#thenawrites

Hey, sorry this took me a while to get to! I'm working through my inbox at a glacial pace rn~

anyways, here's some fic! \(￣︶￣*\))

Supposedly, Red Hood haunts the alleyways of Crime Alley. People swear up and down that their sister’s cousin’s ex-boyfriend actually saw him once. That he appeared in a flash of lightning and was gone before the thunder crashed, leaving a trail of bodies in his wake. Some unconscious, some dead.

His most frequent spotters are children. Almost every kid from the Alley has a story of how the Red Hood himself helped them get home, get to safety, get away. The grateful parents laugh it off- you know what they say about children and their monsters. Those with something to hide stay silent with fear pooling in their guts.

There are Bat spotting internet forums all across the internet. Excellent photos of Nightwing winking at cameras or Batgirl sprinting away, donut in her mouth. Red Robin with a cup of coffee slung over Batman’s shoulder, Robin trailing behind him. Not a single clear photo of Red Hood. A blurry shot of a building, a flash of red halfway up the fire escape. Nightwing talking to nobody on a rooftop. Muzzle flash out of nowhere in an alley.

The other Bats are an accepted oddity of Gotham. Red Hood? The only people outside of Gotham that even believe he exists are conspiracy theorists and Mothman chasers.

Hell, even the Bats get jumpy around him sometimes. It’s not really anything personal (beyond reasonable concerns), it’s just that Jason can be unsettling to share space with. The air around him is always about ten degrees shy of the ambient temperature. His eyes flash back like a cat’s. No matter how sunny it is outside, he always smells like dirt after the rain. He sets off smoke detectors at ten paces without ever lighting a cigarette.

From this ask game

One of the unexpected side effects of Jason being briefly and publicly the vigilante equivalent of a rabid weasel, is that not a single person expects him to be even remotely capable of subtle. Red Hood is an incredibly useful persona in a lot of ways. He's intimidating. He doesn't have the same fears as regular old Jason. He's dangerous. He's hard to fool. Red Hood is a lot of things that are incredibly useful to Jason.

And the best thing is that people spend so long expecting Red Hood that they forget to plan for Jason.

Red Hood protects the soft parts of Jason. The parts that used to be a straight A student with an interest in literature and detective novels. The parts of Jason that enjoy planning and subterfuge. That are patient and calculated.

And no one expects it. The planning and forethought that it actually takes to be one of the things that goes bump in the night.

Sure, sometimes it hurts. When another Bat implies that Jason doesn't understand a mission briefing. It's annoying when his carefully planned chaos is attributed to brute force alone.

❤️ 

for this ask game

You got it! This is from Steph’s POV, just for fun!

<3

 It’s strangely easy to forget that Jason is dangerous. It sounds silly- the man is the Red Hood, scourge of Gotham’s underworld- dangerous is a bit of an understatement. Still, the drama of it all, the borderline supervillain presentation, somehow makes Jason seem less real. And there are shockingly few chances for any of the Bats to watch him in action. He tends to show up and disappear when he pleases without ever really spending much time except for a passing jab or a convenient bullet. He’s kind of like a strange distant cousin.

 He only ever accepts invitations to the Cave when at least 2 of the younger Bats whine at him. So far the most effective combination is Duke and Steph, who have managed to get him to the Cave a total of 3 times. This is a personal point of pride for Steph, who believes if Duke wasn’t a Bat, she might be Jason’s favorite. Usually he just drops in, raises Bruce’s blood pressure to unhealthy levels, and then slips away like smoke. But today he’s in a good mood. A good mood that means when Bruce jokingly invites him onto the sparring mat he actually accepts.

 Stripped down to a tank top and his tac pants, it’s clear that Jason is bigger than Bruce. Steph had kind of assumed that the jacket he wears as Red Hood has at least a slight shoulder padding, but it is now clear that it definitely does not. She never thought Bruce would look small standing next to anyone but a superhuman, but as the two of them wrap up knuckles and wrists, for the first time Steph notices the several inches Jason has over Bruce in height. On the mat, they both move with easy grace, circling as they size each other up.

 When Jason moves, Steph almost misses it entirely. He’s like lightning as he strikes right into Bruce’s personal space, delivering a hit that if it hadn’t been blocked might have lain Bruce out flat. Steph can’t even turn to greet Cass when the other girl sidles up next to her because she’s too busy watching Batman get his ass kicked. It’s incredible. Bruce is smart and fast, one of the best fighters in the world, disciplined to a super human level. And here’s Jason, putting him on the defensive. Jason who everyone knows is good, but no one thinks is Batman good. Jason who she had kind of assumed Dick could beat in a fair fight.

