Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

If someone asked how it happened, he’d say it had been a buildup of things; an eye for a slight.

Though it started with a thug.

The night hangs heavy in Gotham, her skyline painted in shadows and dark clouds so thick the stars couldn't shine through. Torrents of rainwater pelted her buildings, her stones, her streets, and left everything sodden and slick to the touch. Even her carefully constructed towers of stone and wood had been weathered smooth and rotten.

His city, falling apart.

Rain hisses past his helmet, ears straining against the rat-a-tat roar of razor-sharp droplets hitting steel.

He presses himself further against the wet brick, water drenching his leather jacket, seeping into the minuscule gaps of his under armor, and dampening the clothes underneath. The roof’s short overhang provides little respite from the rain, and Jason curses Gotham’s architecture for the thousandth time that night.

He feels like a dog; a cold, miserable, wet dog, and he bites back a humorless snort at the imagery. He wouldn't want the others to hear him; they'd think he was crazy. The big, bad, crazy Red Hood, and he didn't want that.

They were getting along, he and his family. They had been working together for close to a year now, and as long as he played by their rules, he could stay. He doesn’t want to mess it up, this fragile thing they had. He doesn't know how he got it, but he'll happily take the scraps he gets and fill his magazines with rubber if it means he gets to keep it.

“Hood—” his comm screeches to life, blaring white noise, and a stuttering frequency from the city’s downpour. The noise was barely audible in the thundering drone of rain and static, but he could recognize Dick’s faux cheer from anywhere. He bet Bruce was making him patrol through the storm, too. The comm crackles, “Anything to report?”

The cold must be nipping at him if the twinge of desperation is anything to go by. Jason didn't envy him; that skin-tight suit couldn't provide that much protection from the elements, and Gotham happened to be a cruel mistress.

“Still lookin’,” he shot back, squinting in the rain. He could hardly see a few feet in front of him, let alone the streets. His vision flickers between the channels of his visor, switching to thermal and scanning the narrow alleyways below him. His comm fizzles, and he thinks he hears a disparaging sound from the other end.

The guy they were looking for was no one special; just a run-of-the-mill, two-bit crook who peddles for Black Mask. Still, he had to hand it to Sionis; he had gotten better at covering his tracks since his debut as Red Hood, and the thug they were looking for was the only potential lead they had into Sionis’s trafficking ring.

It was a straightforward job: find the guy, apprehend him, question him, and leave him for the police.

Through the torrent, he sees a flash of bright orange and homes in.

“Got him,” he radios, clicking off his comm right as Oracle’s voice sounds through the static. There was no need for backup, and he was eager to get out of the rain.

He digs the hook of his grapple into the grate flooring of the overhang he's sequestered under, wrapping the rope around the thin fencing for added support, and swings down to the alley below. His boots land against the pavement with a loud, wet thud, and the rain pelts harder against him without the buffer. He has to dig his heels into the concrete to keep from skidding, but he remains upright.

It wasn't as graceful as Nightwing, or as calculated as the new Robin, but it was all Red Hood, ragged and raw, and the man whips around at the sound.

Veiled in rain and darkness, Jason pinpoints the exact moment the thug sees him, and savors how his expression twists from guarded curiosity to sheer terror. The streetlights glinted off the red of his helmet, and the man’s pallor grew pale at the sight, eyes wide in fear like a deer in headlights, a man who had just seen a ghost.

Hah, a ghost. Ain’t that the truth?

“You’s the Red Hood?” The man mutters, more of a statement than a question; it was barely audible in the downpour, but he’s just able to pick up the sound, along with the quiet, panicked string of curses that left the thug’s lips as cold realization set in. No criminal wanted to meet the Red Hood, not if they preferred their bones unbroken.

Jason contemplates answering, maybe with a sarcastic remark, or one of those ill-timed quips his replacement seems to love so much, but decides that the resounding silence is far better. He’s always had a flair for the dramatics, and the way the thug’s jugular jumps with fear makes it worth it.

Instead, he takes a slow step forward, leisurely rolling his boots against the concrete and shrugging the rain off his armored shoulders.

