Title: stained and scarred
Disclaimer: not my characters
Warnings: references to a less-than-stellar childhood
Pairings: none
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 265
Point of view: third
Prompt: DCU, Jason Todd, He isn't the animal everyone thinks he is; he just likes getting his hands dirty while he gets the job done.
He knows that he's not the hero. Knows that his hands are stained and scarred with red. He knew that going in, long before Batman took a kid off the street and tried to clean him up, make him better. Turn him into a hero, like that guy whose place he could never fill. Compared to Batman, compared to Nightwing, the Red Hood is only a fallen shadow.
But he's always been a shadow. Does his best work in the dark. He learned that a long time before he tried to steal the wheels off the Batmobile. And it was nice, being a ward of Bruce Wayne. He almost felt safe for awhile.
But Bruce... Jason was broken a long time ago. Before Bruce, before the Joker, he was just a boy in pieces and no one can put him back together. Nobody.
And he's not rabid, no matter what Bruce and Alfred and even Dick think. He's not a monster, getting off on violence and blood.
He should be. By all rights, he goddamned should be. Not just anyone can get killed by the Joker and come out the other end just fine.
A crowbar and an explosion. And then the Batman's own teacher, trying to make amends and just fucking everything up even worse.
Jason knows what he is. And he knows what he's not.
Batman is the hero. Red Hood is just a bastard doing his best to clean up the streets, even though his hands are stained and scarred with blood.
(It's so much easier to kill than not.)