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Chapter Text

Gotham city - 3:32 AM

Two thugs are loading the back of a moving truck with TV’s and expensive technology from a tech store in the dead of night, faint neon lights hitting their backs. Their feet hitting the deep puddles from the earlier day's rain.

“Hurry man before Batman comes!” 

The shorter thief whispers to the other as they stand on either side of a big TV.

“We’ll be fine we just need to get this into the van and john needs to hurry the fuck up” The other thief replies as they place to tv flat in the van, wrusltling in the store in the background.

Just then the sound of purposeful footsteps can be heard in the dead of night, on top of the store building. They look up in awe to see, not Batman, but the red hood.

Red Hood stands there for a moment as the red in his jacket and mask outline him in the dark contrast of the night sky, crowbar in hand.

“Oh shit!” 

The shorter thief yells reaching for a weapon, pulling out a worn out Colt 1911, but before he is able to point it upwards a pairing of blades in the shape of red hoods symbol slash his face.

As the other thief tries to make a run for it as the now hurt thief clasped his hands to his face and squirms, Red Hood then drops down from the short building, Firing his grapple gun at the running thugs left leg, making him faceplant into a dirty gotham puddle, red hood pulls the trigger on the grapple gun forcing the grapple to try to come back to the gun but just drags the thief closer, punting the thief into the vans back wheel with a thud.

“Stealing from a small business? Not surprised, it would actually take work to try to break into some shitty big box store” 

Red Hood says smugly as he holsters the grappling gun and runs to upcut the shorter thief, making him fall back onto the gravel in the alley.

“Fuck you! You're not scary, not since your bat dad took your toy guns from you-” 

With that Red hood kicks the thief in the face knocking him out, feeling a tinge of anger and bitter acknowledgment. Red Hood throws a small silver ball at the foot of the back door where the thieves were taking stuff, it pops laying sharp small objects on the ground. John, The other thief runs out into the alley, somehow not hearing the commotion outside and slipping and hitting his head knocking him cold out.

“Oracle to Red Hood, Police are close you should get out of there”

“Don't need to tell me twice”

Red Hood then grapples up the building and onto another, and keeps going deep into Gotham far from the previous crime, but closer to new ones. Crime has been steady since batman made a stop to Bludhaven and is staying there for a week to help Nightwing, Now Gotham is left to the rest of the batfamily to defend, Jason staying up the latest.

Jason gets on his motorcycle and drives past several buildings including Wayne enterprises and a new W.T Homeless Shelter, The fourth one built in the last 2 months. Jason drives past these shelters every so often, Their sleek white modern architecture putting him off… It's good that more shelters are being built, he thinks to himself but every time he passes by one he gets an odd feeling. Jason drives underneath the big clock tower entering the garage, getting off his motorcycle, then heading off towards the elevator pressing the old button ignoring the cobwebs on the sides of the elevator entrance.

The elevator door slams open, now at the top of the clock tower, a hit of air hits Jason in the face as he walks out of the elevator and takes off his mask, pulling his red hood down, The AC cooling off Jason's skin from the grim weather of Gotham, stepping onto the wooden floor and approaching a computer with a shit ton of monitors.

“Hey bab’s!”

“Hey Jason, You calling it early tonight?” Barbra aka the Oracle says in a sincere tone because Jason has already been out too much.

“You could say that, Im swooping by to steal chocolate milk from the mini fridge”

“I would hope so, you're the only one who drinks it”  Barbra responds not looking at Jason but typing away on the computer as he takes a carton from the fridge.

“So, Any update on the grey homeless people’s autopsies?”

“No nothing yet, no autopsies for any of them either, it's kind of weird”

“Okay thanks, Goodnight Babs” 

As Jason almost turns to walk away a prompt comes off on the bat computer

“Killer Moth: Active Robbery - Ace Chemicals compound”

“Oh shit, this should be easy, I'll head there right now”  Jason says abruptly, now turning towards the elevator.

“Jason its fine i can just call Tim, he was dealing with penguin but he should be done now” Barbra says whipping her head to face Jason

“No, It's on my way back to my place anyway” Jason says as he's now fully in the elevator, he can hear Barbra sigh with a tinge of laughter as the elevator door closes.

Red Hood, now back on the road, heads quickly towards the ace chemical compound and gets there quickly to see a killer moth-shaped hole in the window on the compound's side, facing the street. But Jason sees in the distance, killer moth flying away, but awfully slower than usual, his bright purple and green suit flowing through the air sporadically, sparks flying behind him. Red Hood locks his eyes on killer moth and speeds up on his motorcycle on the dark lonely Gotham road, no cars in sight on this long industrial district street. Red Hood approaches killer moth slowly and slowly, suddenly killer moth jolts his head back as he's grasping onto the jet pack’s straps. Red Hood also tilts his head in confusion to see killer moth holding a dark purple duffle bag, presumably inside is what he stole from the compound.

“GET AWAY FROM ME!” Killer moth shouts looking down at Red Hood chasing him on his motorcycle, Killer Moth then starts shooting his blaster at Red Hodd, Bright green lasers coming out of hit hitting the road below as Red Hood swerves out of the way.

Red Hood knows he only has his grappling hook, redarangs (Red Hood shaped batarangs) at his disposal to try to take down killer moth.

God i wish i still had my guns

“Get down here moth! I AINT GOING ANYWHERE” Red Hood shouts back as they then suddenly speedily approach an intersection

Fuck!

Red Hood pivots around the semi truck speedily coming in front of him as he quickly rides on the sidewalk for a second, dirt being kicked up. People in the distance are not even batting an eye at the flying colorful moth person and the red guy on a motorcycle with a crowbar in hand.

Cars beep and the people inside squirm, near all the tall buildings that are around them there is one shorter but large one, a hospital. As Red Hood throws a rederang at killer moth’s arm that is holding his blaster, it pierces through moth mans hand making him drop the blaster, Moth man then takes the opportunity to crash through a second floor window of the hospital, Red Hood slides his motorcycle onto the sidewalk parking it there as he quickly runs over grabbing the blaster and grappling up to the broken window. Red Hood enters a hospital room through a window to see an old wrinkly man with a confused and slightly angered expression sitting upright in his bed to his right. Small box TV with rust on the side blaring family feud at what sounds like its max volume but really isn't that loud.

“Sorry!” Red Hood says rushing out of the room.

“Get the hell out of here, costumed freaks!” The wrinkly old man yells, voice frail from probably decades of smoking.

Red Hood sees a trail of blood and nurses and doctors dispersing to his right, and down that hallway Killer moth is running and he turns the corner to his left, People jumping in shock at the sight- Red Hood follows as people look at him in shock, whispering to each other.

Red Hood turns the corner to see Killer Moth running towards a door labeled “Staircase”

Oh no you don't

Red Hood then shoots the blaster at killer moths back, using his own weapons against him, causing killer moth to crash through the staircase door and crash into the wall forward into the staircase. Red Hood runs into the stairwell ignoring the people around and enters, the door closing behind him, Killer Moth is trying to get up but Red Hood hits Killer Moth in the ribs with his knee swiftly sending him back into the wall slumped over sitting up, Red Hood now stand over him, crowbar in hand, blaster in the other.

“What would you possibly be doing stealing from ace chemicals moth? You're not exactly the chemist type.”

Red Hood says focused, pointing the curved end of the crowbar at killer moth’s head.

“I cant- I'M NOT telling you!”

Cant? What does he mean by… cant tell me, is he being forc-

Just as Red Hood almost finishes that thought Killer Moth springs up in the air using his now obviously damaged Jet pack, Red Hood tries to grapple him down quickly but killer moth ascends the stair case bumping into walls on the way up.

Killer Moth is acting stranger than usual.

Finally Red Hood chases killer moth to the roof, As Red Hood reaches the roof Killer moth is already in the sky, but Red Hood takes the shot and shoots at Killer moth’s jet pack, and with a loud ZIPLACK! Killer Moths crash onto the roof, Jet pack destroyed.

“God Damn it NO! It was supposed to be upgraded” Killer moth says frantically trying to get up kicking up gravel from the roof, then the sound of the roof door closing is heard and footsteps come closer to killer moth as he turns around.

“I don't know who upgraded your stuff but it didn't work”

“Shut up!”

Red Hood chuckles to himself and spins the blaster on his index finger, He slowly takes steps towards Killer moth before Killer moth points his right fist at him a little device on it with a yellow clock  with a green circle surrounding it on the side of the rectangular mostly purple device, Suddenly what looks like a sound wave shoots out of it, it pushes Jason back a little but that little gust of sound doesn't seem to be its main function.

“Nice sound beam asshole” Red Hood says annoyed at getting hit by it.

“Not a sound beam”

Killer mother exclaims like he's under pressure and nervous, like he's running out of time.

 As Red Hood is about to run and slide into Killer Moth, a ton of large moths fly towards Jason from the edge of the hospital. People scream from below and it sounds like there are more coming as the first wave flies directly at Red Hood.

Oh no

Red Hood tries to swat the insane amount of moths away but they keep flying at him, they hit his skin that's exposed because of his sleeveless jacket, his hood flies back and they hit the back of his head and his exposed forehead.

As Jason is about to release a smoke pellet and jump out of this with all the strength he has, he's hit with a memory very suddenly and vividly.

There's a moth under the table with him, as he hides away from all the yelling of his dad yelling at his mom, he can't remember what it was even about, either it was about the drugs or about money.

It was probably about money

It probably didn't even make sense

It doesn't matter, he stared at that moth for hours.

Jason starts to fall into a panic in the present, almost getting hit over, he can hear more moths coming up, he needs to get out before that. He pulls out a smoke pellet and smashes it on the ground and quickly dives out of the moth tornado, escaping the moths flying in that direction. Red Hood sees killer moth now leaning over his jet pack, that he took off trying to fix it, getting increasingly more frustrated now hitting it with his fist.

“Ow!” Killer Moth cries out after hitting the jet pack.

Red Hood takes the opportunity when he's distracted and slams his crowbar into Killer moths helmet, shattering it, exposing killer moth's right eye in the moonlight. When he's hit his jet pack falls over, which gives a domino effect, hitting the dufflebag over, and as killer moth lays there on the roof stunned, Red Hood opens the duffle bag to reveal… vials of brown and light brown chemicals?

“What is this?”

Red Hood says angrily gripping Killer Moths shirt

“I Don't know!”

“It looks to me like it's some of cranes OLD experimental fear toxin, WHY would you be stealing that!”

Red Hood's voice picks up with determination for answers.

Someone must be forcing him to steal this, he isn't some high level criminal like the joker or even scarecrow, Why does ace chemicals even have this?

“I don't know!”

Killer Moth pleads as Red Hood puts up a threatening fist.

“You wouldn't steal this shit on your own, someone must have paid you off, or are you being blackmailed?”

“They- They’re forci-”

BLAM! Killer Moth is cut off by a loud sound and not even a second later, a bullet flies through Killer Moth’s right eye, making him unconscious instantly, Blood splattering on Red Hood’s mask. Red Hood quickly jumps out of the way, and looking behind him to the opposite building, A sniper glint appears for a second before going away, Theres is a dark silhouette on the building across before the silhouette is replaced by a sudden flash of blue light going in and out, a faint WHISPA! Sound can be heard from a distance.

They must be a teleporte- OH SHIT MOTH

Red Hood quickly gets his attention back to Killer Moth, quickly picking him up and rushing him down the stairs to the nearest doctor he can find as they wisp him away,

Seeing death isn't new for Jason but he knows what happened to some honestly harmless criminal like killer moth wasn't justified, getting him to steal those chemicals weren't justified either, he needs to find who's behind this, is it the teleporter or someone bigger?

Jason can hear GCPD rushing up the stairs as he collects the dufflebag and grapples away, escaping a confrontation with the police, Gordon might have a back and forth with batman but not even the commissioner likes Red Hood

Who would like the guy who actually put a stop to those criminals and drug lords years ago? Shit… Hopefully moth will be okay, he's never even really hurt anyone in his whole criminal “career” just poorly stole and failed every time he fought Batman. 

Red Hood arrives on the point where he saw the sniper disappear, there’s a tripod on the edge of the building. No traces of anything else.

Gotta get out of here before the cops and doctors come

“Oracle to Red Hood? What the hell just happened?”

Oracle calls into Red Hood as he rides towards the clock tower dufflebag strapped on his chest, She sounds slightly annoyed but more confused.

“Moth got-... Ill tell you once i get to the watch tower, gonna need to run some tests on these vials, ill explain later”

Red Hood says, breaking through the Gotham traffic, the jittery orangeish street lights beaming down on him as he drives, kicking up small puddles from the drying up rainfall.

He arrives at the watchtower, taking the ride up to the top of it for the second time this night, but now with a new found curiosity, for who could possibly need old, possibly un-usable fear toxin.

“This is weird, This is like early early stages of Cranes fear toxin, it probably doesn't even work the same way his latest or strongest version of it has” Barbra says confused sitting in her wheelchair beside Jason, Both of them watching the analyser do its job.

“Yeah and im wondering why the hell ace chemicals has it?-”

Jason is cut off as Barbra quickly wheels to the computer.

“Wait there's a new CEO of Ace Chemicals after the previous guy died from a heart attack, now his… Son is running the company? This guy looks to young for a job like this”

“He got the job because he’s his son, you think they care about qualifications? Look he went to Gotham university for marketing”

Jason says annoyed and extremely tired, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Im gonna head out”

“Yeah you know what me too”

Jason and Barbra then go to the garage where they now are just walking out of the elevator.

“Jason, you need to slow down”

“Huh?” Jason starts walking extremely slowly.

“No I don't mean literally” Barbra chuckles to herself wheeling towards her car before looking back at Jason.

“I mean you’ve been pushing yourself too much ever since Bruce has had to stay in Bludhaven to help Dick, Don't push yourself, I see how you look at those cases”

“There's been 30 cases all similar, That's 30 cases too many”

“Yeah but I'm not the one overextending myself, Have a good night Jason”

“You to Babs!”

And with that Jason rides into the night, finally going home crashing straight into his old creaky apartment bed, Ceiling fan spinning ever so slowly as the TV plays whatever show is the fastest he could turn on to be in the background. TV noise used to drown out the sounds from crime alley at night when he was a kid… guess it's just a force of habit.

Jason wrestles with sleep through the night, Some nights are easier than others but most of the time he sees the same imagery

Under the table

Crowbar

Joker

Mom not waking up

Bats

Biggest Failure

Darkness

Red Shoes behind the garbage

All of this just makes him angrier, reminding him of Batman not saving him in time, Him not killing the Joker, The Joker even still being alive.

No i forgave him for that what am i thinking, Stop Jason

No if Joker di-

He cuts off his thoughts, shutting them out as he puts the TV louder.

Chapter Text

The sound of metal on skin can still be heard years later, Jason still feels it years later.

“Will you shut the fuck up for ONE night!”

An old woman’s raspy voice that sounds like a sentient pack of cigarettes comes from the ceiling. 

Jason wakes up tired rubbing his eyes, even though he slept a good 5 hours his eyes feel like he slept 2. He drinks water from a bottle on the scratched nightstand he got from the side of the road with one small lamp and a battery powered candle with its batteries out beside it.

Asides from the nightstand and the other found furniture, Jason’s apartment is pretty clean, Almost too clean, it's probably the nicest interior of an apartment in crime alley, Jason has the money to move out of here, he does have all that money from when he took over the iceberg lounge a couple years ago, Even Bruce has suggested finding a place elsewhere, But Jason feels at home- this is where he grew up and even if it brought him so much pain, maybe red hood saving one kid from being killed or one drug dealer by being in crime alley will stop someone from having to live as fearful as a life as Jason did when he was younger.

Jason opens his closet to change out of his ragged pajamas and looks at his outlaw jacket, the red sleeveless jacket he has been wearing for a good while, it's torn up from the moth swarm last night.

How did moth get that tech? Hopefully he's not dead, Oh shit who was the sniper. At least I get to deal with this alone without getting swooped into “Batman business” like an alternate personality that wears a bright outfit kidnapping me…

Zur-En-Arrh took over Bruce a while ago and Zur kidnapped Jason, but it's okay Jason forgives Bruce again… at least he thinks. Zur kidnapped Jason because he HAS killed in the past.

Ironic Bruce's backup personality still viewed me as a threat to justice or whatever..

As Jason thinks he looks to his right to see another jacket, a different one, a never before worn dark brown jacket with red seams and a red hood, Jason puts it on and it fits perfectly, Jason fiddles with the pockets and feels a piece of paper

“ Merry Christmas Red :)

• From your best bud Roy Aka the most awesome man alive Aka Arsenal from Arsenal and his team of outlaws”

Jason was gonna wear this but didn't just never did, He guesses now is no better time then never. He puts on his Red Hood mask and full costume on, now with the new jacket, hood up and crowbar on his back. He heads out dropping down onto his bike.

Have to check out the sniper sight now, GCPD definitely got there already but could probably easedrop… the true detective work

Gotham midday is eerie, similar to other cities on the outside but when you look in, a lot of the buildings block the sun, the gothic architecture collapsing some parts in the city in darkness at different periods in the day. As Jason rides towards the building he's just about to exit crime alley when he sees, across the street from an old ladies hot dog stand, there's two people hunched over on a brick wall, as Red Hood gets closer he sees they are moving oddly. Red Hood parks his bikes and runs over to them to see if they are okay.

Please be okay, i have Narcan on me thankfully

“Hey you two good?”

