1 - New Beginnings and Biotoxic

He took a shuddering step backwards. No. It couldn't be. The newspaper in front of him had to be a lie. The Joker wasn't alive. Batman cared more than that, cared too much to let his murderer walk.

It had been a bad week. Waking up in the Lazarus Pit, getting pushed off a cliff, and now this. This random American newspaper on a stand in Germany, only there for tourists who wanted news from home. This random American paper claiming that Batman had put the Joker back into Arkham.

Batman and Robin had put the Joker back in Arkham.

Something wet traced down his cheek, and he raced back to his hotel room, slamming the door behind him.

Hours. Hours and many broken objects later, he stood alone in the room, thinking of what to do next.

Talia had said she could get him trainers. People who knew how to do things, and he would probably take her up on that. All knowledge was useful. Knowledge was what kept him alive on the streets. Lack of knowledge, not knowing that his mother was so far under Joker's thumb, had gotten him killed.

But then what?

A half formed plan swam into his thoughts. One involving Bruce, the Joker, a decision, and a lot of explosives. But he brushed it away. Batman had replaced him. Clearly, he meant nothing to the man, despite years of partnership, years of considering the man to be his father. Besides, if anything would convince Jason that Batman would never kill, it was this. He had been murdered, and the Joker was still laughing. Better not to waste his time on it.

But at the end of the day, he still wanted to help people. Not in the inefficient way that Batman did. Blackgate never kept a prisoner for very long, and Arkham was so much worse. Better to condemn the murderers and rapists to death than let them escape.

Better for the victims, the families of the victims, and future victims. It would spare them long, messy trials where rape victims had to relive every moment of the worst day of their lives in front of judge and jury. Trials where lawyers drudged up every sordid moment in a murder victim's past to convince the jury that the murderer wasn't totally wrong in what they did. No, better to skip that altogether.

Now. Where.

Gotham was out of bounds. Being that close to Batman... he would probably try and kill him. Or leave a clue as to his identity. No, that was definitely out of the question. But it would have to be somewhere just as filthy as Gotham, or he would have no work.

The idea dawned on him, and he smiled. Bludhaven. That cesspool made Gotham look like paradise. Nightwing sometimes patrolled there, but a quick internet search said that he was in New York, and it didn't look like he was moving.

And a name.

Another tear escaped his eye, dashed away with a quick swipe of his hand. The only name he had ever wanted was Robin. Robin hadn't been his originally, but he'd made it his with a sarcastic remark and a solid punch.

Robin hadn't been his.

Birds fly. And at the time Dick had picked the name, he'd been scared to death of heights. Br- Batman had chosen his name because of a childhood fear of bats.

What was he scared of?

The answer was simple. He closed his eyes and heard laughter, felt the metal striking his back, saw a blood red grin surrounded by white. His eyes snapped open. Joker. He was scared of the Joker. Yeah. That made sense, considering.

But he couldn't use "Joker" as his new name.

Joker had been "Red Hood" once, hadn't he? That's what Batman believed anyways. Jason was more of the opinion that Joker had risen from the depths of hell, tossed out because he creeped out the demons down there.

Red Hood had a lot of history in Gotham. The Red Hood gang had been around for years. Urban legend said that the person under it was never the same twice, or that the Red Hood formed of mist and blood spatter, only to dissolve once his crime was committed. The Red Hod drew all the attention and the police while his minions did small crime everywhere else.

But it would work. He was nothing now. Dead. He didn't exist. Forcing out a small laugh, he nodded. Talia didn't know how he'd been resurrected. For all he knew, he was made of mist and blood spatter. And maybe once he was done, he would dissolve, and leave the world a better place than it had been before.

Pulling out the money that had been in the bag Talia had given him, he tossed enough cash on the bed to cover the damages to the room. Then he hitched the bag on his shoulder, and closed the door behind him. He had a teacher to meet.

A half a year later, the Red Hood started making his mark on Bludhaven. But like he'd thought, Batman didn't care. It wasn't Gotham, it was out of his jurisdiction.

Well, he thought as he sat at his kitchen table, cleaning his guns, at least he's predictable.

It had been a month, and he was still nothing but legend and whispers. It made sense. None of the people who saw him normally lived to tell about it. The only proof that he existed at all was a fuzzy picture someone had caught of him grappling away from an exploding warehouse, and a list of fresh corpses as long as his arm.