The man swallows thickly and stumbles back, nearly pressing against the brick wall. “Yeah, you’s the Red Hood alright.” He mumbles, awkwardly coughing into his fist and reaching a shaking hand to fumble through a ratty jacket pocket. “You, uh, workin’ with the Bats now, huh?”

It was almost casual if Jason ignored the tightness in the guy’s voice, the slight waiver betraying him. The guts to pretend this was a normal, pleasant conversation between friends were enough to rip an incredulous, barking laugh from his throat.

The only noise that came through the modulator, however, was a garbled burst of static, a snarling sound. The thug presses himself further against the wall, chuckling nervously, and scrambles through his pocket, eyeing Jason’s armor and helmet in a manner so obvious that he has to bite back an amused huff.

“Wouldn’t do that,” Jason tuts softly, like scolding a disobedient child. The reprimand freezes the thug’s frantic fumbling. For a moment, the man’s eyes dart between Jason and the dark expanse of the alley, weighing his odds. He must think there’s still a chance, because Jason catches the glint of silver—a pistol—just before pinning the man against the wall, disarming him before he can even pull the trigger.

The gun clatters to the pavement, slidingly uselessly across the alleyway, and lost in a pothole, overflowing with runoff. Jason presses the thug’s hands against the brick, feeling the thin bones shift under his weight as he pushes and leers closer. He can see the man’s face in the bright scarlet reflection of his helmet: gaunt, wide-eyed, and trembling.

“Big mistake,” Jason hisses through the modulator, nearly indecipherable among the static and pouring rain. The thug damn near whimpers, squirming against the wall like a cockroach, but Jason’s forearm keeps him still. The guy wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon, not until he was done with him.

“I know you work for Sionis. You can talk now, or,” Jason drawls, roughly grabbing one of the thug’s wrists and pulling hard. The joint clicks and makes a loud popping sound as it’s dislocated, though the resulting pained yelp drowns out the sound.

Jason had to give the guy some credit; most low-level crooks would be crying by now.

“I don’t know nothin’, I swear!” The man chokes out, big-eyed and gasping for air. “Sionis’ll kill me if I talk.”

He shifts his forearm to the thug’s collarbone, gently pressing against the edges of his windpipe in a none-too-implicit threat. “You should be more worried about what I’ll do.” Jason tilts his head forward until he is certain the only thing the crook can focus on is the glint of his helmet, a symbol. “Where is Black Mask?” He asks, slowly punctuating each syllable.

If the guy wasn’t crying before, it sure looked like he would be soon. The man bares his teeth, gaze darting from left to right as if salvation would appear from the shadows, and save him from the Red Hood’s clutches. He can hear his bated breaths, feel his pulse racing through all the heavy layers of his gloves and armor. It’s almost endearing, and Jason appreciates the sentiment, even if no one was coming.

“I can’t, I—” The thug’s jaw works, “You’s workin’ with the Bats now! They don’t kill—you can't kill anyone no more!” His eyes flicker with a sliver of hope, and Jason can practically see the gears churn as he clings to it like a starving, mangy raccoon to a garbage bin.

Jason’s grip slackens, lessening the pressure just enough to let the man breathe. He tilts his head slightly as if he were genuinely considering the thug’s words, taking a brief moment to savour the way he squirms under his grip; a meek house mouse caught in the talons of a vulture. It’s the little things he relishes in, and it's almost enough to soothe the coiling frustration mounting in his chest, steadily compounding into fury.

He isn’t wrong, even if the admittance makes his insides boil with a feeling he can’t quite name—the Bats don’t kill. Therefore, he doesn’t kill; he’s bound and muzzled like a good soldier ought to be. They have a mutual thing going on, and it’s the only way they’ll keep their foot in the doggy door when he inevitably crawls back. They told him that killing’s the easy way out, and a carefully restrained, sardonic part of him can’t help but agree: it would be much easier to ring information out of this guy if he still had the reputation and leverage killing provided. Every working man knows that broken bones heal, and bruises fade, but death’s always been a little trickier to come back from.

But he wasn’t that person anymore; that’s the crazy Red Hood, a misbegotten monster risen from the pits, and he wasn’t Batman’s son.

He wasn’t Batman’s anything.