As Red Hood gets closer the stench of death creeps closer and closer clogging his nostrils with it. What the fuck is that smell?

“Hey are you two good?” 

Red Hood asks calmly but with a raised tone so they can hear him, they both hear him.

They both at the same time slowly move their heads towards Red Hood as they stand up, the clothes they are wearing are beaten and cut. Their faces, are completely grey, the colour in their hair slowly turning grey as well, their expressions devoid of thought. Instead of responding to the red guy they dart their heads to the ladies hot dog stand.

They start darting towards her, running across the street, one makes it across, Red Hood is right behind him though.

The other guy is not as lucky though, He is hit by a speeding truck right as he's about to get to the other side, being thrown onto the sidewalk sprawled out with a loud thump and cars honking.

Oh shit!

Red Hood knows he doesn't have time though, The other one is charging at the hot dog lady. The overwhelming smell of death hits Red Hood once again when he grapples with the charging grey man and kicks him in the back, knocking him down right in front of the hot dog lady's feet.

“Oh no!” The lady screams, backing away with fear. 

Before Jason can reassure her and make sure the guy is fully knocked out the other when gets back up and charges at Red Hood, As the previous grey man tries to swing his fist at Red Hood he ducks, just then the other guy that was just knocked down gets up. Red Hood kicks the back of the one charging at him with an emotionless fist knocking him into the newly gotten up man. They both now lay on the ground after going down hard, people on both streets watching with confusion but a lot of them running away.

Red Hood cautiously walks up to the pair that are laying next to the hot dog stand, both are not moving at all, Red Hood uses his foot to turn one of them over, revealing their grey face, they looked dead before, but now they might just be. Seconds later it's confirmed though, watching with shock Jason sees dark red gas escape both of their mouths, Jason steps back not knowing what could happen if he ingests the gas, he then hears police sirens in the distance.

This… This is what those reports were about, the 30 homeless people that have died or gone missing since Bruce left, all died this way, red gas, smell of death, grey skin… but the police have been just reporting them off as overdoses because…

Then as Jason is caught in his though, he sees why they have not been reported as what they are, and the gas and skin thing has only been reported by witnesses, the two peoples on the ground's skin start to change, back to their normal skin colours.

There's blood coming from one of their noses, Red Hood holds his breath as he takes a sample of their blood into a vial. He has a feeling they're dead but he has to check, he checks their pulse and just like he thinks, there's nothing.

Red Hood runs across to his bike getting out of there.

This needs to stop, those people… they looked emotionless like they weren't thinking about what they were doing, unless… they weren't thinking at all?

Red Hood rides past a bunch of people trying to look at the commotion as the cops arrive, He rides past a large building with a huge sheet over that people are peering at as well. 

“Red Hood to Oracle are you in?”

Red Hood says passing through cars through traffic rapidly.

the morning sucks, this can't keep happening…

“Hey Jay i just got into the clocktower”

Barbra responds calmly after a good 10 seconds.

“Good, I need to analyze some blood. Those reports were true, two…”

Jason takes a pause to process through his anger, that this could happen, that how long this happened, only in two weeks did 30 innocent people get taken, no 32. That's not acceptable. After everything that's happened since Jason has stopped killing and came back to Gotham after leading the outlaws, it's just made him feel like a looping event of villains coming in and out of blackgate or arkham, just so they can go hurt more innocent people, sure some stay in there longer but just in the last 2 months both Joker, Professor pyg and scarecrow escaped, Scarecrow escaping underground probably still under arkham and Joker… who knows.

“What is it Jason?”

“The homeless people that turned grey and did one crime then died mysteriously right after, two just tried to attack a lady right in front of me randomly and then when i stopped them… they just died there, just another day in Gotham i guess”

“Oh no… that's horrible, the reports were right i guess then, you should definitely come to the clock tower, anything else about them seems unusual?”

“Yeah they seemed almost emotionless, like they weren't even thinking for themselves, there was this red gas coming from them when they died too”

“How strange, maybe they were infected with some mind control thing and they were targeted because they were homeless, we’ll find who did this, you did good Jason”

“Thanks barb im only 5 minutes away”

“Ok ill see you then, Dick’s giving me a call, but update me on anything else you got when you get here”

5 MINUTES LATER

The analyzer scans the blood, its little arms pointing blue flashing lights on the blood vile.

“So it looks like it has similar properties to scarecrows fear toxin but a very early strand of it, i don't think the properties of it would even cause that much fear, it also has traces of a strange type of blood… that also has some form of toxin in it? The fear toxin is intruding on being able to read what type of toxin but with more looking into it the analyzer could possibly find it”

Barbra says looking at the screens of the bat computer as the blue light reflects in her glasses, Jason still standing over the analyser.

“You think this could be scarecrow, like he's trying to infect people to just cause chaos and the people doing the crazy stuff will cause fear in turn? Like he sees it's easier to make a weaker strand and cause fear naturally and make people spiral? I don't know”

Jason says with a little confusion in his voice as if only half believing what he is saying as he just tries to decipher what is even happening.

“I mean chaos isnt usually Cranes M O but its an okay guess, this must have something to do with what killer moth was trying to steal before he got shot right? Here let me try to cross search to see if the stolen old toxin matches with the one in the blood”

Jason moves over as Barbra rolls to the analyzer and places the vial of the older fear toxin that was in Killer Moth's duffle bag the second slot on the analyzer and she presses a sequence of buttons that Jason doesn't 100% know what they do.

“I mean yeah probably, but if crane was trying to get more of his own chemicals, why couldn't he just make more himself, more that are stronger and who would shoot killer moth because of that, scarecrow doesn't really have “rivals” in gotham compared to other villains”

Jason says calmly hands on his hips as he watches the vials start to spin in the analyzers contraption, then as they spin the screen below pops up, green flashing on Jason and Barbra’s faces

“Match Found” Is said on the screen.

“HaHa! I knew it!” 

Barbra says proudly with a smile as she then wheels back to the huge batcomputer.

Jason then quickly thinks.

“Hey, why would cranes old fear toxins be in an ace chemicals warehouse? That doesn't make sense he never even worked for them”

“I dont know its really weird, would have to ask him yourself to see even where he would have left more old versions of his fear toxins”

And just then Jason gets an idea, maybe he does have to ask scarecrow wherever he is, ever since he broke out of the asylum he has not been reported to be seen anywhere, he could even still be near arkham.

“Barb you think Crane is still in arkham?”

“My best guess is he would be underneath it in the sewer system past where killer croc lives, back when bruce was trapped in arkham he found a little spot past there with a sleeping bag and stuff, I wouldn't be surprised even he found his way down there-” Barbra says casually before slowly turning to look at Jason with a concerned expression.

“Please dont tell me your thinking of going down there”

“I mean… There is a slight chance he COULD have a hand in this and even if he doesn't he could give information on where the toxin could have originated from, like if he had secret stashes he made years ago and who could have access to them.”

As Jason says this Barbra sighs and closes her eyes putting her index finger and thumb to her temple.

“Okay fine Jason but if your going down there take the sewer that leads to it just outside arkham and remember to take the line launcher, There will also be guards with a huge gate blocking off crocs section of the sewer, your gonna have to sneak past the guards then sneak past crocs, go down into the secret area and hope Crane is even there”

“If this even helps to stop those innocent people from dying in doing it”

After 10 minutes Barbra talks through where Jason would need to go from the sewer to reach crocs gate, Jason takes the mini line launcher from the armory chest and puts it in his inside jacket pocket.

Jason then leaves the clock tower prepared and determined but also… tired. The lack of sleep for the last days, months even have been draining, and they just have picked up as the reports of people going missing or turning up dead. 

The morning sun beams down on Red Hood as he drives towards where the entrance to the sewer is, the light only breaking with the tall all encompassing buildings. 

20 Minutes later

Jason looks down at the manhole cover that was previously covered by grass in a clearing next to the wooded areas of arkham. 

Oh this is disgusting

Red Hood lifts up the manhole cover and places it beside its hole, going inside gripping the grimy ladder with his gloved hand, making a disgusted face underneath his mask, as he goes down a couple steps he covers the manhole cover back up and drops down fully into the sewer hitting the sticky floor as he look to the left to see the sewage flowing, humongous sized turds flowing through the dark green water.

The sewer never smells better… i wonder why, if i just had my helmet i could probably block some of this smell out but oh well, at least i just have to sneak around till i get to the gate to enter crocs area

Red Hood follows the water that is flowing coming from killer crocs section of the sewer, he clocks that that's who is making those… Shits. Eventually he gets to a larger section of the sewer and the tunnel on the right of him is even more open than the others, he pops his head to look in for a second before going back and listening to hear 4 or so guards, 3 of them standing on a wooden platform covering the sewage line below and right in front of the platform is a huge black metal gate with a arkham logo on it and “DO NOT ENTER” in big red text. There is though a door to the left corner of the big gate, it looks like it hasn't been opened in a while or ever. The sewer line below also has metal bars on it, letting the sewage pass through but keeping out the croc inside.

The last guard is in a booth presumably a security booth, she is dead asleep. The booth is to the left of the closed door. 1 of the arkham guards pace around the platform as the other two play cards to the very right of the platform on a table that looks like it was brought from someone's patio. 

“Guys can you let me sit… my legs getting tired”

Says the guard that's pacing around in an annoyed tone staring down at the floor.

“You don't want to sit on the floor John?”

One of the guards sitting down says with his new york accent as he throws down a card.

“No i dont want to sit on the fucking floo-”

“Go wake up kelly and tell her to get out of the booth then” The other guard says unbothered as she throws down two cards

“Also UNO bitch!”

Red Hood pulls out a rederang (batarang but its red hoods symbol) with a small blue box in the middle of it, the activator for an electricity current, he throws it across from him to the other side of the tunnel that goes into where the guards are.

“Uh, what the hell was that!”

John the tired guard says as he slowly paces to where the sound came from, the other two guards stand up as well the sound of their chairs screeching on the grimy wood. Red Hood presses up more against the sewer wall… that was a mistake, he backs up a little bit as the guards go over to where the rederang is, backs turned to Jason.

“Looks like a batarang”

The uno winner guard says confused.

“Thats not a batarang its not even a ba-”

Then with that last word the three guards see with wide eyes as the rederang shocks the ground with red electricity and flies upward away from them, leading them farther away from Red Hood and the gate.

“Hey get that thing!”

The rederang keeps bouncing away like a frog in peril just nearly escaping the three guards chasing after it. As they chase Red Hood sneaks onto the wooden platform, going towards the security booth and crouching down, he opens very slowly to see the guard sleeping in the chair.

This better not wake her up

Red Hood pulls the chair slowly out of the security booth gliding the chair and the guard onto the wooden platform, then he goes in and unlocks the door. The guards in the distance seem to be coming back though so he hurries up and goes into the door but not before putting the guard back into the security booth.

Now he is in crocs territory, it looks just like the normal sewer but when Jason turns his head and looks at this side of the huge gate, it's covered in scratch marks from head to toe. Water drips from the stone ceiling, a relic of old arkham architecture. 

Okay i just need to get past this area, just left, right and then straight and i should find the secret door.

Red hood moves up and to his left passing through another tunnel and to get to the other tunnel on the right there's no walkway, he can't try to jump over the sewer water but that could be bad if he falls in, line launcher it is, he just has to hope killer croc doesn't hear it.

The lights in this section are dim, like they haven't been changed in a while, they are also dark green, giving an even more eerie feeling then not knowing where croc is as the water bubbles in different places of the sewer water.

Killer croc please dont knock me off.

Jason thinks in a sing-song voice in his head as he whips out the mini line launcher and launches it across to the side to the left of him where he needs to go straight with a ZIIIIIIIPK, as he hangs from the line launcher going over the nasty green water and hitting the curved wall with a thud.

Have to find crane, he has to know something he HAS to, whoever is doing this has to pay.

Jason thinks as he walks slowly down the croc infested sewer, sometimes his brain still slips, thinking that the world would be a better place without some of these villains, there's some like polkadot man who really have never done anything crazy but the joker…

Jason snaps out of it focusing on the task at hand and after sneaking for what feels like forever, he sees a dead end and a green door, this must be where scarecrow is hiding.

There's a noise coming from the water. Something moving deep beneath it, Jason stops moving.

Croc has to be under there, i just gotta stay still, he's been getting scarier ever since he's started growing more and his brain is getting worse, i think thats why they threw him under the asylum, but thats just means he more unpredictable

As he slowly moves towards the green door, the water down and to the left of him bubbles more and more, whenever he stops it stops, whenever he moves it moves. Jason is now a couple steps from the door, He quickly opens it as it creeks and the water bubbles up even more and as it closes quickly behind him something large starts splashing in the water.

Oh thank god

Just as that thought comes to Jason's mind he turns around to see a narrow tunnel, a wall made of dark grey brick and looks like it hasn't been touched in ages, dust everywhere. The tunnel is decently long, he starts walking down, the longer he walks the more light comes into his view a dark orange light that looks like it must be omitted from a singular bulb filling up the tiny room.

He fully gets to the end and is greeted with imagery of an old bed with a sleeping bag on it, cobwebs under the bed frame. Jason approaches slowly as he hears mechanical noises coming from deeper into the room, the doorframe he is standing in to the very left of the room.

Jason reaches and pulls out his grappling hook in case he might need to disarm crane or whoever is inside this room. He fully steps foot into the room grappling hook pointing forward, as he enters the room he sees it's filled with old pipes and a single light bulb on a string coming from the ceiling, the ceiling dripping water in some places.

Just on the very right side of the room though is a man, a short man with a scarecrow mask on humming to himself, back turned to Red Hood unknowingly, He's wearing a orange jumpsuit, presumably the one he escaped arkham in, obviously didn't get that far out of here to get newer clothes, but from this angle Jason can see his is wearing his signature gloves, with needles on the ends of them, tubes filled with a brighter orange liquid, presumably a makeshift fear toxin and not anything close to the toxin that found in the homeless people's blood. He's standing over a metal table working on something that seems to be a circular machine with what looks like speakers, maybe something to distract croc so he can escape from here?

Red Hood gets a little closer quietly stepping deeper into the room. “What a nice place you’ve got here Crane”

Red Hood says abruptly but loudly to get Crane’s attention, which it is successful in.

“WHA-” Scarecrow yelps loudly in shock, getting extremely scared as he picks up a taser that's on the table beside a dirty cup of water.

I wonder where he got that from… yuck

He whips the taser to point it at red hood before he even realizes who is confronting him, Red Hood instantly shoots his grappling hook disarming scarecrow making him fall down on his hands, the taser flying towards jason he catches it and throws it on the bed.

“I feel like this is worse than arkham, not being able to go outside cus theres a big ol croc out to get you, that must suck”

Crane stands up quickly, extending the needles from his gloves, he looks bewildered and confused, pushing his back against the metal table like a scared dog.

“Wha- What the hell are you doing here! How did you get here!”

“I walked”

Red Hood says casually shrugging his shoulders as he puts away his grappling hook and cracks his knuckles taking two steps towards scarecrow.

“Your gonna answer some questions for me though crane, then your going back in arkham”

“NO! I'M GETTING OUT OF THIS LITERAL SHITHOLE!” Scarecrow yells as he points his needle ended finger at Red Hood.

“You know killer moth?”

Red Hood asks calmly as scarecrows eyes show from underneath the mask, he's confused.

“Wha- Who?”

“Yesterday he was shot right through the fucking skull trying to steal a earlier version of YOUR fear toxin”

Red Hood pulls his crowbar off his back and points it at scarecrow menacingly, his tone becoming harsher as he speaks a edge to his voice coming out that hasn't come out in a while.

“I DO NOT know what the HELL you are talking about Red Hood but what i know is i have to get out of here and if i have to use you as bait for croc then i will!”

Scarecrow exclaims backing away more but just walking backwards into the table again.

“Okay, so you have no clue how your toxin could have gotten into a ace chemicals compound”

Red Hood says sternly as he moves in closer, foot splashing in a puddle on the floor.

“No.”

“Oh stop bullshitting me crane before i knock that potato sack of your fucking head! Did you have an old stash of older fear toxin somewhere? Did you tell anyone about it?”

Scarecrow for a second looks like he's thinking about it and looks down at the ground, but he quickly shifts his demeanor to an agitated and aggressive state as he quickly shifts and picks up the large circular metal device off the table and starts running towards the small tunnel and door to leave.

Red Hood is faster then scarecrow though and he fires his grappling hook at scarecrow as he runs, zip kicking to him, punting him into the wall right next to the tunnel, the circular object falls on the ground and shatters into pieces, the top dome parts of it coming off exposing wiring inside.

“NO!” 

Scarecrow screams as if he's just been trapped in hell, nuzzled up on the floor, one of the vials on his left glove half empty.

Jason looks down to see he's been stabbed, a little bit of fear toxin is in his system.

“YOU’VE RUINED EVERYTHING, BUT AT LEAST ILL KILL YOU, that fear toxin should be entering your system by now, losing control and only feeling the complete and utter feeling… of fear”

Little does scarecrow know though, Jason is only angrier than he once was when he got here.

Scarecrow stands up as Red Hood’s vision starts to turn blurry with a shit ton of red, Scarecrow tries to lunge his way towards Red Hood once again, this time with both hands extended trying to stab him.

Jason’s anger takes over him, Crane has hurt so many people in the past and even recently when he escaped arkham and put numerous guards, nurses and other people in danger, injuring few of them, when he put fear toxin in drugs, tested an enhanced version of fear toxin on children, all horrible things, things he should be killed for, Jason would never drive himself to that point again though… would he?