The newspapers condemned his actions. The people were nervous. Ninety percent of the populace had their hands in something dirty, and they were worried that he would start branching out.

He had no plans to, honestly. There were enough murderers and rapists in this city to keep him happy for years. If he counted the dealers who sold to kids, he could probably work for a decade and still have people to shoot in the face.

But that was later. For now, his guns were clean and the sun was going down. Standing, stretching out a kink in his back, he moved over to his weapons rack. His apartment was simple, but clean. As one of the buildings belonging to a mob boss, it had to be. It probably wasn't smart living with the mafia while killing them by the dozens, but as far as the building super knew, he was an aspiring writer, which is why he kept weird hours and rarely left his apartment. Plus, he tipped well. Very well. Drug rings were very generous in their donations to his cause.

The weapon rack was his pride and joy. Rocket launchers, assault rifles, hand guns, sniper rifles, shot guns, staves, swords of all types, shurikens, and his knives. Oh, his knives. He had everything from combat to butterfly to throwing to kris, and so much more besides. All specially developed to his very exacting standards. Namely, the ability to cut a Bat cable. Preparing for the future and all.

He stocked up, then headed for his window.

As he swung he had to stifle a yawn or six. Ugh, he was tired. He'd been running himself ragged, falling back on work patterns he'd started when he was Robin. Maybe he should take a day off.

His targets tonight were very well researched, as all his targets were. He didn't want to kill an innocent by accident after all. Only three tonight. Davie Lynn, Anita Cross and Darius Travers were the usual scum bags. Lynn had snapped, killed four of his coworkers in full view of twenty seven witnesses. But the court was trying to get him off with an insanity plea. Cross ran a women's shelter, but sold the pretty ones into the sex trade. And Travers was her most loyal customer, but not for the reasons one would think. The girls he bought were experimented on, to find new biotoxins that he could sell to guerrillas for millions.

Lynn was easy. He was in the county jail, and the windows weren't bullet proof. Why would they be? The police were in the pocket of the crooks, and no crook would attack an investment like that. So, he set up on the building opposite, aimed, and fired. Lynn's head exploded, and Red Hood was four blocks away before the cops opened his cell.

Tracking down Cross wouldn't be too hard either. But it had to be handled more delicately. The girls in the shelter right now didn't know about Cross's extracurriculars, and there was no need to traumatize them like that. So he waited.

And waited.

And eventually, Cross went to her office. With a remarkable stroke of luck, she went straight to a safe, hidden behind a dresser and a hidden panel both. Taking out the sheaf of papers therein, she started reading them. Hopefully, they were shipping manifestos.

His gun was silenced, and Cross went down just as easy as Lynn did. Leaping through her window, he went over to the door and flicked the lock closed. No reason for an employee to bust in without warning. Then he went over to the body and the papers scattered around it.

Shipping manifestos. Bingo.

He took out a camera and carefully took a picture of each page. If the Bludhaven police didn't do anything about this, he could send the manifestos to the FBI and let them handle it. And if nothing else, well, he could go get the girls back. Someone had to.

The papers even had Travers' address on them, the one he had the girls delivered to. Perfect. He grappled out of the office, putting a call in to the police about a murder, anonymously of course. Hopefully, the cops had more tact than to let the women in the shelter see.

Travers had a warehouse at the very edge of town, one of the ones that looked decrepit and abandoned on the outside, but pristine and high tech inside. But not quite high tech enough to prevent him from lifting a pane of skylight glass and taking a potshot at the twisted scientist inside.

Three bullets, three targets. This seemed like a successful day.

Taking the utmost care, he dropped into the warehouse, looking for the girls Travers had used. And, unfortunately, he found them. Their bodies were covered in boils and sores, their limbs twisted.

With a heavy heart, Jason tried to give them a semblance of dignity. He straightened them, put their hands on their chests, closed their eyes. A few were naked, and he covered them in blankets. He moved them far from the place they had died, outside, under the stars. Since they had all died of disease, he washed his gloves in the emergency station. He'd burn them later. Then, he started on the notes.

Travers' notes were extensive, but there was only one copy. The man had been incredibly paranoid of someone stealing them, stealing his work, and so they almost never left his sight. Jason burned them. All. The vials were carefully collected and put in a crate. He'd drop them off at a hazardous waste disposal center later.

It was while he was setting the explosives to blow the lab sky high that the knock came. "Mr. Travers? We have your newest subject!"