 He’s brutal and it’s incredible. Jason’s technique is incredible, he’s well trained and he’s been in the game for a long time. But beyond that, he has a way of moving that borders on unnatural. There’s not a single wanted motion. Every movement is precise. Jason is there, and then he isn’t, the movement almost instantaneous and entirely unpredictable. Steph has always thought that Bruce moved with a liquid grace, like a shadow. But Jason moves like lightning jumping from cloud to cloud before it strikes the ground, decimating anything in its path. The unstoppable force to Bruce’s immovable object.

❤️

for this ask game

This one is a bit shorter but still fun!

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It’s not necessarily a secret, but Jason also doesn’t advertise his magical abilities that often. Cards close to the chest and all that. He quietly takes care of any magical disturbances in Gotham and in exchange, no one brings it up. Jason’s really mainly good at using the All Blades and some really inconsistent mystical foresight anyways, so it’s not like his abilities really come up all that often.

But oh god is it funny to drop a minor prophecy on a sleep deprived Tim and leave. 

It’s not so funny when John fucking Constantine shows up on Jason’s doorstep. It is in fact, extremely inconvenient because Jason had plans tonight. Still, he lets the guy in because where Constantine goes, bad news follows and Jason has enough sense to at least want a heads up.

“Zee told me you had a pretty powerful aura, but I still didn’t expect this.” Here John gestures with his lit cigarette at Jason. The smoke gathers unnaturally, pulled between the currents of magic that surround them both like magnetic fields.

“Just cut to the chase man. I haven’t got all night.” As the last word of his sentence trails off, Jason finds himself tipping backwards, a familiar green overtaking his vision. He jerks back upright suddenly and when he speaks this time, the voice is not his own. It slithers from between Jason’s lips like smoke.

love the concept!

<3 part of this ask game

this got kinda long~ I love the Sandman series and so I went a little ham~

Also. Hear me out, it’s canon that Destruction of the endless looks a lot like Roy Harper. So for our purposes here, Roy Harper is the identity Destruction took on when he went to wander the world bc he didn’t want to be Destruction any more. 

 -

Destiny is the second of the Endless to touch the life of Jason Todd. This is true of most mortals, who always feel the briefest touch of his older sister at birth. Destiny is especially intrigued by this mortal though. This child whose name is written so often in his Book of Souls. He touches the child briefly, just enough to ensure his heart will continue to beat until the time comes for his fate. Then it is back to the garden, back to the Book, back to the duty of oiling the ever turning gears of the universe.

Death meets him again after that crucial moment of birth. Not once, but many times. Little moments where a sickly baby’s heart stutters and she appears. Destiny’s own touch on the child ensures that these moments of contact are brief. Still, it is enough to ensure that when the time comes for Death to cradle this child against her, she will be fond. And when the time comes for her to let him go, she will mourn the tragedy of a first life cut too short and a second life spun out too wildly.

So does Jason as it happens. Despair is ever present in his young life. She sits on his chest as he listens to his parents argue in the living room. She is a constant companion at his mother’s bedside. She will not leave him alone as she rends at the flesh of Jason’s soul with her hooked ring. He’s somewhat of a favorite amusement of hers until the Batman takes him away.

As the life bleeds from his body in a warehouse, Death and Despair are both by his side. One squeezing at his heart and the other cradling him close to her chest. In the end, Despair extinguishes his last heartbeat with her own two hands before turning him over to Death. Jason thinks he might love Death almost as much as he had loved Catherine Todd. Almost as much as he could have loved Sheila Haywood. She reminds him of the moms and big sisters on TV and in books. 

Death’s patience with him is seemingly endless. She holds his hand as they wander. She wipes his tears when he cries. Explains when he does not understand how he wanders with her. He is waiting, she says, until it is time for him to go back. When that time comes, her little brother will come to take him away. Jason does not know how long he walks with her, standing behind and to the left as she guides souls away. He goes with Destiny when he comes and bids her a temporary goodbye.

Jason wakes in the arms of Delirium almost a year after Destiny took him from Death’s side. The youngest of the Endless is quite taken with him it seems. She whispers in his ear with no ill intent. In Jason’s other ear, Desire spins those words into poison. Delirium whispers that Jason will take her to Destruction- Desire obfuscates the meaning. Jason will take well to destruction- he’ll be the one causing it after all. Between the two of them, intentional and not, they wind him up to new heights of madness. 

In the wake of his big showdown with the Joker, Desire departs with a laugh, satisfied with the conclusion of their game. Delirium still clings, warping Jason with her mere existence. Insistent that he will take her to her big brother. He speaks to her face to face now that he has become somewhat immunized to her maddening presence from long exposure.

If she does not disappear to cause havoc in the night, Delirium’s presence is sometimes enough to call the older brother she does not seek. Jason kind of likes the guy. There’s a ruthless sort of practicality to him in spite of his tendency to riddle. His coolness reminds Jason of Bruce in a way. That and the constant self absorbed pity party. It’s almost comforting to think that even the undying personification of Dreams can be prone to wallowing in his own misery. It certainly makes Jason feel better for doing it himself.