Red Hood dodges the attack quickly by dodging, ignoring the bat in the corner of the room, goes all the way behind crane in the matter of not even a second and proceeds to suplex him into the doorway of the tunnel leading to the green door, all the vials on scarecrows left glove shattering on the ground as he goes down, scarecrow goes flying after hitting the ground getting closer to the green door.

They both stand up facing each other, there's only one way for scarecrow to run, and it might just be to his death.

Scarecrow can sense the anger coming off of the red hood, not knowing what to do now with one weapon down.

Red Hood takes a slow step forward as he raises the crowbar and hits his palm with it menacingly.

“Talk Crane NOW!, who do you know who could have access to ANY of your old fear toxins???”

This fear toxin better now…

Just then as Crane fidgets with the green door handle in the corner of Jason's eye, in the shadow of the tunnel he sees a faint vision of his mother and distant yelling from his father.

“Jason honey ju-just go under the table okay?”

No it's not real, no-no snap out of it…

Jason takes another step towards Crane.

“Do you know who the sniper is scarecrow? Did you leave some of your experiments at Gotham University behind huh?”

“I can tell it's affecting you! Don't step any closer!”

Red Hood pushes through the vision, a crowbar flying at his face, but all he sees is scarecrow and he starts to walk faster and faster, until he get to the door but just then scarecrow opens the green door and runs out into the croc infested sewer, sprinting down the walkway, sewer running on the right.

“Answer me Crane!”

Red Hood says grunting as he fights off the effects of the fear toxin, it wasn't a lot of it and thankfully it's not as strong as his normal fear toxin but it's still affecting him. Red Hood throws a redderang at scarecrows lower thigh, it gets stuck in him as he yelps in paint.

“I'm here cus your mother owed me money!, too bad she overdo-”

Says the dealer wearing a gold watch as he holds up a knife to Jason's face. Red Hood pushes the dealer back as he fades into orange dust, eyes still on scarecrow.

Crane shuffles up as he walks forward more, pulling the redderang out of his thigh, it hits the ground with a clank!, the water bubbles.

“Your gonna get us kille-”

“Oh yeah!? 32 people are DEAD because of something to do with YOUR toxin”

Scarecrow turns left and starts running, the only thing echoing in the sewer is there footsteps and heavy breathing, and something moving under the water, Red Hood turns the corner and in his head starts seeing orange fog, but he pushes it away, wearing out some more of the fear toxin as crowbars and needles flow through the sewer water slowly disappearing under it.

Red Hood starts running at scarecrow, the line launcher can be seen in the background a little ways in front of them, He nearly approaches scarecrows back before scarecrow launches himself backwards positioning his right hand with the needles to attack.

Red Hood grabs scarecrow's lower arm avoiding the needles and brings it down to his raised knee and with his right elbow breaks scarecrow's arm out of pure rage with a huge CRACK! Echoing through the sewer, Jonathan screams in agony, his broken humerus poking through his bleeding antecubital fossa area.

Oh shit! I shouldent i hav- oh who gives a fuck arkham is right above us he’ll be fine…

He kind of deserve’s it 

Red Hood proceeds to lift crane up and dangle him over the calm sewer water, scarecrows feet just nearly hanging on to the edge, hoping not to be dropped in.

“Who knows about the old fear toxin?!”

Red Hood says angrily holding the collar of scarecrows arkham uniform with only his left hand.

“I- I hid some fear toxin years ago, underneath my of-office in gotham university years ago! Let go!”

“Who knew it was there!? TALK!”

“I on-only had one friend there who i-i told- his name is Charles Allen! He runs the place now!”

This makes sense now, that's the father-

Cranes blood drips into the sewer water….

- of the kid who's the CEO of ace chemicals now, are they trying to hide where the toxin is coming from? Is one of them doing that fucked up stuff to the homeless people? Why? Who's making the mix of chemicals that actually controls them? Are they just storing them for someone else and trying to cover their tracks, leading me on a wild goose chase?

“Thanks Crane, have fun going back to arkham”

Red Hood says smugly as he reels his head back to knock Crane about but just then, Crane swings his not broken arm, still with needles at Red Hood and instinctively or subconsciously on purpose Red Hood lets go of Crane’s collar and ducks, Crane swiping through the air above his head, making him loose balance of the edge.

As Crane falls into the sewer water, before he hits it, it feels like slow motion as Red Hood watches the mountrous form of killer croc leaps out of the water and bites down on Crane’s chest dragging him down into the sewer water as he screams are muffled by it. Crocs tail goes all the way down into the water disappearing with Crane.

He got what was coming to hi- no i gotta get the fuck out of here before he circles back for me- oh fuck this is bad

Red Hood quickly runs over to the line launcher line that he used earlier and uses it to get over to the side and runs quickly to the door he entered in as in the distance splashing in the water is heard, it could be killer croc dealing with Crane or he could be circling back, Jason does not want to know which one is correct. He gets to the door and swings it open that's connected to the big gate, the same door he entered into.

Once he enters the safe area of the sewer and the door closes behind him, he sees the floor change in a split second. Red Hood just entered a corner of crime alley.

“Hey Jay! Marcus just-” the kid wearing bright red shoes and a tattered superman hoodie coughs while saying looking at Red Hood but he's not looking at his eye level, then another kid appears walking through Red Hood.

No, No i dont want to see this, dont remind me- fuck… no its not real

But Jason doesn't fully walk away from the scene, he walks to the side to see as a little Jason Todd approaches the other kid.

“Billy put that down, it's not good for you!”

The kid version of Jason says concerned putting his hand on little Billy's shoulder.

“But Marcus said it will be fun to try”

“Billy that's a drug, my mom do-does it and it hurts her, something that can hurt you can be put in it i think, ju-just throw it away”

“No, it's mine! Marcus is bigger than us he knows better”

Billy says defensively in an upset tone and he backs away from Jason, grasping the little baggie with a white substance in it.

Tears well up in Red Hood's eyes.

“He's a dealer! Adults don't care about us!”

Little Jason says pleading trying to come closer to Billy is like taming a scared dog who doesn't know it's about to be attacked by a predator lurking in the woods. 

“No!-”

Red Hood turns around not being able to be forced to watch his past event that scars him till this day.

But as Jason rounds the corner of crime alley, hoping the effects of the makeshift toxin to wear off him he's just greeted by another alley, but this time there's a trash can.

Tears start streaming down Red Hood's face but are blocked by his mask, he starts fidgeting with his hands scared to walk past the trash with the bright red poking out from the bottom behind it.

Red Hood hears something behind him though, the sound of cans being picked up and thrown into a plastic bag, Jason remembers the time as a kid when he would go around picking up cans to bring them to recycling for money, this was the last time he did that though.

Little Jason walks through Red Hood and looks at the trash can for a second before slowly walking and seeing what is behind it, little Jason stands frozen for a second unable to move, a look of despair and utter shock on his face, Red Hood sees little Jason move whatever is behind the trash can and become even more scared. Little Jason moves away from the trash can running through Red Hood once again but this time he's changed, and sees something that won't be the last of its kind. Red Hood sacredly walks past the trash can trying not to look at Billy.

Jason starts walking faster and faster hoping for this nightmare to end, and just then a ladder appears going up into nowhere, he climbs the ladder to feel an invisible man hole cover which he opens and puts to the side, sunlight hitting his masked face instantly.

He climbs up all the way to where he first entered the sewer, his bike still parked where he left it originally but there's someone standing beside the bike waiting.

“Red! What the hell happened? Oracle’s been trying to reach you for a while”

Robin says as he pats Red Hood’s shoulder casually with a smile that slowly fades into a look of worry and confusion seeing blood splatter on Red Hood’s brand new jacket, but also realizing the look of shell shock underneath the mask.

“Are you okay?”

“No Crane hit me with some toxi- I- I think he's dead…”

“What the hell happened down there!?”

“I was interrogating him, holding him over the water… he tried to swing at me and I ducked and lost him, then he was about to-to hit the water then killer croc swooped up on him and… i couldent do anything he was already deep in the water and croc has grown massively… i don't know”

“What! Hold on ill call Arkham to see if they can search the pipes or whatever for some sign of life if Crane escaped, Hey Oracle!”

Robin explains the situation to Barbra as Red Hood still stands there recovering for a second from having to see Billy again, a thought that hasn't come to his mind in a while, in his dreams, in his flashbacks, it's always his mom he sees, waking up as a kid and seeing her slumped over on the couch with a needle still beside her. But Billy hits Jason differently, it's someone he still blames for not being able to save, for letting him run off after Jason said not to do the drugs… if those dealers were to just…

“Apparently Arkham is already in a frenzy so I don't know they said they were going to check, she said they sounded frantic… are you sure your okay though? Did you see something in the toxin?”

“Yeah… just some stuff from when i was younger no biggie lets just leave its fine”

Robin looks at him like he doesn't fully believe him but goes along with it anyway, They both walk to the bike side by side.

“The fear toxin is screwed up… you shouldn't have had to see whatever was down there, but as long as your okay thats what matters, also your gonna have to give me a ride to the clocktower, I glided all the way over here, not a good decision”

“Fine, I really didn't mean to drop Crane though you know that right Tim?”

“Yeah it's all right, there might have been something you could have done but if it was a split second it was a split second, and croc has been growing and his brain has been getting worse and worse for months, and plus he might still be alive, those pipes in the Arkham sewer are huge, he could have escaped”

“Maybe”

Jason says as they peel off the gravel back towards the center of Gotham moving away from the wooded area. Hoping his brother would believe that he didn't mean to drop Scarecrow, I mean why shouldn't he believe him? He didn't actually mean to right?

Chapter Text

“Mom, can we go to the museum? I want to see Wonder Woman's sword again!”

Little Jason says excitedly to his Mom as she sits on the dark red couch stained from years of spills, the faint smell of alcohol lingering in the room at 1 pm on a Tuesday. Catherine Todd sits there exhausted, bags under her eyes as the sun coming in from the window hits the right side of her face staring at the TV still wearing her 7/11 workers outfit, the sun casting a shadow as it goes through her dark black hair that hasn't been washed in probably 3 days.

“Sure jay we-”

“Can dad come? He didn't come with us last time, It's my birthday tomorrow!”

Catherine tries to put on a fighting smile on her face looking down at little Jason Todd, she closes her eyes in frustration not wanting to tell the boy how much she despised his father, the only love left she had in her was for Jason, but even at some point that left too, not mentally, but because she later on wouldn't be able to be a source of happiness for Jason anymore.

she couldn't tell Jason about Willis being a goon penguin that would ruin him, but it did even when he was older, she protected him when he needed it the most, her addiction conflicted with that sometimes, but nonetheless she tried.

She holds up a can of beer to her forehead with her eyes closed to feel the coldness of it, she puts it down then looks at little Jason again.

“Hes busy Jaybird, I'm really sorry… we can go after my shift tomorrow dont worry, i saved up some money too, you can buy a souvenir if you want.”

“Really!? Thanks mom!”

Catherine Todd rubs little Jason’s hair with a smile as he chuckles, police sirens are heard in the distance going away from them, just a normal occurrence in their everyday life.

Jason wakes up and rubs his eyes as his red comforter falls off him, he thinks to himself he must have slept for a VERY long time because he got home near 5pm after going to the clocktower and explaining the situation with Barbra and Tim.

Barbra was able to confirm Charles Allen, a man that is shaped like an egg with legs and arms, with a poorly colored beard and greying hair now runs Gotham university and they also found a faculty picture of him pictured right beside Jonathen Crane.

The bigger question here is who is the toxin being given too? And who creates the substance that is able to control and who administers it or gives it to the homeless people?

Jason remembered what the people who were attacking the lady at the hot dog stand looked like, skin completely pale, reminded him of the joker but he remembered joker reportedly ran off to ethiopia, theres only cctv footage from the airport runway but it seems to be true. There was also the smoke that emitted from them once they died, Jason couldn't put his finger on where he saw something like that before but it was vaguely familiar as well as the smell.

Jason picks up his phone immediately as he wakes up but before he can read the several messages and missed calls he has, a call pops up quickly on his screen which reads

“Star”

On the phone is a picture of starfire cropped from a selfie of the first version of the outlaws, Roy and Jason cut off in the picture.

“Hey star”

“Red! How are you and how is Gotham?”

“Um, shitty as per usual”

“You or Gotham?”

“Both”

Starfire laughs as a smile appears on Jason’s face, missing the times when it was her, him and Roy just taking on the weirdest villains of all time. Jason stands up and turns down the volume on the TV with the remote he left on the chipped coffee table.

“I’ve always liked your humor, Have you heard from Dick?”

“No I havent, is everything good in bludhaven?”

“Yes I think so, he said deathstroke was taken into custody”

Jason feels a little bit of relief that Bruce’s time in Bludhaven is coming to a close, but also a sense of worry, that he needs to take care of this before the Batman returns, something deep inside him telling him the end of all this might not end well if he comes back now.

“He said? You're not there?”

“I am in space helping some new friends currently”

“Cool, im not even gonna ask how you have cell service”

“Oh Jason!, did you see the video of the cats I sent you yesterday?”

“Yeah it the one on the right looked like it had no thoughts in its head”

Jason chuckles just happy to have a normal conversation for once with a friend and not talk about innocent people getting hurt. Jason and Star bonded over cats in their time as the outlaws, Jason seeing strays when he was on the streets as a kid and Star's general fascination with earth creatures.

“Thats a very good way of saying it, still such strange creatures”

“So everything good in bludhaven then?”

“As I know yes, last time I talked to him they just needed more time to clear some things up”

“Okay good, hey when's the last time you talked to Roy? Need to give him a call, i talked to him last week but still”

“Oh I thought you knew? I called in the first place to see if Roy was there already?”

Jason gets a confused look on his face as he enters his kitchen pouring himself a glass of water in his wonder woman glass in the cramped space, wondering why Roy would be coming here. Then he looks at his phone screen to see 5 messages from “Roy Harper (Idiot)” with a elmo contact picture, the messages are basically all along the same lines

“Hey if you don't answer, I'm just gonna come knock on your door you silly goose!”

Jason lets out a breath from his nose and closes his eyes in humorous shock as he puts the phone back up to his ear.

“I just saw the messages he sent i was sleeping for like the whole day yesterday”

“Oh no, did something happen?”

“Well… yeah some stuff went down with scarecrow but-”

As Jason was about to finish his sentence there's a knock at the door.

“Oh Kori i think Roy is here, Ill call you back”

“Okay, tell Roy to stop being a wuss when you see him”

And with that Jason hangs up the phone and sets it on the kitchen counter, he goes to open the door. He grips the dark red door handle and gently swings the door open to see his best friend Roy Harper aka Arsenal, wearing a green baseball cap, red sweater and jeans that look a little too big for him, he also has a very short beard. 

“Well well well, look who it is”

Roy says dramatically as he reaches out his hand and daps Jason up.

“You know people usually wait for a response before showing up at their door?”

Jason says as Roy steps inside stepping over the red "welcome :)” mat, stepping onto the wood flooring of the cramped apartment entrance.

“Well I did bozo, and I'm in town anyway so who cares”

“Ok, fair point fuckface” 

The two friends talk for what feels like hours, having not seen each other in months, it's almost like that time with the outlaws is back but without Kory sadly, they catch up as Roy tells stories about what he and Oliver have been up to in star city.

Jason flips the egg in the sizzling pan, a drop of butter splashing onto Jason’s face as he does so, he grimaces at the egg in annoyance.

“Ah! Come on”

“You know you're supposed to put a little bit of butter in the pan right?”

Roy says jokingly as he sips a glass of chocolate milk leaving a thin line of brown on his upper lip as he sits at the table in the kitchen.

“Oh yeah how about you cook then genius, also you look stupid”

Roy looks at himself in the old fridges reflection as he wipes the milk off.

“Ok whatever, so what have you been up to the last couple days?”

Jason stares down at the cooking eggs as he tries to think back at the innocent people dying, their skin the color of the egg’s, the thought only making Jason more upset at the fact that it might still be happening out there, that the humpty dumpty looking rich man might have information on it and he doesn't know any of it yet.

“You okay Jay?”

He looks down at the eggs with more realization, they are in fact being overcooked.

“Oh shit”

Jason quickly transfers the eggs to two separate plates one egg on each making the plates look pretty barren, he then turns off the stove and sets down the plates on each end of the table, Roy gives Jason a funny look.

“I thought you had bacon? You always have bacon”

“We need to go interrogate the president of Gotham university “

Roy slowly lifts his head up from shoving the singular egg in his mouth, fork still in his mouth trying to shove the rest of it in there as the egg yolk falls onto the plate below him, he looks at Jason with a hint of confusion and curiosity.

“Like for fun? Because I'm down-”

“No, No, No” Jason cuts Roy off before continuing speaking “He’s knows things about what's happening to the homeless people in Gotham…”

Jason continues on to explain the situation up to this point and that Charles Allen probably knows who is making the controlling toxin or who the chemicals might have been going to, someone must have told or forced him to transfer the old fear toxin to ace chemicals possibly with the full help of his son.

“That sounded like eleven thousand words summed up in a paragraph, that's horrible, you think they’re being controlled? What if it's the mad hatter?”

“Cus of what happened in New Latent? No i don't think he's that smart to make something like that, and it's too controlled, like it's random but… it's not if that makes sense?”

Roy shrugs as he finishes chewing his egg then chugging a glass of milk, putting it down with a clank.