A quick look through the peephole confirmed the scumbag's identity. Trond Malley, Cross's delivery boy. From what Red Hood had been able to dig up, the man had been working for her for half a decade, and enjoyed... sampling the goods before delivery.

So he opened the door and shot him point blank.

And regretted it half a second later.

Brain matter and gore splattered on the girl, not even fifteen years old yet, standing behind Malley. As he fell, the hand he had gripping her arm loosened, and she followed him to the ground, screaming.

Jason didn't know what to do. He'd wanted to save these people, but he'd never thought about actually interacting with them.

It had been years since he was Robin.

The only people he'd talked to were informants, teachers, Talia and weapons dealers.

He didn't know how to comfort.

But the girl was screaming on the ground, her clothing disheveled, bits of skull in her hair, and he was the only one who could help.

"Hey. Shh. You're alright." He crouched down, got down to her level, and carefully shuffled towards her. She looked back at him with wide eyes, growing wider when they caught sight of his helmet. With a curse at his thoughtlessness, he pulled it off, so incredibly thankful he'd worn a domino under it.

The expressionate, kind face worked wonders where the blank slate of a mask didn't. The girl's screams tapered off into hyperventilating. "Hey, whoa now. Slow, deep breaths. Shh, you're alive, no one's going to hurt you anymore." Carefully manhandling her, he drew her knees up and shoved her head down between them. "Calm down, it's alright."

Eventually, the words and the slow circles he was rubbing into her back calmed her down, just enough to speak. "You... you're... Ro..." She blinked, swallowed, and tried again. "You're the one from the papers. The Red Hood. You killed him."

He'd read the newspapers. What he was doing was horrible, atrocious. But still, he said a confirming, "Yeah."

With another swallow and a nod, she said, "Good."

That was surprising. "What's your name?"

"Tara. Tara Southers. He..." She sniffed. "That man, he..." And she burst into tears, throwing herself into Jason's chest.

Startled, his hands froze in mid air for a minute before relaxing and holding the girl who wanted comfort. He didn't know why she trusted him. After what she'd been through, he wouldn't blame her if she didn't trust a man ever again. Maybe it was the hero thing. But he wasn't a hero.

But he was here, and he was stroking a calming hand down her back while she cried her innocence away. And they sat like that for an hour, until her tears stopped and she pulled away. Then they sat in silence for another twenty minutes, until Tara asked, "What now?"

"Well. I have to blow up this lab. Drop off these biotoxins at the disposal facility." He might as well tell her. She'd already seen his face. Well, his domino masked face. Not much else to hide.

"Biotoxins?"

"Yeah. You got sold to a psycho who uses young ladies in his experiments."

She took a moment to absorb what he'd said. "So you didn't just avenge me. You saved my life."

"I guess?"

Twin arms threw themselves around his neck. It took all of his willpower to not counterattack the hug. "Thank you! Thank you so much!" And she started crying again.

They couldn't really wait much longer. The sun would be up in an hour and he had to be long gone by then. So he picked Tara up, carrying her bridal style when she refused to let go of his neck. Once they were a safe distance away, he hit the button on his remote detonator. Then he called the cops. They were dirty, the lot of them, but they were decent enough to get the victims back to their families if they had them, and proper burials if they didn't.

Tara had a friend in one of the few upperclass areas in town. She'd been at the shelter because she didn't want to impose, but with nowhere left to go, she agreed with Red Hood that it was for the best.

He dropped her off, but she still looked freaked out. So he made a decision. "Look, Tara. If you ever want to talk, or you need help or something, call me." And he handed the girl a phone number. One of his burner cells. "I'll answer. I promise. And I'll do what I can."

Looking at the number in her hand like it was solid gold, she said, her voice barely a whisper, but so intense. "Thank you Red Hood. I will." And she smiled, a small broken smile, but the first one he had seen on her. "Take care of yourself, alright?" And she knocked on her friend's door. Jason watched from a nearby rooftop as the door opened, the two girls talked, then hugged and disappeared inside the house.

And for the first time since the Pit, he felt... good.

AN: So this is basically a fic about Jason helping kids with stuff. If you have a stuff which you would like Jason to help a kid with, let me know!

There's lots of fluff in this, but there's also some heavy stuff. Suicide gets mentioned sometimes. Child abuse. Et cetera. But beyond that, it's mostly just Jason hanging out with kids. Just a heads up.

The chapters after this won't be as long by the way. But that just means I can post more of them! Yay!

Read and enjoy! Loxie OUT!