Chapter Text
“Hood! Watch out!” Batman’s frantic warning came too late as Jason felt heat rip through his chest. Instead of looking down at what he knew was going to be a fatal injury he looked to where he knew Red Robin was on the other side of the chaos. He had a single moment to look at Tim’s shocked, horrified face - covered in blood and dirt and who knows what else but still safe and alive- before his world went black and the burning consumed him.
Pain. Intense, boiling, scorching pain. He lost all sense of time as all of his thoughts flowed out of his mind as if his brain was a sieve. His entire existence boiled down to the sensation of being melted from the inside out. It wasn’t heat he was feeling but some other sensation his mind had no way to comprehend or point of reference to compare it to. He would take the Joker and the pit again over this.
When it finally, blessedly stopped, it wasn’t gradual but all at once.it wasn’t like the other times he had died. One moment he was nothing but pain and the next he was laying on the hard ground, groaning, eyes wide open and looking through his HUD at the smoggy night sky over the city while his vision swirled as if he was drunk. His ears were ringing like he had been directly next to an explosion and his entire body felt like it had fallen asleep and was waking back up as every single part of him had that uncomfortable pins and needles feeling.
Muscles barely cooperating, he managed to roll himself onto his side and sit himself partially up. His vision and hearing were quickly returning to normal so he did his best to take a look around himself to figure out what kind of situation he was in. The last thing he remembered was frantically getting called to help stop some weird cult ritual that Batman and Robin had interrupted. They had accidentally stumbled upon it in the middle of a smuggling case and weren’t prepared at all. They only called on Red Robin and Red Hood when they had been unable to stop the suicides of half the cultists while the remaining went ballistic at the dynamic duo dropping in to interrupt.
They had gotten there to act as backup just in time to see the apparent leader burst into flame in the middle of a group of crazy, rabid acting cultists. Batman and Robin were attempting to get to the center where the man was on fire to attempt to stop whatever was going to happen but the remaining dozen people who were acting as if they couldn’t feel pain or fear were stopping them. Red Hood and Red Robin had split up and come at the group from opposite sides to try and split their attention and possibly help create an opening for Batman to get to the center.
They had just knocked out the last of the out of control people -Hood looking down at the last guy he had knocked out to make sure he wasn’t getting back up- when there was a loud cracking sound just before Batman shouted at him to watch out. All he could think about before the pain took over was making sure Tim was okay and wanting his face to be the last thing he saw just in case this death was a permanent one.
Now all he saw was some dingy back alley that he recognized as being between the laundromat beside the crappy sports bar some of his guys like to go to and the barber shop that caught fire eight years ago that’s still abandoned and boarded up. He continued to look around the dim alleyway for threats, staying vigilant as he recovered. He was halfway across the city from where he last remembered and from the looks of it completely alone. It didn’t seem like too much time had passed. The sun had just set when they had gone to help Batman and Robin and if the noise coming from the bar was any indication it was still early in the night.
He managed to get himself into a more comfortable sitting position that didn’t leave him as vulnerable as his muscles slowly came back online. “Oracle, this is Red Hood. What’s everyone’s status?” He waited a minute for some sort of reply but none came through before he reached up and tapped his helmet to tap through the channels to try and see if he could hear anyone. Every channel he had was just as silent as the first. “Shit, did my comms get shorted out?” He whispered, frustrated as he finally got the strength to get his feet under him and stand up.
Once he was completely upright, he shook out his limbs and bounced on the balls of his feet to get his blood flowing and the feeling completely back in his limbs. He checked himself over for injuries but nothing aside from a little bruising from some of the hits he had taken during the cult brawl. He checked over his equipment and that all seemed to be where it was supposed to be also. He hadn’t been using his guns because he didn’t want to accidentally hit an ally in the chaos even if he was using less than lethal rounds and his allies were all armored so they were still in his holsters.
“Well it looks like I’m flying dark then,” he grumbled as he pulled out his grapple. He aimed for the roof of the bar when the back door to the barber shop opened suddenly and a middle aged man strolled out carrying a garbage bag. Jason quickly changed plans and stepped back into the darker shadows of the alley as he watched the oblivious man take a few steps out of the door and tossed the trash into the nearby open dumpster. Jason watched silently as the man stopped just shy of the beam of light that the open door cast into the alley. The man pulled out his phone, slid it open to reveal a keyboard and tapped away on it for a few minutes, seemingly texting back and forth with someone based on the occasional pausing.
It was almost five minutes before another man, a little older if the gray in his hair was anything to go by, stuck his head out of the back door and looked at the possibly younger man. “Jared! Stop texting Rebecca and get your ass back in here. I need you to take some customers. A lady just walked in here with four kids and all the kids need cuts and I want to go home before my dinner gets cold.”
The first man huffed and put his phone away. “I’m coming, I wasn’t gone that long.” He grumbled as he followed the older man inside. Jason watched the entire thing with a slowly growing pit of dread in his stomach. That building was supposed to be an abandoned burnt out mess and not a functioning barber shop. Not to mention the fact that the first guy had a model of phone Jason hadn’t seen since before he died the first time. Even if someone had an older phone it most definitely wouldn’t be that kind. It would either be a cheap ass flip phone or some sort of keyless smartphone. No one used those keyboard phones anymore.