“Barb said that he is either at his apartment or his office, i say we go to his apartment first cus its closer”

Roy gives Jason a thumbs up still unable to talk as he gets up and wipes his hands on his pants leaving a streak of yellow on both the pant legs, Jason chuckles at the sight to himself as he stands up leaving his plate still full.

“Kay i just need to go down to the car and get my shit then ill come back up”

Roy says as he goes towards the door and exits the little apartment, parking your car in crime alley was always a risk but when the car was red, rusted and had a corny flame on the side of it, your car was probably going to be fine, like Roy’s only if the people who laughed at the car knew that there was a bunch of arrows with different uses inside, Jason’s favorite arrow always being the boxing glove arrow.

Jason opens his closet to put on his costume, picking up his red hood t-shirt that might have looked like a plain black shirt with the red hood symbol on it actually has really thin armor, the armor getting thicker in the symbol only a little bit but still enough protection from knives and sharp objects. He throws on the dark brown jacket Roy gave him years ago, flipping the red hood up as he puts on his red and black mask.

Jason looks in the corner of the little closet focusing on the crowbar standing against the wall inside.

Why do I even use you?

He sometimes thought that using the crowbar was kind of an act of rebellion against his life being taken away from him by the same object but in the back of his mind he always knew that it wasn't always efficient and sometimes thought it was kind of… edgy?

Also as a reminder of what happened to him, does he even need a reminder? The scars on his back and face tell it all, his mind was never the same after coming back or even the first time he got hit by the crowbar but his body wasn't the same either, having a constant reminder of being taken away from Bruce, Alfred and everyone else that he now had after losing his mom. There was one weapon that was always sufficient though, a weapon that Jason was a master in, actually two weapons, his guns.

Jason closes the closet door like he's opening an old section of himself up again as he looks behind him to his bed, he ducks down under the bed and pulls out a silver brief case and with two snaps of the hinges he opens it to see two black guns, the top side of the brief case holding many magazines, two black ones and three red magazines. He grabs the red magazines which are non lethal rubber bullets as he glances at the black ones for a moment before looking back down and picking up the two guns, shaking dust off them. He loads the guns and puts on his old hip holsters.

He stands with the two guns in hands and starts to remember how it felt to actually use a weapon he was good with, he then flips them upside down, so he's holding the magazine end end forward and presses a little red button beside the release magazine button.

He clicks the little red button and red electricity sparks out of the end of the magazine, a good melee alternative if ammo runs out.

KNOCK KNOCK!

Jason quickly turns to look at the noise coming from his window to see Arsenal outside it, bow and quiver on his back. Jason quickly runs over holstering the two guns and opening the window, standing back with his arms crossed.

“Ready?”

“Of course I am! They're gonna be like goons there or something?”

“No we’re gonna be greeted by a dancing clown that gives us popcorn”

Roy jokingly grimaces at him “You know I can't tell with your sarcasm sometimes, luckily one of your eyelids twitches when you lie”

“Ok move it Roy”

26 MINUTES LATER

Red Hood and Arsenal grapple up to a vent on the side of a luxurious apartment building, entering through the building's community garden area finding the vent above the entrance to the garden, Red Hood climbs in first as Arsenal tries to behind him trying to fit into the cramped space Jason barely fits inside.

How does Bruce do this so often, i would much rather barge in 

“Red I cant fit, my quiver is blocking me”

Red Hood looks behind him as Arsenal hangs one hand casually from the vent.

“Wait at his balcony, when i have the chance ill let you in, or see if its clear”

Arsenal nods and zips away up away from where Jason is. He enters the vent slowly trying not to make a single noise from whoever might be in the hallway below, Barbra pulled up the blueprints to both Gotham university and his apartment complex yesterday just in case Jason or Tim decided on going and investigating.

Probably should have told Barb I was doing this… oh well!

Jason climbs up and around the vents as needed to get to the apartment, using his grapple gun to go up when needed and disabling any electrical traps that are placed inside of it.

Pretty crazy to do all this for rats probably, no way a person without a grappling hook could get all the way up here

Jason gets to the home stretch of the vent climb, crawling in a prone position trying to go straight into the vent that leads to the living room of Charles Allen but as he goes through the place the area gets darker and darker, he must not be home. He keeps going anyway and as he looks down into the little cracks in the vent he goes over the large obvious rich person's kitchen, but as he goes over the kitchen he sees two figures, in matching black cloaks in complete darkness.

They look like people but cant at all make out what they might look like under the black hoods they are wearing, this matched with the darkness of the kitchen makes everything hard to make out. Jason feels a small buzz in his right pocket, he pulls out his phone.

“Yo this place is creeping me out”

“1 Image attached”

He reads clicking open the picture Roy sent over their encrypted Wayne tech channel. The image opens up on his dim phone screen to see two figures wearing what looks to be like the same cloaks as the ones Jason has eyes on now but there is three of them and they are in the downstairs living room of the two story pent house, there is glare coming in from the photo as Roy takes it from behind a plant on the balcony looking into the downstairs living room. One of the cloaked figurines though has yellowish smoke coming from the face part of the cloaks.

“They are in the kitchen too, stay alert”

Jason quickly replies and Roy replies with a extremely large gif of an emoji doing an aggressive thumbs up.

Jason gets to the area above Charles office, unable to see everything inside due to the darkness, there appears to be a monitor on top of a wooden desk, the room is pretty large and is in a rectangular shape, two other desks on the very far left and right as the one with the monitor against the farthest wall, a dark blue carpet against the hardwood floor. He unscrews the vent he is still scrunched up in, slowly unscrewing and holding onto the grates so as to not let it fall and make a lot of noise, fully unscrewing it then placing it inside the vent.

Red Hood plops down onto the carpeted floor with a quiet ploop. He looks around to make sure there are no hooded figures in this room that he might not know are there. 

The environment is rich with eeriness and silence, like something could jump out at any moment. The floorboards silently creek as Jason walks over them slowly approaching the wooden desk and plugging a data pulling USB into the monitor only computer as he presses the power button in the back the light hitting his face like a flash bang, hopefully the light does not escape the room.

There are five ticks on the USB stick that all light up green when all information is copied onto it, the first little green light goes off with a quiet tick.

Shuffling is heard outside of the room on the lower floor of the pent house, the shuffling turns to an obvious scuffle.

Shit Roy

Jason turns away from the computer and prepares to turn the door as he gets closer to it, right before he's about to approach the door though one of those hooded figures kicks the door open, the door flying off the hinges and knocking Jason back with a THUMP! As he goes crashing into the ground landing right in front of the computer he's extracting information from- the door slightly cracked in the middle fell onto the very right wall of the room. Light comes into the room from the window outside, still one of those hooded figures stands in the doorway, two standing behind that one to the left and to the right. Roy can be heard firing arrows from the lower level of the apartment presumably fighting the figures he initially saw before, the unmistaken sound of arrows wisping through the air.

“RED WHAT THE FUCK ARE THESE THINGS! THEY ARE SO UGLY!”

Arsenal yells out from downstairs, voice sounding annoyed but also confused. 

“Hiding your guys face huh? The hood usually isn't enough to do that, trust me uglies i wish, also a bunch of weirdos in cloaks protecting a rich person's home… color me unsurprised by the weirdness”

Red Hoos says jokingly as he reaches down to his hip holsters, taking the two pistols into his hands and the three figures leap into the room charging directly at him, their cloaks dangling in the air as they do so revealing the tattered long purple dresses that are underneath as well as black slippers they are wearing, how they feel comfortable in those is a mystery.

Oh shit… its…

As the closest figure lunges towards Red Hood its arms out diving towards him mid air, Red Hood turns on the electricity on the guns and flips them so that he can use the magazine end of the gun, he upcuts with the electrical end of the gun at the figures head mid lunge, knocking them down to the left in the dark room, their black hood coming off their head.

Red Hood looks down as in the distance the other two just begin to charge and the one on the floor starts to get up. But Red Hood just realized what him and Arsenal are fighting, he stares down in disbelief looking at the rotting flesh mask, yellowish odor visibly coming from underneath the mask, the stitches connecting the face underneath, the tattered purple dress, bright red spiky hair, these weren't crazed people, they were being controlled just like the homeless people have.

It's Professor Pyg's dollatrons, what the hell are they doing here?

Red Hood shoots the one on the floor in the head with a rubber bullet as they try to sit themselves up, the bullet knocking them down immediately, he shoots the other one charging with two rubber bullets in the stomach area staggering them as the other one in the back charges faster.

He tries to shoot at it but misses as he kicks the staggered one down into the broken door on the wall. The kick left too much time open though, he sees a fist flying at him. He throws his arms up to block as the fist hits his forearm with absolute power staggering Red Hood back a little as he quickly responds by two hitting the dollatron with the other side of the guns with electricity hitting the dollatrons face, smushing the skin mask a bit making the decaying smell worse as it staggers into the other dollatron that was getting up.

Red Hood looks at the computer and sees the USB has all 5 green lights and he takes it out as he shoots the dollatrons that are knocked over, knocking one of them out. He tries to walk away towards the door but the dollatron that he kicked into the door suddenly gets up ready to tackle the red hood. Jason’s eyes open with surprise thinking this one was knocked out as he points his guns up and fires 3 rubber bullets at the dollatrons chest area but that doesn't stop it.

An arrow goes through the dollatrons leg making it fall down onto one knee.

“Dont go proposing to me now!”

Jason says with a chuckle that quickly fades as he looks at the door where Arsenal stands casually leaning against the doorway and walks outside of it.

“I knocked out the two I was fighting, there's hair coming out of a cupboard in the living room should we che-”

BOOM!

Glass shatters as an explosion launches Red Hood and arsenal back into the wall outside the office room. WHISPA! A short figure appears teleporting in front of the now exploded window with a blue cloud that mini explodes in onto itself, gust of the air from this high up hitting everyone, including the woman standing in front of them wearing a dark purple motorcycle jacket, with what looks like blood splattered on the arms area, black pants and combat boots but the most strange piece of them all, black mask’s mask painted to be purple and a white smile painted over the teeth. There is also a large sniper rifle strung to her back with leather fabric.

“Hello little ones, looks like you met some of our pawns”

She says as her hands rest on her waist like she didn't just blow up a window. Red Hood and Arsenal glance at each other, kind of like they are telepathically trying to ask if they recognize the muffled voice that can't be clearly made out from underneath the mask but Red Hood has a feeling that he's heard it before.

“You! You killed Killer Moth!”

“Who?”

The sniper smugly replies as she reaches behind her and brings the sniper around to her front, holding it while the barrel faces down. She might be trying to intimidate or actually try to kill them but both Red Hood and Arsenal know they can't let any option happen.

Red Hood shoots at her standing up from the ground as Arsenal at the same time fires two arrows at the same time in her direction. WHISPA! She teleports to the left of where she originally stood as the rubber bullets and two arrows fly through the teleportation cloud.

“Cmon… is that really all you guys got?”

Red Hood and Arsenal scramble up pointing their weapons at her preparing to shoot if need be, glass crushing under their feet as they do so outside the office, the door still open.

“What is your part in this? Why are there dollatrons here?!”

Red Hood asks, getting progressively agitated, a small part of his mind hoping for this fight to go smoothly so that the USB doesn't break but also so that he gets the answers he needs.

“Dollawhat? Never heard of em?”

The woman says sarcastically shrugging her shoulders up as she says so, Arsenal suddenly fires an arrow at her that she swiftly dodges moving towards red hood now, huge sniper in hand crunching glass beneath her feet as she moves ever so swiftly, now positioning to hold the sniper by the barrel and swinging the butt of it down towards red hood, the stock hitting the ground with a loud THUMPPP!

Red Hood moves out of the way to the left, leaving arsenal more open than before, the mystery woman pulls out a pistol from a back holster connected to her pants, she quickly points it at arsenal and pulls the trigger in the matter of seconds, he able to register what was happening in that quick time though and he dodges out of the way and pulls an arrow out of his quiver as he fires it into the barrel of the gun, it hits the guns making the woman drop the gun and the bullet firing as the gun falls hitting the arrows instead of arsenal.

Red Hood seeing a opening kicks the woman in arsenal’s direction for a team up attack, Arsenal prepares to use his bow to swing it at her but she catches her balance a little bit after getting kicked and ends up roundhouse kicking Arsenal in the face before he can fully swing his bow, knocking him as she quickly points the large sniper rifle at him not seeing red hod pointing his weapons at her from behind.

Red Hood quickly shoots a rubber bullet at her head making her unbalanced and unable to see into the scope but in his other hand isnt his other gun its his grappling hook, he shoots it at her left arm as its claspes onto her and he pulls her to him as the hook detaches and she comes stumbling to his direction.

He activates the electric end of his gun and upper cuts the sniper as she comes towards him, as he does so black mask’s mask slips up and just for a second he can see black lipstick, a red circle on the tip of her nose and what looks like red circles on her cheeks.

She rebalances herself and moves stepping back towards the place where the window used to be, mask falling back to its normal position.

“Sorry you two, but i have places to be”

She proceeds to fall backwards out of the window with her arms out. 

“Oh shit!”

Red Hood exclaims, rushing to look down outside the window to see her teleport to the left as Arsenal rushes behind him to see the same thing. Red Hood fires his grappling hook at the ground and jumps out the window, running across the building following her as she teleports away, following the puffs of teleportation smoke.

Red Hood and Arsenal follow her for what feels like hours, occasionally firing projectiles at each other as she finally reaches a building and stands at the edge facing away from the edge and waiting for the two heroes to get to her point.

“Finally caught up huh?”

She exclaims throwing her arms up as they get to the rooftop and approach her, weapons drawn.

“You're gonna give us answers!”

Red Hood shouts as they approach her, from beyond the edge and across the street there is a lot of chatter going on and that building covered in a white sheet is across the street, from the edge is a perfect view to see it.

All she does is chuckle as she then teleports away leaving a cloud in her place but this time there is no sign to where she went, they go up to the cloud and look around unable to see where she is.

“Damn it, we lost her, sorry dude”

Arsenal says frantically looking around as Red Hood just stares across the street not moving an inch. Roy turns to see that and is confused.

“You good red?”

“Look”

Roy turns his head to look where Jason is looking, across the street on the large side walk in front of that large two story building covered in a white sheet is a bunch of camera’s news trucks parked on the side of the road, the area cleaned like it never has been before.

The cameras all focused on one point, people in the crowd looking up to a stage in front of the white covered building, there's a microphone there and two people on the stage, one in front of the microphone, Jordan Allen… the son of Charles Allen.

Speaking of Charles Allen, he is standing right beside his son a little bit to the right, looking nervously out at the sea of people as if he doesn't want to be there, sweat dripping from his bald head. Jason just stands there in disbelief.

Did she lead us here?

Someone off to the side of the platform gives Jordan a thumbs up and Jordan nods at them in return, he lowers the microphone to speak into it, adjusting his glistening parted hair that looks like too much product was put into it, adjusts it to the side, exposing more of his large forehead. 

“Hello everyone, thanks for coming out today to see the reveal of the newest W.T shelter, this one is the biggest one yet to help the homeless population here in the amazing city of Gotham. Well… this shelter is again our biggest with way more beds and things to help people and of course feed them, and so today-”

From behind the covered building there seems to be tugging happening on the sheet covering the building, like they are getting ready for a reveal and with that, Jason’s heart drops.

“We would like to announce the Willis Todd homeless shelter of Gotham city!”

WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK

“Dude…” 

Roy turns to look at Jason, he can tell there is a mix of emotions behind the mask but most of all there is fury and confusion, multiple questions flying through both their heads at once, Jason spiralling in his own mind, his brain doing backflips. If what they thought was true and the sniper led them there, this was getting weirder by the minute, they were either getting back at Jason for something or messing with him. Jason didn't care about either as a painting of his father drops down from the top of the building, his eyes staring daggers into Jason just like when he was a kid.

“Press will be able to join us shortly in about an hour to look around, and snap your guys little pictures! And by then we will be open to anybody who is in need and might need our help”

Jordan smiles with a dark glint in his eye laughing onstage like a pompous animal as the crowd celebrates with applause. 

Does he know? Does he know who Willis Todd was, he doesn't deserve ANY-? Is he FUCKING with me? I'm gonna-

Roy stops Jason’s hand from moving to his hip holsters and gives him a friendly glare as the best friends look at each other in shock of what just was revealed, Jason removes his hand from his hip holsters and steps back from the edge of the building.

W.T shelters have been in Gotham for months, way before Bruce even left for Bludhaven, all this time they were a hidden threat, a hidden poke at Jason, they must have all stood for “Willis Todd” the name making Jason grimace, the man that was a goon for penguin, the man that fueled his mother who he loved so dearly’s drug addiction then would yell at her every time she tried to get better because he found her withdrawal symptoms “annoying” even though he never physically hurt either of them, he hurt them mentally more than Jason can even comprehend to this day. 

Jason knows whoever started the shelters must have a vendetta against him, knew they had something to do with the dead homeless people, probably using all the shelters to get some sort of drug in them.

They were vulnerable, needed help, and they were used as “pawns”… to… mess with me?

For what the extent of Charles and Jordan’s deal in all this is is unknown, but definitely not nothing, especially after finding dollatrons in Charles' home.

Jason throws his hands up to his forehead, pacing back and forth on the roof, disdain running through his veins.