His pause seems to give the man confidence, however meager its foundation, and he shoots the Red Hood a mocking, albeit shaky smile, exposing a mouthful of crooked teeth. “Yeah, you’s just like them now. Batman’s bitch—”

Without warning, Jason slams the thug’s head into the wall with a gloved hand. A loud thump resonates from each hit—once, twice, thrice—followed closely by a fourth final crack of bone and brick that instantly silences the crook’s chatter, replacing it with a stammering wheeze. The man slumps against his arm, eyes rolling into the back of his head as blood trickles from his nose and temple.

His face twists into an ugly sneer under the helmet, and he suddenly pulls back, letting the man fall to the pavement in a soggy wet heap. It’s an injury that’ll certainly hurt come morning; serves him right.

At the very least, he has the courtesy of propping the man’s head above rising water, lest he have the less-than-dignified death of drowning in a rain puddle. His castle, this fragile thing his family and he have, rests on pillars of salt and sand; one vicious, vengeful wave and everything will come tumbling down.

The thug’s barely conscious now, mumbling incoherently as blood intermingles with the rainwater pooling around them, turning a ruddy shade of red and brown. He’ll live, and that’s good enough.

The growl of an engine cuts through the hymn of the rain, and Jason doesn’t even need to turn around to know who it belongs to. He lets out a sharp breath, inaudible through the steel of his helmet and braces. A half-second later, he barely hears the quiet thud of boots sloshing in the water, followed by a thick shroud of what can only be disapproval layered with disappointment.

Then, a voice: “Was that necessary?”

It’s low, even, and unmistakably Bruce.

Mustering every ounce of Nightwing he can, the eyes on Jason’s helmet narrow into white slits, coy and teasing as they turn toward his new arrivals. “I was wondering when the cavalry would arrive.” It’s not a very subtle dodging of the question, but he doesn’t intend it to be. Either way, the comment does little to ease his spiking blood pressure. He can sense the impending lecture looming, delicately constructed pillars trembling.

“Was that necessary, Hood?” Bruce repeats, lips twitching downward from their perpetual scowl.

Jason snorts, his helmet’s modulator twisting it into a snarl. He sees a small flinch somewhere behind the cape; he hadn’t even noticed his replacement was here. The more the merrier. He manages to keep his next words smooth and composed, all silk and lace over broken glass. “I got the job done.”

“Not like this,” Bruce’s jaw clenches, and the way he says it makes him sound far older than he is. He steps forward, rain plastering the dark cape to his frame, lenses raking over the beaten thug as he takes stock of his injuries. “We don’t do this.”

Jason’s gaze flicks to the twitching form on the pavement, then back up with a light shrug, water dripping from his helmet, rat-tat-tat. “You weren’t going to get anything out of him. He was more scared of Sionis than us.” His breaths heave with something tight, not quite anger, but rife with growing tension, the hush before a gunshot. “What was I supposed to do? Play nice and hope he cooperates?”

“And your solution,” Bruce’s brow furrows under the cowl. “Was to fracture his skull?”

“He’ll live.” He mutters, and he hates how pitifully defensive it sounds.

“We might lose our way into Black Mask’s ring.” Bruce’s voice dips deeper, tiptoeing on budding exhaustion. “Our mission is about control, not cruelty. We don’t use violence and fear to—”

“You don’t use violence and fear the way you should,” Jason interjects, teeth gnashing behind the mask. “They’re all convinced they’re safe as long as they play your game, but they aren’t scared of you, not really, so they just keep coming back.” His words are biting, and Bruce’s silence fuels him further. “It’s not enough anymore.”

Maybe it was at one point. Fear worked for the old Red Hood, the mad one, and he didn’t make empty threats; he followed through, and everyone cowered and listened. He dismantled whole empires inch by inch to make way for his own, and all it took were a few heads in duffel bags. Fear only works alongside punishment, and afterwards, a guiding hand. Spare the rod, and spoil the child.

Bruce’s head tilts in the direction of the crook. “And brutality is?”

“We’re built on brutality, old man.” His helmeted gaze meets Bruce’s, even if his own darts to the side. Gotham’s very foundations are born from violence, ranging from pier to pier. She chews up her citizens and spits them out broken. Rich or poor, saintly or obscene, the reward is the same: to be ground against her teeth. “Sometimes it’s the only thing that works. Sometimes they don’t deserve your mercy.”

