Red Hood And Company ; My Life as an Outlaw
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Chapter 1; Kaboom Town Downs
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AHH! I'M LISTENING TO ELEVATE FROM INTO THE SPIDERVERSE SOUNTRACK AND HAD TO PUSH THIS. WELL….THIS IS A SEQUAL TO RED X ARC KEEP GUESSING KIDS. YOU CAN READ IT AS A STANDALONE FROM THE UNDER THE RED HOOD FILM DEATH IN THE FAMILY IF IT HELPS. KNOW THAT TEEN TITANS ARE MENTIONED AND YOUNG JUSTICE AS WELL IN SMALL DOSES. FEEL FREE TO ASK IF YOU GET STUCK. LET ME KNOW! POV OF JASON. SIMILAR TO CONSTANTINE'S ARC THAT I DID. READ ON!
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Gotham is a wild town full of crazy nut jobs that make you appreciate being alive. I was once, and then I just took that all for granted and tried to die, over and over.
Now, I have a new job, and it's not as a hero like a used to be painted as beside the big scary rodent.
I'm Red Hood. Yup, the same one you saw come at Bats as a clan or something, but I don't wear my helmet or underwear on outside me suit. I armor up, gear up and hush up. Hush. That was me too. She's coming back soon, the little bundle of terrors in me is saying "Jason, you fuck up! Don't trust Talia with the rest of your undead lives." I tell it, that my company I keep is all I've got, so I'll stay that way in shadow. Cause even my lousy big brother Nightwing came around to kick some sense into the old me. If you've never met someone like Dick, he's a no ordinary pretty boy jock. He's….original, like I'm trying to brand myself up all over the underworld of this city. Bruce Wayne, my ex mentor is asleep tonight for the first time.
But, me?
I'm wide awake, seeing things more clearly than ever.
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"Hello, red hawk."
"Red Hood, Talia." I point at the wrapped bundle in her long arms. "Is he asleep."
"Was, the entire flight. So well behaved. How was the watch." She turned to head over the cathedral's view up so high. "Spire gazing isn't what I expected to be a pastime for the former pupil of my father."
"I was just thinking. You have everything set up for the move to –
"It will be in a city, like this one. I don't want my son to become a bat by mere coincidence unless…" She pulled away, seeing her drowsy little Damian and smiling as any mother would. That was all a lie. She had her intentions, her plans for him in the near future, and I was a part of that future. I crinkle my nose at the fact that I'll be leaving this shit ball of a hell hole town. Gotham is a never ending trash fire that can't be put out. It never grows, yet it never seems to stay in its own bubble of chaos. It exists like….like a damned god. Hearing my own thoughts of it, that sounds a lot like him. Bruce.
He brought more pain to so many, and he still never regrets a damn thing. Playboy? He's a flunky. A dope. I'm just glad he quit searching.
There was a new girl and a boy way too young to hold a rang. The new Robin. I should have warned the kid, and I will. One day, before Batman gets him shot and burned up in this trash hell as well.
"Are we ready to go, Jason?"
My name, I know that. It's who I am under the skin grafting and the misery sewn into every facet of my soul. "Yeah." Turning back to the city lights and what's left of that sense peace I got from being up above it, the people…I guess, there is nothing left to chance. So, we got off the roof and leaped into the Demon Head's future.
And I, was soon to be unofficially, the hired new sitter of the prince of a true devil.
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A headway in our development meant more perks. Getting used to watching how the kid was getting older faster…that was a genetic alteration Talia said to get the kid out of diapers faster. I swear, royals are not good parents but what would I know? My mom was a traitor, a druggie and the kind of ass kisser you'd expect of someone with a shady past and a few dealings out of the city before I was even conceived. In all actuality, I was kind of jealous of the little half – son to Wayne. They had the same eyes, the kid's were blue but turned green like mommy deaerest's on his second birthday, months later. That was when I had decided to lead a squad of the shadows for one round, and Talia put her two cents in.
"Your outfit screams too loudly; the Shadows are stealth by nature. You cannot lead if you cannot learn from us and adjust fully to our ways."
In those days, I got the sense she was baiting me to throw away my freedom for a toddler; just because it was to get back at Bruce, that was no reason to keep me hidden like the dribbling toddler I had taken to calling, brother.