“Oracle to Red Hood, I have some news to give you…”

“Is it my piece of shit fathers face on what seems to be a two story homeless shelter? Check my location”

“Yeah… Don't do anything rash we can get in there as press from Wayne enterprises because of the thing that Bruce set up so we would be able to sneak into press only events without having to go sneak around in costume, so don't worry”

Jason suddenly remembers the USB still on him and pulls it out of his inside jacket pocket- relieved it's not broken.

“Okay fine, we’ll be at the clock tower soon”

“We?”

The old elevator creeks as it rises up the tall tower, no one in Gotham knows what really goes on in it, the dark building blending into the dark Gotham landscape, the large clock on the outside unresponsive, broken from the shutdown of it years ago before it was bought by Wayne enterprises. The elevator rattles as it reaches the top and the doors swing open with a CLANKTCH!. 

Light from the computer monitors hitting their faces. The oracle behind the screen looks behind her back to see who Red Hood meant by “we”.

“Oh hell no not this guy”

She turns her head back to the computer and types something in, the toilet proceeds to flush in the room to the left.

“Hey! Who were you expecting?”

Roy says, offended, throwing his arms up as if a gun is being pointed at him.

“Was hoping for Artemis”

Roy puts his arms down and has a slight pout on his face, Jason smirks and chuckles a little before speaking and taking out the USB that has all the information on it.

“I wish it was Artemis too barb”

They both laugh a little as she takes the USB out of his hands and plugs it into a little device on the desk with multiple USB ports and other ports like it, some switches and buttons on it as well that Jason has no idea what they do. Barbra pushes her glasses back up looking at the main monitor as a progress bar starts.

Jason takes off his mask and sets it on the large desk, Roy sits on the couch to the right with a batman pillow on it that Tim put there as a joke a while ago. 

Jason stares at the ground wondering about everything that went down today, the dollatrons then instantly snapping to the fact that for about a year there have been W.T shelters across Gotham and they all have been silently mocking them, for all he knows those shelters could be what was infecting the homeless people, he grinds his teeth together slightly in anger feeling so stupidly unaware of everything.

“Kay this should only take a few minutes, so… what the hell just happened”

“Well first off we know that humpty dumpty looking motherfucker and his nepo baby son have something to do with getting the fear toxin to who im guessing is professor pyg and are using my piece of shit fathers name for some reason on the homeless shelters where again im guessing they are poisoning or infecting a bunch of people in need”

Jason says upset, putting his fist against his forehead, then putting it back down and pacing a little around the center of the clocktower, the door to the left of the elevator opens and Tim walks out in a red sweater with headphones around his neck.

“Yeah but why would either professor pyg and in your words “that humpt dumpty looking motherfucker” want to mess with you, how would they even know your identity and at that why would they care?”

Tim says casually as he approaches the center of the clocktower looking at Roy with confusion.

“What are you doing here?”

“Im in town, bulls-eye is planning some shit in a nearby town so i thought i would stop by, dident think i would have to fight dolla-... whatever those things were”

“Dollatrons?”

Barbra and Tim ask in unison, turning their heads both to look at Jason.

“Yeah dollatrons thats why I think professor pyg is behind some of this, he's smart enough to make a toxin that controls people then kills them afterwards, but the thing is he usually doesn't do things like that, he wants to make perfect dollatrons and mess with peoples limbs and switch their hands with feet and weird shit like that, this isn't like him”

Jason sits on the couch after explaining- sitting beside Roy.

“You sure this has nothing to do with what happened months after you became red hood?”

“I mean… Bruce stopped me from killing him yes but I was still coming down from the effects of the lazarus pit, plus i dident actually hurt him that bad, but if that knife went three inches more into his head the pyg would be dead, shit none of this might even be happening but it is… because he stopped me”

Jason responds to Tim with a hint of thought of if he actually did kill professor pyg that however long ago, if Bruce dident stop him; would this even be happening? Maybe that would have been the better course of action?

“What about that sniper lady?”

Roy asks, looking at Jason as if knowing he already has an idea of who could be behind black masks mask, trusting his friend's judgement cutting the tension that erupted from the previous question asked by the third robin, Jason being unable to decipher if Roy was just oblivious to the tension or broke it on purpose. 

“Wait, the sniper who killed killer moth?”

Barbra exclaims, fully turning in her wheelchair to face the couch with the batman pillow that Roy is obliviously sitting on.

“Yeah she attacked us after we fought the dollatrons, then she led us to the Willis To- the… thingy, thats why I think there is another piece to this puzzle, professor pyg doesn't usually work with people unless he was getting something like experiment subjects”

“Wait, some people without a fixed address have gone missing in the past months, the same people who have been injecting these people might just be easily abducting them aswell”

Barbra sighs as she looks back at the computer and the progress bar is half way.

“Should’ve looked into this more… before… was so caught up with Joker escaping again and helping Bruce and Tim with that, that I just…”

“Barbra its fine, trust me I know how you feel, even when I try to put the Joker behind me I can't either, me and you are in the same boat”

“Thanks Jay but really… should have caught onto this”

Barbra pouts looking down at the keyboard that's built into the desk reflecting on being clouded  by wanting the Joker recaptured, maybe a part of her hoping he would just go away.

Jason thinks back to when he caught a glimpse at the face under the mask, remembering the clown-like makeup that was underneath, right then in that moment he had a realization that he dident voice to anyone, not even to Roy, that MUST have been… Punchline. That though could only mean one thing- she wants to mess with him, or the Joker is apart of this too, and if that's the case Jason knows a part of him might break; a part of him Batman so dearly wants to hold onto, the part of him that keeping him a complete her and not a anti one.

He shuts out the thought not wanting to think about it, he tries to convince himself that could not have been her, there is no way but in the back of his mind he knows- he doesn't want to share this information though because now everything is truly personal.

“We-”

Tim is interrupted by the progress bar being complete with a loud BADOOP! The speakers blaring the annoying noise.

“Ah Cmon!”

“Sorry, sorry, forgot i had them up so loud”

Barbra responds to Roy as he claps his hands to his ears dramatically, she reaches and turns down the volume knob on the edge of the desk.

For the next 32 minutes Jason, Barbra, Roy and Tim all look at the contents of what the USB was able to extract from Charles' computer, what they found was mostly pictures.

“This idiot took screenshots of all his encrypted emails, what was the point of encrypting everything, this guy is a moron”

Roy says pointing at the screen in befuddled confusion like a kid discovering something for the first time.

“His son must have told him to keep it all secret, dident know what that meant obviously. It looks like Jordan had a bigger part to play in this than his father also, like he was getting money from this offshore account”

The emails pulled were mostly between him and his son Jordan talking about "research deals” between ace chemicals and Gotham university, raising suspicion from all four superheroes. All of the emails outright confirm the existence of transfer of the fear toxin that was stored in Gotham university to several different locations; one location standing out to everyone the most, the location of the Willis Todd shelter and multiple. There is also evidence of funding for the other W.T shelters and the new Willis Todd shelter coming from a third party using an offshore account, as well seemingly being chipper with Jordan the most, manipulating his nepotism baby taste for money.

“So are we gonna try to enter as press or?”

“I think im gonna try to stakeout the place out tonight”

Jason quickly responds to Barbra’s question as she gets a concerned look on her face.

“By yourself? And by stakeout do you mean breaking and entering?”

“Barb… we all constantly do that”

Tim says diverting her attention to him.

“Okay yeah but im just worried this might be some sort of trap, why don't you go with him?”

“I cant penguin has a weapons deal going down with two face at the docks like… tonight”

Tim says not so reassuringly to Barbra as she unplugs the USB from the USB dock and puts in her left pant pocket then gives a glaring look to Jason of ‘don't do anything stupid’

Im gonna do something stupid

“Kay i gotta get to the location bulls-eye’s at”

“Ill come with you; gotta kill a little time before it becomes night anyway”

Jason and Roy head towards the elevator to leave.

“Jason! I'm being serious”

Barbra says with her index finger pointed at him as the elevator door closes, leaving behind the clocktower and not facing the two with the metal doors of the old and loud elevator.

Roy throws his duffle bag with his suit and bow inside the back of his car closing the door behind his equipment, but before it full closes it reopens it, diving into the back of the car and pulling out the duffle bag again, unzipping it- pulling out an arrow and unscrewing the metal rectangular end to it. He then closes the door behind himself once again.

“Here take this”

He hands the rectangular end of the arrow to Jason, they both stand in the parking lot of Jason’s apartment building in crime alley- a crow flies above as a drizzle starts to rain down on them, Jason takes ahold of the little metal rectangle and holds it up to his eyes to inspect.

“What is this?”

“If you throw it down at the right angle it'll electrocute the ground, kind of working like a splash potion from minecraft but if it was electricity instead of like… a potion if that makes sense, I know your gonna break into that place and those dollathingies lose balance easily”

The Hood chuckles as he puts the little device into his pocket and the two friends say their goodbyes as Roy drives away, the red jeep passing a bunch of pigeons that fly away at the sound of the car coming near them.

3 HOURS LATER

The 7/11’s door swings open and a man in a zipped up brown jacket with a red hood enters with bags under his eyes, as Jason steps foot into the 7/11 he walks past the old cashier who gives him a small knowing wave while she's looking down at her newspaper unbothered.

“Hey Jason”

“Hey Ethel”

He remembers the days when his mom would sneak him into work with her during the summer days where she worked at the exact same 7/11, the place gives a warm nostalgic feeling to Jason and makes him feel a little closer to his mom even though she is gone.

He takes a sharp left to the first aisle picking up a small bag of big belly burger seasoning chips then turns to the hotdog warming machine and puts one dog into a bun putting no toppings on it before walking away to the slushie machine.

Jason gently sets down his three items, the red slushie sloshing around in the cup a little. 

After paying he leaves the store hot dog a quarter eaten already, a very healthy dinner one might say, leaving out to the parking lot he sees a friend of his that lives nearby in crime alley that has lived there for a long time and is a construction worker, evident even more by the hi-vis jacket he's wearing, Raymond is an older guy with a white beard and no hair on his head in site, who is the same height as Jason standing 5’7.

“What's up Ray!”

Jason yells out, he goes towards the vending machine Raymond is leaning against looking at his phone with reading glasses on.

“Nothing much man, you're still eating healthy i see!”

“Nah this is healthy… totally”

Raymond looking up from his phone tucking his reading glasses into his jacket pocket.

“I have ask you, Is that your father on that big ass shelter?”

“Oh uh no, different… Todd”

He says awkwardly trying to lie to the best of his ability which he has gotten good at by this time in his life.

“Yeah my brother got evicted last month and went to one of those “W.T shelters” or whatever, they feeding people straight GOOP in those places, they just look sketchy, he's fine now though staying with me”

“You know the higher ups in Gotham Ray, nothing is ever for the betterment of the people and the police surely don't help much… So how are the kids, man?”

“Oh the kids are the best they could be, you know how it is growing up in crime alley”

“I definitely do, hey i gotta head back, stay safe out here though”

Jason steps off the curb into the dead parking lot as he waves goodbye towards Raymond with his red 40 slushy still in his hand.

“Shit i forget to tell you! You know how you told me to tell you if anything sketchy happens around my area?”

Jason stops in his tracks knowing that Ray has some actual news for him, if anyone in crime alley knew something was going down its him, he lives right beside a street that has a bridge over it, the bridge is usually a hub for people who don't have homes and they have a bunch of tents there, it's also one of the last places in Gotham without any anti homeless architecture due to the age of the bridge and everything beneath it- higher ups doing nothing to fix it ever.

“Those sketchy food trucks again making laps around the streets”

“What time do they usually do that?”

“Shit ummmm… usually when its starting to get dark or like midnight, probably like now”

“Thanks Ray!”

Jason speeds down the road leaving his mostly eaten hot dog and chips next to a dumpster where the local racoon digs through it, slushie half drinking in the cup holder in the back of his motorcycle, he's on a mission, a mission to catch whichever henchman or goons while they are actively trying to take an random innocent person, maybe to bring them to professor pyg to make them into a dollatron or to turn them grey and let them out while their actual selves are in the back of their minds, either way there is something suspicious going on in that part of town. 

Two stakeouts in one night, hiding in a bush for this one isn't much fun but it is what it is

The Red Hood sits there in a bush silently waiting as the sun goes down, if nothing comes by in a couple hours he's gonna have to move on to breaking i- to staking out the willis todd shelter. There is some chatter down below then a couple cars drive under the bridge some drive over it took not noticing someone's in a bush near it, luckily its covered in a lot of brush.

A car takes a right turn coming down the street from the very left of Red Hood's position about to go under the bridge. It's exactly what he's looking for a black van with a fake looking menu on the side of it but weirdly it does not stop, it keeps going through the bridge keeping the same speed.

Wait what's going on…

Red Hood quickly throws a mini tracking device on top of the fake food truck and goes back to his motorcycle parked on the side of the road, slushy fully melted, as he drives he drops it in a trash can nearby following the signal from the tracker.

He follows for about ten minutes before they finally make a stop in an average neighborhood, definitely not one of the richer ones in Gotham but probably not the normal targets for turning people grey and then it strikes Red Hood.

Shit they’re probably abducting people for professor pyg aswell FUCK

If he is right then this stop isn't usual, there is no stop sign or traffic light near where they stopped.

Red Hood makes a sharp left turn as a car honks their horn at him, he enters the street going up towards the tracker that stopped at a curved end of a neighborhood. He approaches the area rapidly and can see from a distance four people in green aprons and white jumpsuits underneath- also wearing surgical masks trying to take a lady who is walking her dog.

The four masked people are approaching the lady rapidly and Red Hood watches as he approaches in what feels like slow motion, he gets a quick flashback of a time his dad got into a fight with someone who came to their house in the middle of the night from a rival villain, a two face goon. This time he's running towards danger.

Red Hood does a Akira slide but looks to his left towards the two masked people and jumps off the bike towards them pulling out both his guns midair as the tires of the bike screech in the background.

“Surprise!”

“WHAT THE FU-”

One of the green aprons shouts out looking up at the sight above them as Red Hood hits them hard in the face with the electrical end of his gun knocking them back into the van, right behind him another one tries to swing a yellow wrench down onto him, Red Hood ducks and dodges it and mid dodge scrapes the electrical end of his gun across their torso staggering them and making them fall into the one already against the truck.

Red Hood quickly shoots the one closest to the woman in the back of the head making them instantly look behind them as the other one that has not been harmed yet tackles Red Hood to the ground, the other ones can be heard shuffling in the background, sound coming closer to him. As the one that tackled him is about to bring down a screwdriver, Red Hood shoots them point blank in the eye with a rubber bullet causing them to scream in pain and blood to start gushing out of their eye as they drop the screwdriver and slump over to the right with their hand over it hitting the road.

“MY FUCKING EYE”

The leftmost one throws a punch towards Red Hood but he ducks down and kicks out their shin, stands back up and hits them over the head with electricity knocking them out- they hit the ground with a THLUMP!

The sound of the little dog barking in the background of all this going on, the lady backed away but frantic with a phone up to her ear.

The two that were knocked into the truck now charge towards Red Hood one going left and the other going right, the one on the left picks up the wrench on the ground and swings upwards at red hood as he dodges backwards and shoots the other one in the chest a couple times, now taking advantage of the opening of the one that missed the swing and kicking them in the leg knocking them to their knees and pushing their face backwards into the ground and then shooting them two times to knock them out.

Red Hood proceeds to jump and kick the staggered one and makes them hit their head into the open backdoor of the truck knocking them out as they fall to the ground.

“Run home!”

Red Hood shouts out to the lady and her dog- she starts to run some other people watching from their windows now very obvious.

“Oh man… I- I CANT… I can't see!”

The voice hits Red Hood's ears but he isn't hit with pity or worry, he's filled with excitement and happiness. He knows that they are only blind in one eye but he still finds it funny that someone who was willing to help someone get killed or lobotomized is so sad they can't see.

“Oh womp womp!”

Red Hood walks towards the crawling green apron on the ground and flips them over and picks them up by their collar, pointing his gun at their face.

“Tell me where you would have taken her! Alternatively I haven't shot this gun all night, why don't we play a game? Is there a rubber ball inside the chamber or a bullet? 

The masked person looks down the barrel and sweat begins to drop from their face soaking into the surgical mask that is soaked full of blood from their eye.

“I don't want to play! WAIT WAIT WAIT! It's the shut down W.T shelter near Wayne tower!”

Wait, I thought it would have been the Willis Todd shelter…

“Where would you have dropped someone off then”

“In the basement there's a second room going down even more, we drop it at that door! That's all I know, I swear! One of those red haired dead things picks up the person, the room is always dark behind them!”

“Appreciate it”

Red Hood knocks them out with a head butt and drops them to the ground.

“You should of saw that coming”

The outside door leading to the basement is green and dirty, the door even looked like it used to be white but now it isn't. Red Hood digs through his jacket pockets standing at the top of the staircase going down where the door is. The Gotham night breeze hits the back of his head as he stands in the back of the W.T shelter building that was once operational but now isn't.

Finally he finds the keys he took off the probable professor pyg goon and puts them into his hand and starts walking down the wet steps. He finds it strange that professor pyg would actually have people working for him, he's not known for caring about money or people even, usually opting out to abduct people using his dollatrons or just doing it himself.

He would only use real people if someone else wanted him too? But there's only one person crazy enough to gain professor Pyg's trust or even try to work with him…

“Whatever”

Red Hood says under his breath taking out the keys and inserting it into the lock, twisting and unlocking the door with an unnaturally silent click!