He’s treading dangerous territory. One wrong move and he’ll go under, the door kicked shut. This isn’t about the two-bit thug anymore, and they both know it.

A long, stifling silence passes between them, broken only by the storm raging overhead. He half expects another lecture, another round of the everyone-deserves-redemption spiel, but it never comes. Instead, Bruce’s voice cuts through the storm, firm but quiet.

“Don’t do it again.”

That’s it. There are no threats, no harsh reprimands. It’s a simple command laced with tired familiarity, spoken in the same weary manner someone might tell their dog to get off the furniture, and something bitter and hot twists in his throat. He wonders, just for a heartbeat, if Bruce says that to everyone.

Did the Joker get the same warning, whispered in that same low tone, before getting hauled back to Arkham, just to do it all again, repeat ad nauseam?

Jason huffs, sharp and small. “Whatever you say, Batman.”

Bruce turns to his replacement, nudging him toward the thug. “Get him to Gotham General.”

His replacement hesitates, gaze idly wandering back to Jason. He isn’t sure what the kid’s looking for—regret, guilt perhaps—or maybe he just doesn’t want to approach closer until Jason leaves. He wouldn’t be surprised; it’s the most logical conclusion, but his replacement eventually nods all the same, slowly crouching beside the crook to lift him.

Without further fanfare, Bruce stalks back into the alley, the Batmobile’s engine purring in the rain, and Jason watches him melt back into the shadows.

He exhales, hard and shallow, and tilts his head to Gotham’s cloudy skyline.

Chapter Text

The night is cold and slick with water, rain noisily pattering against the brilliant cobble archways of Arkham Asylum. The wind nips at his fingers through the leather of his gloves, and spurs prickles of goose flesh where slivers of skin meet the chill.

Jason idly adjusts his jacket, popping its collar to sit higher at the base of his neck. Shadows shift under his gaze, stretching beneath the sickly pale flicker of the floodlights strung from every dark corner of Arkham’s exterior, bathing the crumbling stone in stark luminosity. His gloves brush against the wall, tracing patterns into the grout as he stalks the perimeter, boots sinking into thick mud that sticks to his heels with each step. The air stinks of cheap antiseptic and the sour reek of sewage, an odor so deeply ingrained in the brick that even the downpour can’t scour it away.

Somewhere, within the highest security wing of the asylum, soft laughter snakes through the halls, colored with madness, and something like dread creeps down his spine.

This shithole is the last place he wants to be.

He normally doesn’t do Arkham runs. Patrols are left for Bruce more often than not, maybe Dick or his replacement once every blue moon, but never Jason. They think he’s too volatile, a dog that gnaws on the narrow bars of its crate, drooling on its paws over the slightest hint of violent, vigilante justice turned vengeance. Besides, His cell lies at the center of the old building like a cancerous knot; they think proximity to it will bring the worst out of him.

They phrase it in a plethora of polite manners and cushion, but he can see through their veneer of niceties: the asylum irritates his constitution, it’s a place of trauma rather than healing, it compromises his judgement, or whichever therapy speak they decide to use. The linguistics doesn't matter. There are only so many ways to say: WE DON’T TRUST YOU.

The message is abundantly clear. They might as well have written it in big, bold letters on his forehead.

Regardless, Jason’s not complaining. He hates Arkham; the only reason he’s here tonight is that no one else was available, always the last choice.

The asylum is a mausoleum for the living, stone wet with algae, pocked and flaking, and the mortar between bricks eroded by decades of relentless weather. The floodlights hum and spit, but between each beam of light is near complete darkness, murky enough to hide in. He edges along the shadows, eyes moving from barred window to barred window. Some of the openings are pitch-black, others emitting a flickering, jaundiced glow. Nameless, two-bit goons occasionally peek from the gaps of the bars, peering outward with a dull, sedated vacancy that makes his skin tighten.

Dick had wanted to send him here once. How much medication would they have given him till he was pleasant and docile?

His breath comes faint and inaudible through his helmet. It’s nothing they have to worry about; he’s better now. He’s not the big, bad, crazy Red Hood anymore. He plays by their carefully constructed rules and tries not to kick too much sand out of the sandbox.