I had a little brother, and yet she said I should be his teacher when he could hold a dagger. That made me chuckle, but to tell she was serious? That he was going to be much more than a spoiled brat beside his other siblings, she had none. Her siblings did, yet Talia was the favorite of the fabled Ra's Al Ghul, the anarchist piece that saved me and messed up the Joker as payment for the Bat's loss. In the past, Ra's wanted to teach the old Bruce Wayne to run his empire, to be his successor. He refused, found out the man was well, crazy, and flew out of their but over the years – every time they stayed in touch, Talia's hands never left. He was her toy, and to that….Damian is here because she got what she wanted, no. what Ra's expected, to get Bruce to fall even farther than when he had been defeated twenty other times before coming back to life with the Lazarus pit as Ra's "insurance." If he died, he never stayed dead/ His family, his cult knew that. They kept him from seeing the light at the end of that tunnel almost as much as my hair had refused to go full white like Deathstroke's. he didn't use it, but I saw him swing on by with his clingy kids. His kids, her grin was apparently not real. I could tell. She looked brainwashed, and his son….
Well, I heard the Titans back before Dick went full Nightwing took Ravager number one's life, sort of. Slade went crazy and ever since, he's gone after Dickie and lost. He tried to mar – uh, imprison this princess, Tara Markov but she showed him. And lost, dear god…. Am I that worried he'll see right past the new gear?
I'm in gear that looks more shinobi post – modern epic. Red, black, a face piece to hide me but not my eyes, they see way too much shit already about to go south…...once he shows up and caused a riot when Dami was not even eight.
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Remember how I said the kid grows up fast as a tadpole? Well, he just turned seven about…. less than a year and a half and disputes for Ra's ruling power is getting intense. Talia told me to go to the south gate with the winy brat and stay put. Once tensions die down, we'll get a notice to come back inside. Damian is restless, a confused kid. He's used to the beat downs to make him a weapon worthy of his grandfather's affection, if you can even call demons good parents. I can't.
We wait, I talk him out of trying to peek from behind the gates as he's scooped up and pouting already. "Todd, mother needs us. You cannot just run away –
A shot fires, and we hear shouts of a battle going on. My blood pressure for a second, rises. "Stay here." I shouldn't leave him. I shouldn't do what could get us both skewered by whatever enemy is after my brother's family. They are also my family, not matter how wrought our relationship is, I'm still loyal to the ones that gave me a home again. I hush him one last time, his green irises make me worry that if I fall to that mad man's blade, his family's oath I'd to haunt the guilty party. Being in this country has made me superstitious. Not logically a "why" to that answer, but more of a "how" or a "what."
I see groaning Shadows and know who's lost the battle, Slade's one eye shoots back at me as Rose comes clear into me. I drag a sword from some fallen man's chest and swing it with only one intent, and by God. I fuck up pretty badly with my aim. One last time, as Rose looked back, her eye, her left now gashed and bleeding out. Slade is running over, shouting, barking orders with his lungs out of fire, more smoke than flame. I'm freaking running until I see a coughing mass and duck down to join it.
"RA'S!"
DEAD. He won't get to the pit, but I can try, I can always just try. So, I pick him up, find the secret way to the caverns were that green pool is and place him there. However, Slade isn't on my back, so he cannot get here. I'm safe, but Ra's…
He's floating up, no pulse. My lungs shudder. I have to find Talia. Leaving him by the edge, just so his head is not in the green waters, I head back up. There, Slade had Talia and Rose's ability is kicking in. She'll have to face being like her dad, because I needed to defend my saviors. Talia is angry, but her shame shows less by how proud she can be in times like these. Slade breathes that fire out at us, scaring me but engaging her.
"It was too late to revive that old fool. Talia will tell us, as will you. Where is the heir, the young son of the demon's head..."
I have one shot. They can look all they want; I don't want to leave her yet Talia motioned to the wall in a way Slade just sees as the pained grunt. I put up my hands and forgot, that my suit was made by a real strategist in the art of flipping deception. I set of a pellet and throw, enough cover as Talia and I don't meet.
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Slade still has her, so I flee and stay away from the eyes of the enemy. I don't stay, I got to wear Damian has his legs hugged to his chest. Poor kid, he'll see me all bloody and flip.
That's when I think back, forwards…this.
That is why she stayed on taking the Bat's DNA.
One day….is today.
"Lil' bro." I come up barely breaking a sweat, not yet. He looks up cautiously at me. "It's time to meet your dad. Our other, family…. Let's move."
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So, like son of Batman movie, Slade didn't get his eye cut and Dami is younger in this. Rose is going to be about seventeen or eighteen. Dick isn't twenty yet. Jason is a year older so it's more a new continuity. Dami looks up to Jason now, but what happens when at such a young age he learns everything. Even the death of his grandfather? Also, how is Jason going to grovel to stay with the bat clan when he gave them the bird already?? Find out!