He swings the door open gently slowly making sure no one can be behind it, one hand on the knob and his other holding one of his guns, Jason is hit with utter silence as he enters the dark room with one light bulb on, the basement unfinished moldy wood holding up the place. The room isn't large but is in more of a rectangular shape with one door on the right a little ways down and another door on the left looking like it leads downstairs.

He closes the door behind him silently as he looks around, there's a window in the room on the right showing a room with a table and a couple cabinets but no one inside.

His feet hit the ground slowly trying not to make that much noise in the silent building, he turns left to the other door as he reaches out for the handle and opens it, there's a stairway down with a long tunnel, at the end of the tunnel is another door handle with a lock and on the right closer to the bottom of the stairs is another door.

Slowly opening the door on the right reveals… a basically empty small room with only one thing- a sleeping pod that looked like it came out of a space movie where a character needs to cryo sleep, on the side of it is a small worn out yellow clock with a green circle around it. Jason takes one good look around the unfinished room before heading back out and going towards the door at the end with the lock.

He tries to unlock the deadbolt with the three keys that are on the key ring but none work, then he knocks, expecting a dollatron to answer and

That's exactly what happens after a few seconds, a dollatron answers the door and quick thinking Jason kicks the dollatron making the door swing open and then go flying with a THUD!

And with that the light in the room quickly turns on revealing a bright room with white tiles on the floor, the walls and even the ceiling with even circular ceiling light- making Jason feel like he just stepped into a surgeon's playground.

The shape of the room is in a T shape, the entrance Red Hood just stepped through being in the middle of the longer side, one larger section on either side but to the far front is the end of the T.

The door closes behind Red Hood as the bright lights hits his mask and his eyes adjust to see a horror beyond what he could expect, along the walls almost sporadically are strung up dollatrons, with their blood being drained into these clear barrels the stench in the room is something no one's nose should be able to comprehend.

Some barrels are completely full with the dollatrons looking thinner than ever- some are halfway full and some just look like they were placed up on the wall, all of them hung up by a rope tying their hands to the ceiling.

The dollatron that was kicked runs away towards the very back of the t shaped room. 

Professor Pyg stands at the back of this room hunched over a table- his back turned to the vigilante standing a ways behind him. The dollatron runs to professor pyg as professor pyg looks at him with his pig mask, white apron, yellow gloves, a white long sleeve shirt and checkered black and white pants on, he looks annoyed.

Professor Pyg snorts like a pig before speaking to the dollatron.

“No! He cannot be here”

His voice ruff and sounding like he's out of breath, he whips his head around to look at the red hood behind him.

“You're too early, but it doesn't matter, I can't let you ruin my PERFECT creations!”

“Too early?!, the fuck are you talking about!”

With that Professor Pyg picks up his butcher's knife on the side of the table and starts charging towards Red Hood but as he's doing that Red Hood shoots the cables draining the blood from the still somewhat alive looking dollatrons on the walls stopping the draining.

Thats what must be controlling the infected grey people, the dollatrons are easily controlled by pyg so mixing their blood with old fear toxin gives the effect that they wanted, they purposefully targeted homeless and in need people… just to fuck with me…

It's the joker, it has to be- there's only one person who knows my identity for sure… and it's him, i just have to get the confirmation out of this pig, even if i have to beat it out of him in a puddle of his own blood.

An old fire is lit inside Jason at this moment, Joker must be doing all this to mess with him targeting a group of people Jason has a lot of care for after that time he spent on the streets as a kid before being adopted by Bruce. All the anger building inside him once again after remembering everything bad that he ever saw in crime alley when he was younger, hopeless and couldn't do anything about it like a robin trapped in a cage too small for it.

He thought that when he was Robin he could change things… he could be happy, but no that dident happen, everything was cut short by a clown. When he came back to life with a new purpose and a helmet, it was good for a little but he was crazed and deeply flawed in his judgment from the chemicals in the lazarus pit he wasn't himself and now he's just stuck in limbo, trying to stay sane in Gotham watching Joker, Scarecrow and whoever break out of blackgate or the asylum just so they can do more evil upon innocent people.

Its literal insanity, never a different result.

They need to pay for hurting all these people

“Oink Oink Piggy COME AT ME!”

With Professor Pyg charging at him holding up the meat cleaver, it quickly changes to a crowbar, then Professor Pyg no longer is charging but it is the Joker.

Jason shakes his head removing the quick flashback but reminding him of his anger of these villains who think they can just attack whoever they please and nothing happens, not anymore.

Red Hood shoots Professor Pyg through the eye hole of his pig mask making him squeal in return, still charging. He dodges out of the way as the pyg brings down the cleaver in what feels like slow motion as then Red Hood kicks him in his stomach- it does nothing.

This gives professor Pyg enough time to grab onto Red Hood by the throat and lift him up by it.

“You will not ruin my perfect creations! And my perfect medicine”

“Medicine!?” Red Hood shakes his legs being hoisted up, struggling to get words out of his airway fully.

“You're killing people! For what? So Joker can have some fun?! Thats not perfect your just a fucking pawn Pyg, your not even worth anything”

“How DARE YOU!” The Pyg snorts loudly “A fun experiment doesn't hurt their already weak minds!”

“Fuck you”

Red Hood pull his other gun up to Professor Pyg’s eye and before the Pyg can swing at him once again- he pulls the trigger delivering a rubber bullet right into the Pyg’s eye, causing him to scream in pain, now temporarily blinded in both eyes, especially the newly wounded one, blood flowing over his pig mask staining the pink plastic.

The butcher's knife drops to the ground with a CLANK! as Red Hood is released from the large man’s grasp dropping to the floor and stepping back and Professor Pyg falls to his knees.

Red Hood jumps onto his back and wraps his grappling hook around the Pyg’s neck trying to choke him out and the Pyg slowly stands back up trying to swat at the vigilante still standing on his back.

“Night Night Piggy!”

As the Pyg struggles there is the sound of opening doors behind them. That's when Red Hood realizes there are closets all around this place, the doors white and blending into the walls, one dollatrons walking out of their respective seven doors.

One dollatrons quickly tugs on Red Hoods jacket making him fall down and off Professor Pyg dropping his grapple gun, he quickly unholsters his guns and fires warning shots around the surrounding dollatrons as he stands up looking at the seven dollatrons knowing he now has to group them up for a quick takedown.

“Damn you guys are strong”

Red Hood rolls his shoulder adjusting himself after being thrown. 

“Get him, my children!”

The dollatrons charge at Red Hood as he runs backwards towards the table Professor Pyg was standing over when he first entered. He gets far and almost right in front of it noticing the old box tv hanging on the wall with a VHS player attached to it, as well seeing a clean cut leg on the table, The dollatron that opened the door for him also quivering in the corner below the TV.

The Dollatron runs at him clumped together and at that perfect chance Red Hood throws down the little device Arsenal gave him and it shocks the ground knocking all seven dollatron’s out.

“Arsenal sends his regards Pig! And now your dollatrons will hopefully be able to be cured once they are taken away from you!”

Professor Pyg with both of his eyes closed and his hands over them walks over to the sound of Red Hood’s voice as he's about to shout at him but unknowingly almost walks into the electrical field as it turns off right before he steps into the area.

“YOU WILL NOT TAKE THEM FROM ME! I have to help all of them, even the gray ones! The clown said they were a waste!”

“So you think letting him control them, then letting them die is helping!”

Jason can't worry to think fully about taking care of the joker just yet, there is still an animal that needs to be dealt with in front of him.

Red Hood holsters his pistols as he goes towards the wall and yanks a pipe off it, water coming out in trickles slowly. He then jumps to reach Professor Pyg’s height and smashes the pipe into his face, smashing the mask in half and loud CRUNCH to expel from his nose.

“AAAH” professor pyg sounds like he tries to snort but it just sounds like gurgling of blood and saliva 

“It doesn't feel good does it!”

Red Hood dodges the grab from the Pyg and ducks down to smash the pipe into his right knee cap with all the adrenaline running through his body. 

“To get hurt! While you're defenseless, like how you can't see”

Professor Pyg cries out in pain again as he knelt down, his hand on his knee, Red Hood moves in front of him- sending the pipe crashing into his mask once again, destroying the other side and knocking the Professor on his back.

“Well people who you didn't know, people who were just going about their lives were killed, those people were not a waste! But murderers, drug dealers, abusers, anyone who harms innocent people, THOSE people are the waste- like you!”

Red Hood stands on top of Professor Pyg as he holds the pipe over his head and brings it down onto the professor’s head, putting his hands up in defense giving a silent plea for the red hood to stop but it doesn't matter, he sends the pipe crashing down again, and again and again.

Suddenly the room goes black, the only sound that can be heard is the sporadic breathing of the professor on the ground and then Red Hood stepping off him. There's the sound of a click that comes from the TV, the left over dollatron pressed play on the VHS machine.

“Well well well if it isn't my favorite boy wonder! Woo isnt it good to see you again… or should i say you see me… since this is a recording! It's been a while since we had a little tango, a little criminal vigilante back and forth!”

The sound of the Joker from the TV rings through Jason's head sending a shiver down his spine before that shiver turns to anger as he looks up at the TV, the only thing illuminating the room.

“This is the early tape so that means you found a lot of stuff out early! I'm proud you’ve really grown since crying as I threw matches at your face! HAHAHAHAHHHAHAHA, anywhoooooo! You’ve of course seen the W.T shelters that I have set up around town, fun little things aren't they? So easy to infect people when they are in need of food and shelter! Or sometimes when I just send my dear old punchline to shoot a dart into them in daylight and MY GOODNESS the cops do nothing… I love the GCPD!”

Jason looks down behind him to professor Pyg's slightly illuminated face.

“What does he want!?”

No answer comes from the pyg though, only one from the clown.

“As for what I want… well the old Bat was out of town so i thought i would set up a little fun for us! But anyway for the finale of our little showdown I have this little device here! It's the only link to the people infected with the “funny grey gas” as i like to call it HAHA!”

Jason looks at the video and its surroundings with a wooden wall behind him and what looks to be a pile of equipment like a shovel, Joker standing a little ways from it, really close to the camera with his pale face, big red smile, dingy green hair and white and purple suit. He holds up a device that's white with buttons on the top of it, probably what he presses to control whoever, most likely randomly pressing it whenever he's notified someone's infected, making Jason even more upset at the randomness of someone's will being taken away from them just for the clowns amusement and joy of tormenting him.

“Anyways in classic supervillain fashion, YOU HAVE 24 HOURS! To find me and destroy this remote, Goodluck jaybird! I know those people dying probably made you upset! But oh well what's gonna happen to me!?”

The TV turns off but the room is still dark and Jason turns around as he feels the faint light of Red on his face to see behind him, written on the wall in glow in the dark red paint is

“Red Hood you are BRITTLE!”

The room light turns on once again, Red Hood looks down at professor pyg and points the rusted pipe at his head and the Pyg snorts along with what sounds like laughing but could very well be him just trying to breathe.

“You think this is funny, ill give you a punchline”

Red Hood raises the pipe above his head as the door to the room swings open revealing…

The Batman.

“Red Hood!”

Jason sighs and throws down the pipe as he looks at the bat approaching, in his dark blue and grey suit, yellow utility belt and dark blue bat symbol.

“Its Joker, Batman, he's working with Professor Pyg, Nice of you to finally come back”

Jason says with a little resentment, the feelings of if Batman just had a more permanent solution to either of these two villains maybe something like this wouldn't have happened.

“You dident need to go so harshly on him, ambulances are on the way thankfully, he could die Red Hood”

Red Hood approaches the TV with the quivering dollatron under it and takes out the VHS tape inside- the case is green.

“Sorry, i went too far, take this its a tape of Joker explaining everything”

He places the tape in Batman's hands as they look at each other next to the beaten version of Professor Pyg on the ground, a silent conversation of what's on the ground, a part of Bruce fighting the thought of Jason’s old ways coming back. But Jason had no remorse shown through his tone in the first part of his sentence.

Chapter Text

Wonder Woman's old broken sword never shined so brightly before little Jason Todd set his eyes on it. The sound of other kids and their parents are heard in the distance, squeaking shoes on the clean museum floors.

“Jay, you wanna go look at more stuff?”

Catherine Todd says looking down at little Jason with a smirk on his face because he's been standing at the Wonder Woman section of the “This World's Heroes” section for way too long, some other people and their kids standing off to the side as he stands right in front of the sword display.

Little Jason looks away from the case that’s taller than him and looks at his mom.

“Okay fine!”

As Jason and his mom walk out of the section they pass a replica costume of Batman’s first costume, the purple gloves and all. They pass replicas of other hero’s old costumes as well like Superman’s,Green Lantern's and even pass a painting of all the old justice society members from Doctor Fate to Wildcat.

“What do you say we get you a birthday cookie, Jaybird?”

There was a tradition in the Todd household, Cake’s were usually too expensive for them to buy so Catherine would usually bake a huge cookie and write Jason’s name on it. No matter what Catherine always got herself together for little Jason, always being there for big moments she knew he would probably remember for the rest of his life.

Jason dident respond to what his mom said though because at this moment he is looking at another section still inside the world heroes section as they were right near the exit of it at the “Early batman years” part.

“Okay fine a couple more minutes then we can go eat”

Catherine said looking down with a smile reassuring Jason his interests and well being were at the core of her worries.

Little Jason looks through the different cases of the museum looking up at the ceiling expecting to see something but nothing there except an oddly large vent and a cobweb. He looks further down in front of him to see a rock from the Rainbow Creature in an air tight case and other recovered things like an old batarang.

But one thing stood out to Jason, this one compartment that he was unable to see from his child height. He looks up to his mom so she can put him on her shoulders and she does so, now he gets a full view of the thing in the compartment.

“The helmet of the Red Hood”

The original Red Hood helmet played in its case as little Jason’s reflection stared back at him inside of it.

PRESENT DAY

Red Hood looks down on the original Red Hood’s helmet still in its case not moving from the same position even after the renovation of the Gotham museum, his now scarred and older reflection staring back at him even though he still has his red and black mask on, the moonlight hitting his face as the large vent is cracked open the vent door dangling down.

The night was quiet, the security guards were on the other side of the building unable to hear anything if something were to happen- the one security camera in this part of the museum not being able to see the “Early batman years” exhibit.

Red Hood pulls out a circular glass cutting device he got from Seilina a while ago and places it on top of the glass covering the helmet. He twists the device in a circular motion as it slowly cuts the glass and pulls it up, letting Red Hood take the perfectly cut piece of glass and place it quietly on the ground.

He stores the device back to being tucked behind his hip holster on the right; he then puts his hand inside the case and smoothly extracts the original Red Hood helmet, in all its tall and shiny glory, never missing any of its shine for how many years after it being retired from whoever the Joker used to be, or if he ever was once someone.

I can change your legacy

Motorcycle tires run rapidly against the Gotham night streets as Red Hood holds the stolen helmet in his right arm, a call comes through Red Hood’s mask.

“Jason Its Bruce”

“Have you found where Joker's hiding yet?”

Clicking can be heard in the background as the ambient sounds of the Batcave can also be heard.

“Not exactly, I have pinpointed 32 locations he possibly could be in though, ranging from his old hideouts to just lining things up that were in the video, as well as the original tape being filmed on a modern camera then was transferred to VHS but thats all”

Jason pulls into the back of his apartment building before checking to see if anyone saw him or was following him, he then removes his mask (switches the call to his phone) and zipped up his jacket to cover the Red Hood symbol and tucking the helmet and holsters with his guns into a bag attached to his bike.

“Ok sounds good, you gonna hit up some of those places now?”

“Will look into some of them shortly with Tim and Damian, you want the addresses?”

“Yeah, I gotta work on some new equipment right now so ill probably check out some places later”

“Take care Jason seriously, are you sure you're okay? Time is of the essence here and if you're not in your right head space with everything the Joker set up… I understand”

“Im fine Bruce”

Jason abruptly hangs up and tucks his phone into his right pocket.

Are you okay? Pfft silly question. Jokers not gonna stop, he made it personal, I have to deal with this

He’s reminded with flashbacks of the nights and days Joker tortured him all the time like an anvil weighing him down in his brain, that that clown is still out there, he still gets to live to commit more crimes every time he escapes.

This fire was in Jason ever since his mom died, ever since he had to see her lifeless on the couch that night when he was so young. No one stopped for him, crime alley didn't change and why would it- Catherine Todd to others was just seen as a struggling addict that had a shitty husband and a kid who didn't know anything but to Jason she was different, the person who taught him to care about others, to see past peoples struggles or any surface level details and see the person inside.

Which caused Jason to see at a very young age especially when he was living on the streets that sometimes that person couldn't be forgiven or saved… like his father or the other dealers and criminals who ran Crime Alley, that purposefully went out of their way to hurt children and other people who were just struggling just like how his mom was.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK!

Jason opens the door to see his short wrinkly upstairs neighbor Gladice, the one who Jason thinks sounds like a sentient pack of cigarettes is at the door and she does not look happy.

“It is ONE in the fucking mornin, why the HELL you using POWER TOOLS at this hour!”

“I apologize my uh… fridge broke and i needed to quickly fix it, i though it would be over fast but it took longer then I thought i apologize”

Gladice scoffs as she walks off back upstairs, the sound of “The super hero squad” playing on Jason’s TV inside. Loud noises aren't new to crime alley, Jason still feels bad for using power tools at night though, he did think the work would be over quicker but he was wrong, molding that helmet into something new would take more than he realized but now… it is finally done.

