There’s not a reason to worry about his identity. He wears a mask that covers most his upper face and hair. Jason Peter Todd is dead. I’m dead! I’m dead!
“I’m eating cause I’m hungry, nuthing else,” the Red Hood says around a mouthful of pizza before motioning with a jerk for Robin to take his own slice. The Red Hood finished his slice and stood to his feet, pulling helmet over his head. “If I see another bat ‘round here, I’ll shoot ‘em.”
Jason realizes he should have phrased his threat better when he returns to his base a few days later to find a tied-up Timothy Drake in the break room. The new Robin caught again. “Weren’t sure what to do with ‘im. Found him poking around. Tryna be sneaky. Kids these days,” one of his own men reports after he led Jason to the new hostage.
“Empty the room. I’ll talk to him.”
With the talk, of course, came the threatening. The “I told you not to come around here” and “yes, I know who you are” and “just because you’re not in uniform doesn’t mean you’re not a bat” and “no, it doesn’t” and “I’m not telling you how I know” and “running off without Bats is what got the last one killed” and “what do I look like, a cop?”
After dealing with this horrific interaction, Jason returns to his safehouse (an apartment abandoned by everything but mold and mice). It stinks a sour smell, a constant leaking from above soaking through the ceiling to the floors. He hates it. It’s disgusting and it stinks, and it reminds him of finding his mother on the bathroom floor. Don’t think about Catherine.
He sits on the corner of a rat-infested ottoman and hides his face into his scarred hands. A part of him has a phantom taste of the worms above his grave. A part of him can still feel the dirt underneath his nails.
When he stands, hours later, he’s sniffling and his head hurts. He wants to lay back on the couch in Bruce’s study like he used to do when he was sick. Bruce would spend the day with him and bring him warm soup that Alfred had made. Don’t think about Alfie.
Nightwing had been seen my locals visiting Gotham recently. Jason wonders what’s happening that caused Bruce to call Dick over? Did they get along better when Jason wasn’t there? Does Dick come to visit the little brother he must like. You’re not being fair. You’d taken Robin from him. Of course, he was angry.
Would it be too bad to show up at the manor? Would it be too bad to show up and wrap his arms around his big brother and beg him to love him again?
The Red Hood avoids areas that Nightwing has been seen patrolling. He was too busy avoiding Nightwing, he missed out on the other one.
Robin lands on the roof behind him. The Red Hood stands at the edge of the roof. Nightwing flies through the air like the bird he was raised to be. He is just a shadow and a blur from here, but Jason knows. He’ll always know. “I told you not to come ‘round here.” His voice is softer than it should be when speaking to someone he had publicly announced was his sworn enemy just weeks ago.
“Crime Alley ends over there.” Jason doesn’t have to look to know that Robin is pointing to the opposite side of the street. He knows where Crime Alley is. Crime Alley is his. Robin strolls forward, arms swinging recklessly as he goes. Jason notices that the boy is stiff with his swinging arms. He keeps glancing at Jason out the corner of his eyes. He’s afraid, unsure, and expectant. Even as Robin throws himself down at Jason’s feet, dangling his legs over the street down below and kicks them, Jason sees the way that Robin’s eyes do not blink. It’s a poor attempt at a recreation of something Dick would do. Does Robin look up to Dick the way Jason did? The way Jason might still do?
“Go home, kid. You shouldn’t be without bats. That’s what happened to the last one.”
“How do you know who I am?” Robin asks, turning his head to look up at Red Hood. His eyes are wet and shiny in the moonlight. “Batman says you’ve got league training. You shouldn’t be trusted.” In another life, would they be brothers? The warehouse. Joker. Mud. Worms. Talia. Why? …Batman talks about me?
“Not hard to put together,” Jason says, moving to sit by his brother from another life. He groans as he sits and his sore muscles pull at each other, and Robin laughs at the noise. “What you laughing at, punk?
“You’re like a million years old,” Robin says, laughing as he receives an elbow to his side.
“I’ll push you off the roof,” Jason threatens, grabbing the back of Robin’s cape at his nape, but all it does it cause Robin to snort and fold forward; Jason is suddenly the only thing keeping him on the roof.