He rounds the northern corner of the building when a square of light suddenly winked at him from an east wing window; the high security cells. The gleam shifts, and he sees a terribly familiar face jut from behind the bars, silhouetted in dim light.

A scratchy, lilting voice calls out, easily cutting through the torrent of rain: “Psst! Hey, bucket-head!”

Jason freezes, instinctively pinning himself flat against the wall, eyes narrowing into thin slits beneath his helmet.

“Yeah, you! C’mere a sec.”

Harley Quinn leans sideways against the bars, her bleached face pressed to cold iron. Her blonde hair is damp and stringy under the faint light, the once bright blue and pink of her pigtails faded to a dull wash. She flashes him a large grin, exposing a line of pearly teeth as though she were seeing an old friend.

Just his luck.

The smart thing would be to keep walking and pretend he never heard her in the first place, but she’s waving him down now, exaggerated and insistent, and her voice carries unsurprisingly far in the night air. She’ll draw much unneeded attention with her incessant hollering, both guards and inmates alike, and the last thing he needs is some disgruntled officer filing a report detailing how the Red Hood was caught consorting with criminals; a sloppy mistake like that, and he’d never hear the end of it.

His hand itches toward his pistol, brushing along the smooth steel. Rain crawls down the seams of his helmet in thin rivulets, dripping from the jaw to pathetically pitter against his jacket.

He hasn’t been very lucky yet, but who knows? Maybe she’ll tire herself out.

“Don’t be a wet blanket, Red. You’re makin’ me feel like I’m talkin’ to a gargoyle.”

Or not.

“Keep it down.” He hisses, the words nearly indecipherable through the staticky growl of the modulator.

Harley simply tilts her head at his response, blinking innocently, but her smile grows a fraction wider. “Oh, so he talks! C’mon, come a little closer. Ya’ know the acoustics in this dump are garbage.”

She reaches a hand through the bars and excitedly motions him over as though she’s trying to coax an animal from under the porch, prompting a quiet, exasperated noise from Jason. Nonetheless, a short chit-chat is better than her disturbing the whole asylum.

Reluctantly, he obliges her request, peeling himself from the wall to step toward her ramshackle window. Up close, he can smell the sugary traces of her hair dye through the filters of his helmet; an old, cheap solution interfused with the sterilized perfume of Arkham. The interior of her cell is little more than a concrete closet: a small cot bolted to the wall in such a hurried manner that it’s a marvel it hasn’t fallen apart, a grime-laden toilet in the corner, and walls painted a chunder green. A single bulb dangles loosely from the ceiling, it’s weak glow pooling at her feet.

He exhales, tone laced with vexation. “Go back to bed, Quinn.”

“Bed? Hah!” She snorts like it’s the funniest thing she’s ever been told. “Ain’t you a peach! I knew it was you. The big, scary Red Hood, struttin’ round out here like a guard dog. You get tired of fightin’ bad guys and figure you’d finally check yourself in with the rest of us crazies?”

She throws her head back, teeth rattling. “Well, I don’t recommend it! The food here’s terrible, Red, but I admire the initiative.”

He can’t help but roll his eyes, even if she can’t see it. He’ll be sure to send his regards. “I’m working.”

“Workin’ real hard walkin’ in circles.” She jabs, twirling her hair around a slender finger. “What’re you doin’ skulkin’ ‘round here really? Thought mean ol’ Batsy didn’t let you within spittin’ distance of the funny man’s cell.”

His expression twists into a scowl, head cocking, but something about the action appears to rouse her further, hands eagerly clenching at the bars. “Oh, oh! You springin’ us all out? That’d be a hoot! We’d owe you big time, Red!”

“Not happening.” He interrupts. Best shut down that line of thinking before someone overhears. He’s not keen on receiving another lecture so soon.

“Shame. Some of us were startin’ to think you were one’a the good ones.” Harley pouts, gently resting her cheek against the bars of her cell.

Jason shifts, rolling rainwater off his shoulders. “That's supposed to be a compliment?”

He’s not sure how much the acclaim is worth coming from one of Gotham’s most wanted, but a minuscule part of him can appreciate the sentiment.