Jason never expects to meet Destruction. He doesn’t even know that he has for a while actually. Delirium has gone off to do god knows what and Jason has gone off to rescue his almost-big-brother’s former best friend from a prison compound in Qurac. Roy Harper smiles up at Jason like no one ever has when Jason breaks down the walls of his shitty little prison cell. 

It’s shocking how quickly Jason falls a little bit in love with Roy Harper. It’s mesmerizing to watch him take things apart and rebuild them as something else. The man is a force to be reckoned with, breaking down and rebuilding Jason’s walls with himself inside. And it’s easy to let Roy help Jason rebuild himself.

Delirium comes crashing back into Jason’s life and nearly destroys it when she runs to Roy.

concept- ghosts who died without their glasses.

They're not trying to scare you with all those mysterious noises in the middle of the night, they just can't see where the hell they're going.

Jason sits down gingerly, careful not to jar himself too hard. He lets out a sigh that has been building since before some wannabe supervillain managed to clothesline him with a flagpole and lets the little twinge of pain the deep breath causes keep him from sleep. As comfy as the couches in the manor are, he should really be getting back to his place soon. At least if he wants a living space that hasn’t been totally decimated by whatever it is Roy is building in the spare bathroom.

Just as he’s mentally bracing himself to have to get up and make the bumpy motorcycle ride to the warehouse with his tender ribs, he hears the clicking of nails on hardwood. Before he even has a chance to brace himself, Titus in all his great dane glory is barrelling towards him to say hi. Damian has done a good job training the dog so that he won’t jump on people who are standing, but clearly that training doesn’t go as far as preventing the massive dog from shoving his face right into the stomachs of couch bound bystanders.

Jason can’t help the punched out sound he makes as Titus’ giant head aggravates the soreness radiating from his ribs. A moment later Damian is there, pulling the dog away. He goes easily enough, and the doggy smile he gives as he backs up makes it impossible for Jason to be too mad.

“We are still working on slow approaches,” is all Damian says. It’s as close to an apology as Jason is going to get. He’s honestly not even that made, just very sore and a bit out of breath. So he waves Damian off and melts back into the couch to catch his breath.

~

Jason wakes up at 6 am sharpish the next morning. The part of the couch he’s sitting on has been reclined all the way. He has a soft blanket draped over him and his right leg is half asleep because of the shovel sized dog head on his lap. More of an apology than he expected.

I’m combining this prompt with an anon who sent in “Magic!Jason”!

Sorry it took me a little while to get to, I’ve been super out of it lately~

As a general rule, magic folks stay out of Gotham. It has what any practitioner with half an ounce of common sense would call “bad vibes.” Similar rules seem to apply to magical creatures, but every once in a while one decides to flee to Gotham in the hopes they can blend in with all the other weird stuff happening there. For the more human-like magical folk, it’s just a quick stay and then they escape as quickly as they came. Sometimes though, a monster gets in. This time it’s a truly nasty eldritch monstrosity that enjoys snatching children off the streets for a light snack. 

Batman of course has called in John Constantine to deal with the problem. Reluctantly. Only to find when Constantine finally gets to Gotham that the problem has been dealt with. 

“I’d like to see who it was that put that bastard out. If you don’t mind, Mr. Grim-and-Proper, I’d like to do a little magic to check.” John does not wait for a response.

Constantine takes a drag of his cigarette and blows a cloud of smoke that coalesces into an iridescent after image of the night before. Even in a smoky, indistinct form, the creature is horrific. Too many eyes. Far too many teeth. It has a child cornered in the alleyway and is advancing on her. Then, from above, a figure descends, trailing fire like a comet’s tail from a pair of glowing swords. Instantly, the creature’s attention is focused on the intruder. The swords person is either a man or an Amazon based purely on height, but the incredible brightness of the blades obscures their figure too much to distinguish.

The beast charges with a roar and is decapitated in a neat motion as the blades swing in opposition and shear its head off. There’s a burst of blinding light and then the beast and the blades are gone. Standing above the smoking asphalt where the body should be is Jason, dressed down in civilian clothing. He barely has time to brace before the young girl is launching herself at him. He catches her in his arms and she begins to sob into his chest. Jason shushes her gently before starting away from the alley towards the direction of Leslies clinic.

“Whoever your boy there is, he’s got some serious power.”

“He’s never shown any signs of meta abilities before.”

“Meta? Are you batty?” Here, Bruce glares at Constantine. He gets a shit eating grin in response. “That was magic.”

“I am assuming you can tell me what kind.”

“The kind you shouldn’t mess with. Old magic. That was soulfire. Powerful too, if he could use it to kill an Untitled with one blow.” Constantine sounds somewhere between impressed and turned on. Bruce makes a mental note to ask Talia more about what exactly Jason was doing before storming Gotham.

As Bruce sweeps away he calls over his shoulder.