A new Red Hood helmet stands on his kitchen table, perfectly fitted to his head, no longer sporting the long cylinder shape the old helmet used to. It's not perfectly smooth anymore either, lines going down the edges where it was shaved down, the edges aren't sharp though and still contend with Jason's head shape to where the helmet had to be extended or shortened. 

The helmet is a cherry red colour in the day but gets slightly darker in the night, padding was also added inside the helmet for comfort, a UI was added as well that lets Jason see how many bullets are in each gun.

This helmet has no eyes unlike Jason’s last helmet, giving a more unknowing feeling because no one would be able to tell where he's looking.

Other parts of Jason’s arsenal getting an upgrade as well, the Kevlar t-shirt became more durable and a darker shade, the Red Hood symbol also slightly bigger and now is more of a strongpoint, a bullet probably being able to be stopped by the symbol part but probably not the rest of the shirt. New knife and fire resistant pants as well, those Jason just ordered but never tried on, those are an extremely dark shade of red though.

And finally Jason places his outlaw mask in a little box next to the crowbar in the closet closing it behind him, placing a chapter in his life behind him, but not entirely set on a new one just yet.

Jason gets ping on his phone from Batman, it's the 32 locations the Joker could be in from all over Gotham.

His eyelids start to go down a little out of exhaustion from the past day’s events and all the adrenaline he worked up through it but crime doesn't sleep and neither does the Red Hood.

He takes time to shower and chug an unhealthy amount of coffee with an equally unhealthy amount of sugar and flavored creamer in it. This he hopes will stop the tiredness from coming through but also stopping himself from sleeping has been a recurring thing for a while, the night terrors becoming worse and worse, either seeing the joker beating him again in his sleep, having to relive his mom’s death, Billy’s death, being kidnapped by Zur-En-Arrh just a little bit ago and even Batman beating him up for shooting penguin, albeit with a blank but still.

“Thanks” Jason texts back as he closes his phone and slides it into his pocket, equipping his hip holsters, putting the guns side, throwing on the jacket Roy got him a year ago, leaving it unzipped to show the Red Hood symbol, making sure rederangs are stocked and finally sliding on the new Red Hood helmet.

Red Hood exits from the ceiling window of a warehouse not seeing anything like in the video inside the warehouse, the walls being different colored wood, not even a single supply closet in the whole place- just a dead end. 

“Hey Jason, You check your map?” Tim comes on from over the comms connecting the two robins, the one Red Hood and the one Batman.

Jason quickly pulls out his phone to look at the map and see’s the bat icon missing while the one yellow R and the red R are still on the map. “Where’s Batman?”

“Thats the thing, his tracker went offline, he might of just went under a tunnel or something though- im going to his last location now”

Red Hood looks closely at his phone as he looks at the little red R that is Damian’s location as he sees it in a small little building. “Is Damian at the smallest possible location?”

“I think so, why?”

The pit of Jason’s stomach drops as he starts to remember what it was like getting lured to a small building when he was taken by the Joker, Damian could be in danger right now, even if it's just a hunch and not the case that the Joker could have purposefully cut off Batman and somehow knew when or if Damian was gonna be at that location, he needs to make sure nothing happens to the younger Robin.

“I have a feeling, I'll call you back later”

He’ll be fine, He’ll be fine, He’ll be fine, It's not a setup, it's not a setup

Red Hood races through the streets of Gotham turning down a quiet street as he approaches the small warehouse and grapples off his bike to the top of the building to see what he was just worrying about.

I knew it! This son of a-

Punchline pointing her sniper down a window looking into the warehouse, Jason proceeds to tackle punchline through the ceiling window crashing down below into the top floor office of the warehouse, Robin standing in the middle, confused as Red Hood and punchline crash through the wooden desk destroying it.

Punchline teleports to the other side of the room next to the door leading to the staircase as the door opens and six Joker henchmen pop out.

“Oh my back!”

Red Hood puts his hand and his back as he stretches getting back up looking down to Robin as he walks to him.

“I dident need your help Red Hood i saw her there”

“Yeah whatever”

Jason ruffles Damien's hair in response to his comment. Red Hood and the black, grey and red suited Robin stand back to back, Robin with his fists up and Red Hood with his guns.

“You were worried weren't you”

“I wasn't gonna let history repeat itself”

Before Damien can make a snarky comment back Punchline tries to shoot at the duo but Robin dodges to the right and Red Hood to the left, shooting her hand with a rubber bullet and a birdarang.

“Shit!”

Punchile cries out still wearing the stolen mask of Black Mask. The henchman charges at the two and they trade blows, Red Hood knocking out four and Robin knocking out two, the two vigilantes working in ease.

“I like the helmet by the way”

“Thanks”

They say to one another as the last goon falls to the ground and they refocus on Punchline who is pointing the large sniper at Red Hood.

“Good luck”

She fires the rifle but Red Hood reacts fast and she misses as robin fires a grappling hook at her catching onto her belt with keys on them. She teleports away looking out the window but Robin pulls one of the keys off the chain, it CLANKS on the ground and Robin darts out the window trying to follow the teleportation cloud.

Red Hood picks up the old key and follows Robin out glass crunching under his feet, they chase down the smoke before losing her just like how Arsenal and Red Hood did just not that long ago.

“Since when could she do that?” Robin asks, looking at Red Hood as he gets to the top of the building finally. 

“I don't know, first time i saw it was a couple days ago when she shot Killer Moth”

Robin looks off for a moment in thought then looks back to Red Hood.

“Let me see the key” He says as Red Hood hands him the key to a crow flying by as he does so.

The key is old and obviously rusted, underneath it used to be painted black and has a diamond shape at the top of it as a design, the key part though is an unusual pattern and the key itself is pretty large so it couldn't be anything like a house key.

“Batman to Red Hood and Robin, is everything okay over there?”

Bruce comes over the comms and it can be heard by the sound proofing that he is in the batmobile probably drifting through traffic as he speaks, fine from whatever happened.

“Yeah everything's fine, we need to get a key analyzed at the clocktower, your son will explain what happened”

Red Hood rides through the night streets of Gotham as Robin glides above him grapnel boosting from rooftop to rooftop picking up speed. Jason reflects on the rest of the batfamily, kind of wishing the batgirls and the signal were in town. When all batfamily members are in town it feels more like an actual family even if Alfred, the heart of it was gone they still had each other. There was something inside Jason still though that was tethered to the back of his mind, a gear that grinds ever so slightly whenever a villain escapes, that this cycle of violence in Gotham maybe won't ever stop from the villains that run the city and that pulled him away from the family a little.

Suddenly a message appears in his helmet's UI from a decrypted signal, but it's not the Wayne tech one. 

“ Old Gotham Belltower - Meet in 20 minutes 

Information you want will be waiting

• Sincerely, Royale”

He vaguely remembers the name but also gets a feeling that he has definitely met whoever this “Royale” is, the only detail coming through to him at this time is that this person is French.

“Damian im gonna have to meet you in the batcave in like 30 i gotta deal with something”

“Fine by me”

Red Hood diverges from the road he was once driving on, having to drive through busier streets to get to the Old Gotham Belltower. The Old Gotham Belltower is old, dingy but still maintained- its on the outskirts of Gotham and if you go any farther past it then you would be leaving Gotham.

It takes 20 minutes to get to the Bell tower but eventually Jason manages, this part of Gotham is one he hasn't explored much, the streets are silent but they are also foggy with a hint of danger, the moon beams down on Red Hood’s helmet as he parks his motorcycle on the side of the road next to the Belltower. A stray cat walks up to Red Hood’s feet.

“Hey little buddy, I think i have some strawberries in my bike hold on”

He steps off the bike and looks to his motorcycle seat that doubles as storage underneath it, he flicks it open and a rancid smell hits Jason’s nose.

“Oh Cmon!”

The chocolate milk he took from the clocktower a couple days ago has exploded in the compartment from all the moving around, Jason quickly shuts the lid.

“Sorry buddy, ill come back another time” Jason pets the cat as it then walks away.

The Grapel claw attaches to the top of the roof of the belltower and Jason gets up onto the roof being greeted by the large rusted bell. He walks under and around the bell and goes out to the other edge of the building and that is where Royale stands.

In her flowing sleek black cape and hood, she looks back around at the helmeted Red Hood, her emotion unreadable under her black and gold porcelain mask slightly covered by her hood. Royale has a very Victorian era costume, a white cravat lace neck ruff pokes out from the unbuttoned part of her jacket, three gold latch-like buttons holding together the expensive looking fabric below the ruff. Her black sleeves lead to her black gloves that as well have a ruff on the cuff of the gloves. The assassin like aesthetic sharp.

Gold accents are on her mask as well as leaf like victorian designs are on both cheek areas of the mask; Gold outlining the eyes of the wing styled eyeholes. Her sleek black pants are tucked into the fitted chic upper half over her costume, kind of making it look like they are one with each other; elegance flowing all over. The mask perfectly shaped around her face even outlining her lips and nose. She's covered from head to toe, nothing giving away any part of her identity except her eyes and her muffled voice.

Her eyes somehow find Red Hood’s even though she can't see where his are, her blue eyes piercing with perplexity; This sends a slight shiver down Red Hood's spine.

“Hello?” Red Hood waves his hand casually at his waist trying not to seem intimidated.

“Hello rouge, you look rough, long night?” Royale responds barely moving her head, her french accent coming through her words. 

“One could say that yeah… have we met before?”

“So you have forgotten? Last time we met you were with your amazonian l'autre moitié” Royale says moving her head to meet Red Hood’s at the same height as he steps to the same edge she's standing on but a little ways away.

“Oh I remember now, back when me and Artemis took care of Mad Hatter in-”

“New Latent, My city- Thankfully I haven't seen that weasel again but that's why I come to you today” Royale pauses before she continues.

“From my research on you I'm inclined to believe you have a vendetta against this ‘Joker’ character, an on and off again vendetta at that but still”

“Yeah… So what's this information exactly?” Red Hood tries to change the subject not wanting to focus on the endless battle of him going after the Joker, Batman stopping him and so on and so forth that has happened over the years. 

These last couple days have felt different though, like he’s already gone over or is about to go over a line, like he's speeding towards one diverging lane.

“There will be an operation going on to infect the Gotham water supply in fifty minutes; done so by that clown’s female counterpart”

“Wait Punchline? Where exactly are they infecting the water?”

“The water supply station beside the New Gotham cemetery”

The pit in Jason’s stomach falls, the implication of infecting the water and making everyone infected with the toxin and the possibility that the joker at any moment can force someone to commit a crime or do something crazy was extremely alarming. But that was not the main point for Jason though, He remembers where his mom was buried, it was that exact cemetery that's beside the water supply station.

That's no coincidence… that clown must be there

The pit rises back up in fury due to the water situation as well as Joker probably messing around in a place like a cemetery (especially where his mom was buried) grinded Jason’s gears, all those people that will get infected just because they were trying to live was sickening, He has been through situations like this before but Joker doing something so personal on top of everything else felt like more of a reason for him to do something drastic, to do something he might not be able to come back from.

“Thanks Royale.” Red Hood says as he walks backwards towards the bell tower.

“Your welcome” Royale responds looking over the ledge across it to the tree line with the moonlight shining through it.

“Wait, how did you get this information in the first place?”

“I have my ways rouge” Royale looks towards Red Hood for one second as she says this then instantly pulls out something from her back pocket and throws it at the ground creating a large smoke cloud that disappears quickly, Royale gone.

Red Hood looks around bewildered.

he elevator doors clank open once again.

Barbra looks behind her from where she sits in front of the Clocktower computer, a blue glow from it hitting the surroundings. Red Hood steps out of the elevator and looks around to not see Batman or either Robin’s in sight but only Oracle.

“You should have shot me a text, I would've wanted to help catch the Joker you know” Barbra says typing on the Batcomputer as a picture of the gate leading inside of the New Gotham Cemetery pops up on screen.

“Also did you steal that?” She looks at him with a questioning glance.

“One, Sorry I thought sleeping was a thing you needed to do, Two, if referring to the helmet… I don't got to answer that” Jason and Barbra both chuckle, then she goes back to looking at the monitor clicking around, Jason’s chuckle is cut off by the thought of remembering what the next hour might entail. 

Bruce then comes out of the room to the right of them, the storage room; he also  has his cowl down. He takes a second as he walks into the middle section of the clocktower where the computer is and looks over to Jason. He looks at him up and down recognizing the changes that have happened over the last couple of days, noticing the change as a possible thought goes through Bruce like a bullet through the abdomen, could Jason ever have actually changed since he came back as Red Hood?

“Got a new helmet?”

“Yeah, the mask felt a little, I don't know- forced”

“I always liked the helmet more,” Bruce says as he walks across, placing the old key on a bookshelf that surrounds the middle of the room and where the computer is.

“Where's Tim and Damian?” Jason asks, taking off his helmet and setting it on the computer desk.

“Tim twisted his ankle during our fight with the human flea in the subway where the comm breakers were and I thought we got this handled so I told Damian he can just hang back at home, much to his dismay” Bruce crosses his arms and looks up at the big monitor.

“Punchline’s gonna try to put the toxin in Gotham’s water supply”

“What?” Bruce and Barbra say in unison, turning to look at Jason.

“In like twenty nine minutes punchline and im guessing a bunch of Joker’s goons are gonna take over the water supply station and try to infect everyone they possibly could in Gotham, and im guessing the key was confirmed to be to the gate getting into the New Gotham Cemetery?”

“Yeah it is, and that's where your mom is buried right? Doesn't feel like a coincidence” Barbra responds looking over to Jason as she pulls up a photo of the cemetery, a group photo assembly of the employees posing in a secluded part of the cemetery with no grave stones or anything in the background. There is one thing in the background though a shed with its door open casually, revealing the same items and wood type that were in the background of the Jokers video.

“Smells like a trap, he’s drawing you out using your mom as an anchor, if he's really staying somewhere in the cemetery waiting It's just to drag you out. I think the best decision is for you to take care of the water supply station situation and I will take care of the Joker”

“What no-” Jason says, offended, squinting his eyebrows, staring at Bruce in annoyance looking like he obviously wants to go after the Joker.

“Jason trus-”

“Trust you?! No Bruce trust me, I'm in just the right headspace, I'm going after the Joker and you can take care of Punchline. After everything that happened with the shelter with my dad’s face, targeting people who needed help like me when I was on the street, even still for killing me. I know its a trap but that's fine ill face it-” Jason pauses before speaking again, his right eye lid twitches very slightly “I wont do anything crazy”

Everyone pauses for a moment before talking; in that moment Jason looks behind Bruce to the bookshelf behind him. There's a mirror on the bookshelf and he sees himself looking back at him noticing the scars all over his face, the ones that will stay with him forever, the ones that the Lazarus pit didn't heal from the crowbar hitting him - a reflection of his defeat and sadness.

Barbra rolls away in the awkward silence to the washroom on the left side of the clocktower.

Bruce sighs before approaching Jason and pulling him into a fatherly hug. During the hug Jason doesn't embrace his dad back instead keeping his hands to his side. Bruce has helped him become a better person through his teens and just helped him become who he is today, without him there would be no Red Hood and possibly no Jason Todd. 

But there's a part of Jason that recognizes that maybe he just needed a family, that becoming Robin wasn't actually right for him like how it was for Dick and the violence that came with it just led him down the path of more anger, the path that eventually killed him. But now that path has determined what he truly wants to do, to be the Red Hood.

Jason slips a small device onto Bruce’s grappling hook.

I shouldn't have done that…

The hug ends and they step away from each other, Bruce places a parental hand on Jason’s shoulder “I'm sorry I didn't catch on to the shelters, Joker went too far. If you want to take him on by yourself I trust you Jason, I will take care of Punchline; also… did you steal that helmet?”

Bruce says the last part less seriously as Jason pushes Bruce’s hand off his shoulder. The large door to the bathroom opens and Barbra wheels out, the door being larger was actually so her wheelchair goes in and out more easily. She goes over the carpet in the middle section of the clocktower that is surrounded by the bookshelves, the big clock window showing the stars in the night sky.

“You guys should get going, by the time you guys arrive at both locations they will already be there” Barbra says adjusting herself into the desk.

“Good point, lets get going” Bruce responds, flipping his cowl over his head as Jason grabs the new helmet and slips it on, both of them then enter the elevator as it rattles in its old age.

“Approaching the water supply station now”

“Sounds good Bruce; Jason any word on the gate”

Red Hood stands inside the little security guard booth as he takes the duct tape off of the scared and sweaty security guard huddled in the corner. There's a gunshot hole in the front window of the booth, likely shot to scare or kill the guard, either way the guard is fine with no visible injuries. He stands back up fully as he prepares to answer Oracle.

“Yeah im getting it open”

“Okay good”

Oracle ends the call for now; Jason looks down at the guard who is obviously scared. He moves the chair to the side to see the little TV showing the security camera feed and a bunch of buttons on the side near the box TV.

“You okay? Can you tell me which one of these opens the gate” Red Hood asks, turning his head to the security guard who just stood up now.

“We usually… uh- need to unlock the gate with a key then come back in here and press that silver button… but that crazy lady stole it i don't know if its open also can you cut these”

Seems tedious but whatever

“Oh sure, sorry”

Red Hood walks over and uses his knife to cut the green duct tape from around security guards hands, then walks over and presses the silver button… the dark gate surrounded by cobblestones walls opens.