“You tell me! You’re not exactly playin’ with the other birdies anymore, are ‘ya? Last I heard, you were droppin’ bags of heads on people’s doorsteps! That kind of violence is respectable ‘round these parts.”

His jaw tightens. “That was a long time ago.”

“Pfft. You think anyone cares about time? Time’s soup in here, sugar. It’s the act that counts, and those live forever. Lemme tell ‘ya, there’s a few fellas down the hall—names you’d know—who say you had the right idea. Quick, clean, didn’t leave too much trash layin’ around for the cops to trip over.”

Harley spreads her arms wide, vaguely gesturing to the ceiling above her. “You had your name in lights! Everyone was talkin’ about you, and ‘ya threw it away.”

The words hang in the crisp air like smoke, too dense to ignore, but too acrid to breathe.

“Threw it away,” He repeats slowly, voice flat. “Is that what you call it?”

Beneath the shadow of her lashes, the harlequin’s eyes glitter with amusement. “Sure I do! You had somethin’ real goin’ there, Red. Gotham’s got a million freaks runnin’ around, but you—?” She leans as close as she can, a crooked smile cutting across her cheeks. “You were the freak that freaks talked about! That’s somethin’ special.”

Jason scoffs, the sound a stiff snarl through his modulator. “Not interested in being special, just trying to clean up this city.” From people like her goes unspoken, but he’s sure she understands the meaning well enough.

Harley giggles, sharp and derisive. “Cleaning up? Darlin’, you ain’t a janitor, and neither’s the bat. You’re a wreckin’ ball in a leather jacket.” She taps the brick frame of her window with a chipped fingernail, lowering her voice as though she were telling him a particularly tantalizing secret. “And that’s what I like about ‘ya. You feed rats to rats.”

He leans one shoulder against the damp stone, looking up at the slit of moonlight shining just past the asylum’s roof. “I’m not one of you.” He tells her, spitting out the sentence like it left a bad taste in his mouth, because he wasn’t. He’s better; everyone says so. It’s the reason he’s allowed to roam rather than rot in a padded cell. If a dog bites, correct the behavior or send them to the pound. It’s an easy answer, and for a dog, anything is better than a cage.

“Aww, sure ‘ya are! Maybe not the whole package, but…” Harley coos, her demeanor softening as a doctor might with any troublesome patient. “You’ve done worse than a lotta folks in here. Only difference is that you got a bat on your Christmas list.”

Rain slides from the eaves, dripping against his helmet. She’s crazy. Why is he still talking to her?

The silence drags a beat too long, and it only seems to bolster her more: “It’s the only way change happens, tin-can. If you want something, you have ‘ta take it yourself; carve it out with your own bloody hands if you have too.”

His laugh is sudden, bitter, and barking. “Change happens slowly.” He says, but the words ring hollow as soon as they pass his lips; it sounds fake—an expression regurgitated a thousand times over. Slow change feels noble when uttered by the elite; a slogan easy to sip coffee to while reading about another string of murders in the newspaper, content to know that it will never happen to them. However, in the streets, in the alleys where those things are happening now, it reeks of a principle no one wants to bleed for. How many people have to suffer today to feed the hope of a tomorrow they may never see?

Especially when something can be done now?

Harley narrows her eyes at him, an unreadable expression decorating her face. “I s’pose it does.”

Jason pushes off the wall, readjusting the set of his jacket. Before he turns to leave, he adds a curt, albeit stunted, “Enjoy the rest of your night, Quinn.”, even if she doesn’t deserve it.

“You too, Red! Try not to think too hard, it’s bad for the complexion.” She chirps, her voice following him as he rounds the corner. “And bring me a Bat Burger or somethin’ won’t ‘ya? I wasn’t lyin’ about the food!”

Chapter Text

Crime Alley, formerly Park Row, is swaddled in a sodden mist, the kind that clings to the brickwork and hangs low in the mouth of every alley, cloying and opaque. It’s late enough in the night, veering into the early morning, that even the bars are shuttered closed, accompanied only by the occasional flicker of a dying neon sign. Below the fog, the streets are slick with runoff, each of Jason’s steps damp against the wet pavement.