“What are you doing?” a cold voice comes from nearby. Jason nearly lets go, but he makes sure to tug Robin back first before dropping the cape and looking to Dick in his Nightwing suit. What happened to the disco suit? Nightwing stands tall in the shadows just as Jason remembers.
He can’t do this.
Why did you have to be in space? Why don’t you like me? What about Tim is so much better than me that you can stand to be around him?
“Keepin the twerp from falling,” Red Hood responds, the same deep drawl emphasized by his voice modulator. He moves to his feet slowly, feeling his muscles pulling, but biting his tongue to not groan.
“Then let him over,” Nightwing says. Jason steps over to give more room to the bird to return to his brother. The bird doesn’t move.
“Don’t be like that, wing. Red Hood’s not what you and B think.”
What does B think? What does Dick think?
“He brought down your whole team!” Nightwing argues with his little brother. “He was on his way to you.”
“They were fine, and he left,” the Robin complains. Nightwing’s jaw tightens. It tightens the way that B’s used to do when Jason was doing something he shouldn’t.
“Go back to your nest, little bird,” Jason says, glad for the modulator to hide the longing in his voice. I wish I could go back with you.
“He would be a great team member.” Robin ignores what the Red Hood had asked of him, staring back at Nightwing. “He already knows who we are.”
“Robin!” Nightwing hissed.
“We’ll have to change that.” Jason full body flinches at the interruption, turning on his heel to see the Batman perching on the edge of the roof. Air shoots out his nose in half a snort at the position. You’re too old for that, B.
It becomes less funny when a pinch is felt on his neck. His pulse speeds up, and his whole body is shaking with the sound of his heartbeat. “Batman! You said you’d talk to him!”
“At the cave,” B responds.
“No,” Jason says, pitching sideways as the drug takes hold of him near instantly. He attempts to over straighten his tilt, but with it he falls to his other side instead. He grips hold of the concrete roof beneath him and pulls himself to the side of the roof. If I get off, I can pull my grapple and get away.
His plan never would’ve resulted in anything more than him breaking all his bones from the fall, but he was unable to reach the edge of the roof, nonetheless. He is lifted like he is made of feathers and thrown over the back the shoulder of Batman in a fireman’s carry.
“B, no,” he is groaning, pressing his palms into Batman’s back and attempting to push himself up. “No. Please.” Batman stiffens underneath him, but nothing else happens as a result of his pleading. “Please, B. Lemme go. Lemme-” His words start to drag together. “I dun wunna. Lemmegoyubigboob. I dun wunna-”
He’s crying when he wakes up. Tears are collecting underneath his helmet, pooling at his chin. He’s pressed himself into a cold corner of one of the cells in the cave. He wraps his arms around himself, shaking as he does so.
You need to stop, Jason Peter! No one likes a cry baby! You want something to cry about?
Baby, it’s just one more. This’ll be my last, and I swear I won’t do it again. Okay, Jaybaby?
What hurts more? Forehand? Backhand? Let me try forehand again?
You’ve been replaced. Who would want you now?
Jason Peter Todd is twenty years old when he’s brought back to the cave for the first time since his death. He is twenty years old when he squeezes bruises into his legs while curling up in the corner of a cell. He is twenty years old when Bruce’s voice comes through the speaker in the corner of the room prefacing his approach.
He was thirteen when he was picked up by Batman. He was fourteen when the adoption was official. He was fifteen when he was killed. He was sixteen when he dug himself up. He was seventeen when he was reborn. He was eighteen when he got the All-Caste. He was Nineteen when he first killed in front of Bruce. He was twenty when he was caught. He was twenty when he realized going home was much easier than he thought.
He was twenty when Bruce’s tears ran down his armor. He was twenty when Dick squeezed the air from his lungs. He was twenty when Tim’s jaw dropped and stayed that way for the rest of the day. He was twenty when he came back from his shower and Alfie had freshly friend mofongo waiting on him. He was twenty when he returned home.
“Don’t you care that I’ve killed people?”
“You’ve killed less than Dick when he first became Robin.”
“Oh… Wait-”