He walks over the paved road to his motorcycle sitting in front of the open gate, wheels kicking off as he rides down the street blowing his hood off. He comes to an intersection coming into the cemetery that leads two roads, the one on the right leading to more gravestones while the one on the left leads to the office building for the cemetery, Jason goes right for one reason.

It's only a couple minutes down the street before he parks his bike on the side of the empty road, the cemetery extremely quiet surrounded by gravestones, the only thing that can be heard are the birds chirping. The grass was dry as he walked over it heading down the rows and rows of headstones eventually getting to one that's kind of in the middle. As he walks closer to it he sees something green on it that causes spite to run through his veins instantly.

“Meet in office in building hehe

• From your friend THE OLD RED HOOD”

Is written over the gravestone of Catherine Todd in glow in the dark green silly string. 

You got to be kidding me

“Sorry mom” Jason says lowly, wiping off the annoying string and throwing it to the ground beside him, the moonlight lit on him and the gravestone he's bending over in front of. He looks at it for a moment before speaking, taking off his helmet and closing his eyes trying to envision his mom as he places one hand on the name.

“Sorry about the silly string… I know I haven't visited you in a while and I should have, I’ve tried my best to help people just like you said I had the potential for; I know you probably meant like a fire fighter or paramedic or something but yeah.” Jason chuckles as he opens his eyes back up as they adjust to the moonlight in his face.

“I don't know if you would be proud of me… sometimes I feel like I'm not truly helping anyone… crime alley really hasn't changed since…” Jason chokes on his words trying to hold back tears.

“Im sorry if what I'm about to do doesn't make you proud but he's… he's taken so much from so many people I can't let Joker get away with it any longer. I just don't want to see people hurting like how you were… I wasn't able to do anything when I was younger but maybe I can now… I just wish you dident… never mind, I miss you”

Jason sniffles standing back up with his helmet in hand as he slips it back on, he looks up to the moon and sighs. He walks back to his bike and turns it around going the other direction back to the small intersection that goes towards the cemetery main office building.  He turns the corner and goes down the long street until he hits an open gate that usually says “main office building” above it but now it's painted over with “Jokers reunion palace” and cheap clown masks hung on the arches of the gate.

Red Hood parks goes under the gate and is greeted by the big office building of the cemetery, one that looks like it takes up too much space like a rich person bought it and turned the owners office into their own little palace. Jason reads one of the parking signs as he enters that's reserved for the owner of the cemetery, the name on it is “Jordan Allen” Jason grimaces under the mask after reading the name.

The building modern and is again large and has stairs going up to the main doors, the lights inside the entrance are off giving it an eerie feeling under the moonlight; looking to the left is a huge glass window with a desk visible inside (but no Joker inside), why someone would have a large glass window as there office window is strange but Jason isn't surprised someone like Jordan would probably try to get something like that built. The large window and office is on a higher level then the entrance and even has what looks like a garage under it but it looks like the garage door was blown up and now there are wood panels covering the hole the explosion made. 

Red Hood walks through the smashed glass doors, stepping over the glass on the marble ground. To the right is the reception desk with of course no one behind it but it does look like the monitor sitting on the desk was smashed in a couple of times. He walks up the steps going up leading to a wide hallway going left and right, he goes left since that leads to the office, anticipation growing inside of Jason with every step.

The wide hallway has a glass ceiling, probably just to add the more modern aesthetic and natural lighting that the nepotism baby who owns it wants. Tonight it works out though as the moon light perfectly highlights the space in front of Red Hood. The space in front of him is a long hallway that leads to the main office where Joker wants to meet him, the door is spray painted yellow at the very end, an obvious indicator that also feels like mocking. There are also multiple doors that are in the hallway too, one on the left close to Jason to where he stands and two more on the right a little ways up before the office door, one of them looks like a supply closet but the other two look like what could be another office or something of the sort; eeriness of the space seeping into Jason’s bones.

There's a loud CLIANK! Sound that comes to the left as he walks past the door on the left, Jason jumps forward and looks back to see the door swinging open and an axe thrown into the plain white wall and it would've gone into him if he did not dodge in time. Now Jason knows for sure that the other two doors are trapped. He gets to the next door and quickly puts his foot in front of the door then quickly goes back but what happens is not as quick as the first door.

A blue old janitor cart rolls out of the doorway, the sound of a large spring going off beforehand presumably launching the cart out. One thing isn't normal about the cart though and that's the mop handle that has a severed hand on the end of it. The hand is blue and looks like it has been cut off whoever some time ago, Jason grimaces under his mask thinking that that might be the actual janitor's hand or maybe a random person, his hands ball into fists.

For the next door Red Hood wheels the janitor cart past it and waits to see what happens as the door swings open once again and for a second there is silence before a PFFFFFFFFFFF! Sound is started to be heard as a auburn colored gas starts to spray out of the room; Jason is not phased though from what he presumes is the controlling crazy gas as his helmet also doubles as a gas mask, he walks through it and approaches the spray painted office door before hitting a hitting button on the underside of his helmet activating the heat signature lens.

He looks down for a moment and unholsters his right pistol and takes a long glance at it. Red Hood changes the magazine then holsters it again. 

He can see a faint heat signature leaning against the wall to the right, he turns it off and switches it back to normal view.

Probably Joker trying to pop up and whack me

Red Hood kicks in the door and it flies open; instantly the lights in the big office switch on light green and purple lights highlighting the entire room, the big window is visible as the wooden desk sits in front of it. The space is rather large for a cemetery owner's office. Red Hood takes a step inside and instantly turns to look to the right expecting to see a clown and what he expects is there, Joker with a crowbar over his head ready to swing down on Jason but unlike when he was Robin he's learned. He grabs the crowbar as Joker tries to bring it down and also grabs Joker’s collar and does a spin throwing Joker as he holds the crowbar into the middle of the big office.

Joker on all fours begins to stand up crowbar in hand and once he stands up he hits the crowbar into his other hand's palm with a huge grin on his chemically bleached face.

“Well Well Well we meet again Jay!”

“Where the fuck is the remote Joker” Red Hood puts up his fists not ready to use his guns just yet, the door closes behind him.

He notices his surroundings better now that he's actually in the room as well. There's a trap door that looks like it was poorly put together, probably leading to the garage area below the room.

“Jumping straight to business are we? So caught up in other peoples useless deaths that you don't even realize what I'm holding?!”

Joker's words ring through Jason’s mind as he looks down to the crowbar that is awfully familiar, Jason is hit with flashbacks intercut with reality as he realizes… It's the same crowbar, the same crowbar he was beaten with, the one that led to his death. The crowbar now is rusted, aged heavily and overall looks like it's been through hell. The sound of the crowbar hitting Joker’s palm makes Jason's back tingle with irritability and the memories of his death flooding back to him. He takes a step back.

“Did… Did you SERIOUS-”

“YES of course I went back all the way to where you died and YES i took the crowbar back, it was still in that old shitty warehouse actually… oh the memories.” Joker exclaims as at the last part of his sentence he hugs the crowbar to his chest and looks up at the ceiling with glee in his eye making an obvious joke of everything.

Jason’s breathing begins to become more sporadic, he's losing control of himself. He grounds himself by feeling his jacket and trying to calm down his breathing but there's no time as the Joker is already stepping forward towards him crowbar above his head once again. The memory of when he was first hit with hit flooding back to him, he's stuck in place and can't move.

KTHUNK! Joker slams the crowbar into Jason's right shoulder knocking him back into a marble pillar that goes from the floor to the ceiling, pain scorching through his shoulder rapidly but he doesn't focus on it- he can't; he thought he would be able to face the Joker again but forgot the times he faced him before this after he came back to life were only 2 times both with all of the batfamily by his side but now he's alone and only himself can save him.

“Oh c'mon not gonna even fight back!? So boring, You haven't changed at all!” Joker laughs through his words working up the crowbar to strike again but little does he know… he has indeed changed.

“I know the training was difficult and Master Bruce can be a wall at times but I'm proud of you!” Alfred’s voice wrings through Jason’s mind.

“I hope one day when you're older you’ll know how much I try to keep you safe, I can't wait to see the person you’ll grow up to be Jason” Catherine Todd’s voice wrings through her son’s mind.

Jason’s breath slows and goes back to normal as he sees the charging clown and with all the strength in the world he pushes off the pillar with his hands and sends a brutal kick to Joker’s stomach launching the clown backwards and leaving saliva to fall from the clown's mouth.

CLSSHHHHHH! The crowbar grinds against the office floor; its clown wielder is extremely winded.

“Ooooh you got m-” Joker is cut off as Red Hood kicks him right in the face knocking him on his back as Joker then quickly stands up with a huge smirk on his face, Red Hood's fists ready for a fight. Blood drips from Joker's both nostrils rapidly as it trickles onto the floor beneath them as they stand in front of the desk.

“Good hit kid, not better than your father though” Joker says mockingly as he swings the crowbar at Red Hood but misses giving Red Hood the opportunity to then slam his left hook right into his jaw sending Joker into the desk with a THLUMP!

“You really killed 32 people! and infected more with some controlling death toxin just to fuck with me!? And you worked with professor pyg too?!, you’ve done a lot of stupid shit but this… this plan is really up there in stupidity”

“Well don't call the plan stupi-”

Red Hood throws a rederang into Joker’s shoulder and it sticks in there, Joker winces but somehow smiles at the same time. Jason isn't able to dodge this next hit from Joker though as Joker whacks his extended arm that he threw the rederang with, knocking his hand into a stapler on the desk that he grasps. He tosses the stapler up quickly then grabs the underside of it that isn't the side where the staples come out; He whacks Joker in the face with the other side of the stapler causing a staple to put itself into Joker's right cheek, staggering him back a little.

“Aw Shucks! You think that's the first time a stapler went into my face?”

“Why did you send Killer Moth out to die?!!!”

Red Hood takes another swing at Joker but he dodges it this time and as he is dodging backwards he releases some gas from his flower on his suit which makes Jason stumble back to get better vision.

“Well it's simple, that moron would do anything for money so of course I used him to start this fun little goose chase!”

Killer moth really wasn't the brightest of any villains being forgotten by a lot of people in general in Gotham but did he deserve to die? Jason grimaces at the words being said about a guy that ultimately never hurt anyone aside from scaring security guards with his annoyingly loud jetpack and brightly coloured costume.

“Anyways there's more fun to be had, like the little friends i brought with me here” Joker says with glee as the smoke in front of Red Hood clears and Joker quickly pulls out the remote. The remote that if broken and or disabled will stop anyone else from being controlled. What Barbra found out with the toxin is that it actually leaves the infected person’s system probably after a good twelve hours.

But there isn't twelve hours for those people if Joker presses any button. And right then and there Joker quickly points the controller at Jason and presses a small button on the white remote, rumbling can be heard from the trap door.

“What did you do?!”

“Don't worry, fake hood it only sends the six under us at you silly, the red button obviously controls everyone infected” Joker shrugs his shoulder and chuckles as the trap door swings open.

The wooden trapdoor splinters as it opens six average looking people rushing out but there's something not average about them, their skin in grey. If Red Hood doesn't destroy or deactivate that remote, these people will die and he can't let that happen, it grinds Jason's gears that these people might get hurt or even die.

Joker backs off tucking the remote into his pocket, the top half of it poking out of poking out. Jason tries to quickly charge at Joker but the infected people are too fast as one larger grey man tackles him over the desk making the monitor fall and crushing the keyboard as well as making papers fly. Red Hood grunts and gets the grey guy off him as he gets up but as he turns towards the Joker again, he's already across the room watching deviously, the green lights highlighting him. 

There's already more grey ones running around the desk to try to attack Jason as the first one reels his arm back for a punch before missing and falling down as Red Hood slides over the desk. He tries charging over to Joker as the clown laughs at him, the grey people mostly take to jumping off of the desk. One jumps high and fast punching Red Hood in the helmet luckily not cracking it but making him fall down, this makes Joker laugh even more. Red Hood reaches behind his back and shoots his grapple hook at Joker as the hook grabs Joker's shirt.

“Uh oh”

Jason pulls Joker closer to him as he stands up and basically makes Joker run into the charging grey people, Joker is knocked off balance by the first one and Jason sees the opportunity and places a small device on the remote without Joker noticing.

He chased around by the grey people for a while not trading blows with them though because he doesn't want to hurt any of them, he's able to make 3 fall into the trapdoor hole and the others are staggered after they have run into each other; Jason stands on the other side of the room as them as Joker stands in front of the disheveled desk.

“It looks like you had enough fun with these ones, why don't I call some more?”

Joker smirks, holding up the remote proudly, Jason’s anger towards the clown is quelled slightly by the unknowingness of what the clown is about to do and how the Joker has failed.

Red Hood clicks a button on the underside of his helmet causing a small charged amount of electricity to short circuit the device practically destroying it but from the inside. Joker clicks the red button and starts laughing.

“Well I- ummmmm” He notices the little device on the side of the remote.

“OH YOUR JUST LIKE THE BAT, always ruining the fun” He smashes the remote on the ground in annoyance as he paces back and forth in front of the desk.

Jason smirks under the mask with glee knowing that the device cant hurt anyone anymore and looking ways in front of him he can see the results as the grey people turn back to their normal states and are perfectly fine albeit confused.

“Hey are you guys okay? You should go now its not safe here, you guys should be able to just walk out the front doors” Red Hood says approaching the middle of the room as the once grey people look back at him in confusion before the awkward silence is broken by their shuffling leaving the room one by one, Jason turns back to look at the Joker.

“Well I guess I'm gonna have to go have fun in Arkham then…” Joker huffs with a little smirk knowing that nothing will truly stop him, that even if he's put in Arkham there's a high chance of him getting out, the failure of the justice system being just a normal thing; just like the drug dealers that gave Jason’s mom the drugs that led to her death got out, just like how more supervillains just break out easily all the time.

“I'm not gonna try to give you some speech about humanity or whatever… I'm done with you Joker. I already admitted when I came back to life that it was about you taking Batman away from me that angered me but a part of me is still angry that you even got to kill a CHILD like I was… the real disdain for bad people like you has been with me… my whole life; you're just going to go on and hurt more people like you hurt me… I can't let that happen” The tether in Jason’s mind snaps quietly.

The sound of Batman’s grappling hook goes off, the black cord flowing across the large window landing on top of the office roof, Joker and Jason know what's gonna happen. Batman’s going to come and save the day, knocking out the bad guy and taking them back to Arkham, this time will be different though.

“Well here's my ride” Joker maniacally laughs.

As Batman is starting to grapple up to break in the window something happens, the grapple disconnects from the grapple gun with a loud CLUINK! Batman was already in the air when he started to get pulled by the grappling hook so the momentum from that actually launched Batman into the garage underneath, the sound of wood planks cracking is heard as well as Batman glides across the ground is heard as well.

Jokers face straightens slightly “What did you d-” BANG! BANG! Two gunshots come from Jason’s right pistol flying through Joker's abdomen as the bullets leave two trails of blood behind them wisping through the air like the bullets themselves sucked all life from the air in the moment, Joker falls down on his back wide eyed and shocked, Red Hood approaches him standing over him, holstering his gun.

“You… you actually did it… now that's a good joke…” Joker says having a hard time breathing as a pool of blood flows beneath him.

Red Hood picks up the crowbar that killed him from the floor. “The only Joke was your life… and this is the punchline”

In a cathartic swing he brings down the crowbar onto the clown's head, Joker laughs quietly, he brings the crowbar back down again with all the force he wished he could when he was kidnapped, Joker can't laugh anymore.

A deafening silence that isn't there surrounds everything in the room, Jason’s shoulders drop with the wait of what he just did but his shoulders didn't just drop they relaxed. There's a small smile on Jason’s face under the mask knowing that Joker can't hurt anyone ever again; crowbar in hand still dripping with the blood of the clown. The same clown that killed him is gone, no longer will he just go in and out of Arkham and no longer does the clown prince of crime breath.

PHUMP PHUMP! Batman’s hands appear coming beneath the trapdoor and pulling himself up not yet seeing what happened in this room, the event that will change the batfamily. His blue cowl is highlighted under the green light.

Batman’s face turns to shock under the cowl looking to Red Hood and to the Joker, he's obviously dead.

“Wha- WHAT DID YOU DO!?”

“I did what you couldn't, I don't want a fight”

Red Hood steps away from the Joker’s lifeless body and takes a couple steps towards Batman, he throws the bloody crowbar at his feet with CLANK!

“Jason if- Once you kill your no better then them”

“How the fuck does that make sense? I'm not talking about brutally killing the Riddler or something, I killed the JOKER for gods sake. I wouldn't go around shooting burglars or petty criminals, the ones like Joker or Bane the ones who always break out… The ones that TOOK people from you from US… how DARE you compare me to JOKER… I'm not arguing Bruce, I'm leaving… you guys can have Gotham to yourselves…”

“Stop…” Bruce says with a low voice, sounding like he's unsure what to do as he reaches to place his hand out on Jason’s turned around shoulder.

“Let me go… you owe me that”

And with that Jason closes the door to the office behind him as well as the door to Gotham, leaving behind some of his trauma with it. 

The moonlight reflects in his helmet as he walks outside and goes on his motorcycle passing the six once grey people that he saved. The road leaving the cemetery is bumpier than before, Jason glances to the street that goes to his mom’s grave as he takes the exit.

As he drives out the exit his mind settles, with the impact of what he did, he can't go back now, Red Hood is officially an anti-hero now. There's sounds of sirens in the background going towards the cemetery but he doesn't hear them. He looks up to the moonlight as he drives towards it looking up, finally feeling a little more at peace.