He’s sure it’s a bizarre sight: the Red Hood treading ground like any ordinary man rather than clinging to slippery rooftops, but it’s a necessary handicap. Bats and birds alike prefer higher ground, and he didn’t want any nosy rodents sniffing around his business. It’d be a major pain in the ass if one of them swooped in to cuff and jail the only reliable lead he’s found in days.

Though semi-reliable may be more accurate depending on where loyalties lie.

Mick “Two-Eyes” Ralston had never been the best shot, or the fastest runner, or most cunning, but he had once been the most loyal of the Red Hood’s Merry Men, even if Jason had to pull him out of the gutter whenever their operations went sideways.

He had believed in Jason’s cause and, more importantly, believed in the Red Hood; he could count on Mick to hold a corner, keep lookout, or slam a nail-studded baseball bat into a rival gang leader’s legs without so much as a second thought. If Jason told him to kick in a door, Mick wouldn’t ask who or what for; he’d just kick. Mick had a simple kind of loyalty that didn’t need dramatic speeches or flair to keep alive, and that was enough. It was an easily exploitable loyalty, but devotion like that was invaluable, and Jason had appreciated it immensely when initially squabbling for a foothold in Gotham’s underbelly.

But time tends to change things, change people, and it certainly changed Jason. He knew what he was leaving behind when he decided to flock with bats: a power vacuum, and a gang of vacant, penniless goons with little places to go. His Merry Men scattered like cockroaches when the playing field switched, fleeing from the Batman and the potential retaliation of other gangs now that they weren’t under the Red Hood’s protection. Jason had tried to keep tabs on them all, turn them toward the straight-and-narrow before his sudden departure—old Diana’s bakery, a soup kitchen, anywhere—but it was a task easier said than done. Few respectable places want to hire people associated with the brutal Red Hood, whether out of fear of the Red Hood himself or retribution from his long, long list of violent detractors. Eventually, he lost track of his Merry Men entirely, vanished like ghosts in the streets.

Mick was one of the last to disappear. Jason used to catch glimpses of him occasionally, roaming in the distant, darkest corners of the Alley, where even bats were reluctant to roost—nursing a beer under the guttering awning of a dingy bar, mumbling with other small-time crooks and thugs about schemes that never managed to get off the ground.

At a point, even those rare sightings stopped, and the streets presumably took him the same way they took everyone else. Jason assumed he was dead, maybe rotting in Blackgate if he were lucky. So, when his old burner phone had buzzed with that peculiar phrase, scribed in big blocky letters: The wolves are hungry, he almost ignored it. It’s a life Jason left behind for a reason. He shouldn’t be consorting with criminals and gangs anymore; Bruce’s unregulated paranoia would blow a gasket, and Jason would inevitably be benched for the near future.

However, it’s a tottering phrase, one taught to his lackeys if they ever needed to get into contact with him, and he can’t help but hold some lingering fondness despite his better judgment. His rag-tag gang of Merry Men had been good to him, and Mick’s voice had sounded so urgent over the phone, pressing and insistent. The least he could do was answer.

Their allotted meeting place is, by design, entirely unremarkable. The streetlamp ahead spills a meager cone of yellow light into the mist, dust particles dissipating in the air. A derelict-looking yellow payphone sits beside it, its pocked exterior streaked with rust. Its receiver dangles by a fraying cord and sways lightly in the damp breeze, recently used and warm to the touch. Leaned against the small booth is Mick, sporting a too-big, ratty jacket, and a face half-hidden by the brim of a ‘Gotham Knights' baseball cap.

He flinches when Jason takes a purposeful stride forward, the sound dreadfully loud amongst the silence, and abruptly looks up to see his own hollow face in the crimson glint of Jason’s helmet. A brief moment of recognition flashes across Mick’s expression, and his posture suddenly straightens as though he were meeting a drill sergeant; old habits die hard.

“Boss,” Mick greets, voice scratchy from the cold and cigarettes. Something in his eyes gleams with warmth, and Jason is nearly blindsided by the sheer awe in his tone. The word is startling yet pleasant in its familiarity, but Jason refuses to let himself sink into that easy lie. He’s not anyone’s boss anymore.

He’s—Batman’s bitch—gone straight.

“Not your boss,” He absently corrects, standing just at the edge of the streetlamp’s light. His head idly tilts to the side as he fully rakes over his unlikely companion. Mick’s smaller than he remembers, wiry to the point of brittleness, with a chapped lower lip that the other keeps worrying between his teeth, a few noticeably missing. He kind of reminds Jason of an old set of clothes his ‘ma accidentally left out in the rain one too many times, threadbare and worn.

He used to be quite the charmer, always grinning up at Jason like trouble was a joke they were both in on. The grin is gone now, and something deep in Jason’s chest churns uncomfortably.

“You look like shit, Mick. What happened?” The comment escapes his lips without a second thought, but Mick doesn’t look offended in the slightest, mouth twitching upward into the traces of a smile.

“Life happened. You step off the ride, but it don’t stop movin’. It just leaves you in the dirt.” Mick shrugs, hands snug in his jacket’s pockets. “Black Mask picked up most of your old routes. Startin’ pullin’ in anyone still breathin’ and desperate enough to work for scrapes soon after.”

Jason shifts. He could see where this was leading.

“And you were desperate enough?” It’s phrased more like a statement than a question, but there’s no trace of accusation. People will do anything to survive, run with any one gang or another if it means making ends meet. Jason didn’t fault him for that, yet he feels a spindle of contrition snag around his throat, sharp and biting.

He could have done something. There’s no doubt that crime creates jobs; crime pays, and the money puts food on the table. The Red Hood could be helping people, really helping people, but instead he’s leaving them to the cops for what—to die in prison, or do it all over again once they get out, fishing for scraps? Is this what Batman’s justice is, punishing the weak and downtrodden for having nothing else to turn to?

Regardless, it doesn’t matter. The new Red Hood can still help, criminal empire or not.

He has to.

Mick chuckles, low and joyless. “Desperate enough not to starve, sure, but I ain’t blind. You were really one of the good ones, Boss—uh, Mr. Hood. Once you leave the game, everyone smells blood in the water. Sharks started circlin’, nobody could trust nobody. So, I ran jobs for whoever’d have me. Mostly Black Mask, till I saw somethin’ I don’t think I should’ve. Too big to keep my nose in.”

“Which is?” Jason prompts.

Mick leans forward slightly, voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper as though anybody might stumble and hear them, a fox scenting hounds. “They got a warehouse on the east most end of the Alley. Not just street-level peddlers either—heavy boys regularly movin’ stashes in and out. Real hush-hush.”

Interesting. Any lead into Sionis’s affairs was a welcome one, but…

Jason studies him through the narrow slit of his visor. “Why tell me?”

Mick’s mouth twitches, not quite a simper, not quite a grimace. “Because, when you startin’ stickin’ with the bats, Boss—”

“Not your boss—”

“We got left high and dry. It was nothin’ personal, I know, but some of us ended up where we didn’t want to be.” His eyes look past Jason, into the broad expanse of the road. “I figured if I hand you somethin’ good, it’ll be my ticket out, and you’ll get the smack down on Black Mask. Like old times.”

Like old times.

The words land heavier than Jason cares to admit, and only steadies his resolve. It's a win-win scenario; he gets another lead into Sionis’s operations, and Mick gets a potential out. It’s beneficial for all parties involved, provided that he’s telling the truth.

“Two-Eyes,” Jason steps closer into the ring of lamplight, boots scraping on the sidewalk. “If this is a trap, you’re not going to like what I’ll do to you...”

He won’t do anything, he can’t. Bats don’t kill, and he’s sure they both know that, but Mick nods regardless, fog curling between them.

“It ain’t.” Mick’s reply comes quickly. His hands are trembling, but his eyes glint with tired enthusiasm and, under the grime and jitter, the thrill of a hunt. “Swear on my momma’s grave.”

Jason tilts his head, but a small smirk graces his features, hidden under the helmet. “She’s still alive.”

Mick actually laughs at that. “Then I swear on yours, Boss.”

He doesn’t bother to correct him, letting out a short-lived snort, the sound a static growl through the modulator. If only he knew he’s not too far off.

“Alright,” Jason tells him, meeting his gaze. “Show me.”