As soon as the door closed behind the man Jason was scaling the side of the building and heading towards his nearest safe house. He took the lay of the land as he ran and grappled from roof to roof. He knew his home like the back of his hands and even though he could recognize where he was and the city in general he couldn’t help but notice all the differences that weren’t there just hours before.
It was much more run down than he had gotten used to. He had put so much time, effort, and money into building up Crime Alley into a safer place to live since he had made his return almost nine years ago when he became the Red Hood and he couldn’t see any of that now. Even the atmosphere was dreary compared to what he knew. People were out but there was a tension and wariness that went beyond the average Gothamite demeanor. People looked worn down and jumpy. He froze when he finally caught the date and time in the window of an electronics store that had the weather playing on a tv displayed in the barred window.
It was just past 8 pm on September 1st. It had been almost 9:30 pm on April 30th before he came to in the alley. He had to stop and sit down at the edge of the building he was looking down from though as his heart rate sped up when he noticed the year attached to the end of the date. It was fifteen years in the past.
“Fuck! No no no no no,” he mumbled in disbelief as a roaring began in his brain. This was bad, so so bad. Everyone knew you did not fuck with time travel. The Flashes constantly preached about the dangers of messing with timelines. He didn’t want to be responsible for causing the timelines to collapse because he got hungry and ate what should have been someone else’s dinner that they ended up not getting because there was none left so they had to go somewhere else and ended up getting shot and dying in a robbery gone wrong when they weren’t supposed to be there and it turned out they were the nurse that saved a bunch of people’s lives that were going to die now because he couldn’t stop himself from getting lunch.
Was he catastrophizing? Yes. But was it a totally valid thing to do in this situation? Also yes. He did his best to push back the panic as his thoughts spiraled and it threatened to surge up from his chest. He stood back up abruptly and started to pace back and forth across the roof top. He had to think. What was the protocol for this? He needed to get his ass to Central City and get in touch with Barry while changing as little as possible in the meantime. The Flash was the best bet for time travel bullshit and if that failed he could always try Constantine. The sorcerer could probably be convinced to help pro bono since he was just as opposed to messing with the timeline as anyone else in their right mind was.
Jason finally stopped pacing as a plan had finally formed in his mind. He just had to find the nearest zeta, hack it with a little help of one of the programs Tim had installed into his helmet - Thank fuck for his over prepared, overly paranoid husband- and use it to get to Central City where he could track down Barry and get himself sent back before Tim, JJ, or Caroline did something drastic.
Mind finally settled now that he had a clear plan of action, Jason turned around to head towards the oldest zeta he knew about when he heard the unfortunately familiar loud, grating, metallic sound of a collapsing fire escape followed by a terrified shout. They sounded young. His gaze snapped to the source across the street in the alley by the electronics store where there was a person in a red ski mask hanging off a collapsing fourth story fire escape, they weren’t a small child but they were obviously still a kid.
Jason didn’t even think, he just reacted. He shot out his grapple across the street just as the metal finally gave way and folded sideways, flying towards the falling teen. He managed to catch the kid and land them both safely in the alley by the back of the building. Keeping hold of the kid who barely came up to his shoulder he released and put away his grapple.
Before he could do anything, he heard a shout of surprise from his left, towards the back of the electronics store. He looked over to see a group of three men, also wearing ski masks staring at him in shock, frozen. He tilted his head as he noticed their equipment. They had been trying to break into the store. Jason sighed. He had already fucked up. He didn’t say anything but his outfit must have spooked them -especially with a Bat across his chest- because after a few seconds of confusion on their part, the three men scrambled to grab their stuff and they booked it away from him and out of the alleyway.
Jason sighed, frustrated then looked down at the shivering, scared teen still tucked into his side, face smooshed into his shoulder, still hidden behind the red ski mask. Saving them had been automatic. There’s no universe where he wouldn’t save a kid. He dropped his arm and tried to step back. Tried being the operative word. The kid had a death grip on his jacket and was breathing in short quick gasps, face now pressed into Jason’s chest plate.
“Shit, kid. Hey. You're safe, okay. You’re on the ground and I’m not gonna hurt ya. I don’t hurt kids even if they are playin’ lookout for a robbery and I’m not a cop. I understand sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.” The kid froze at that but their breathing didn’t steady out. “Match my breathing kid or you're gonna pass out. I’ll count too okay. We got to get you calmed down.” Jason counted out the box breathing pattern as he matched the technique himself so the kid could mimic him. It was several minutes but eventually the kids breathing evened out and their hands dropped to their side.
Jason patted the kid on the back once and finally stepped back. “Feeling better?” The kid nodded, shoulders drooped as they hung their head and stared at their beat up shoes. The kid was wearing ratty jeans and a dark blue hooded short sleeve shirt with a blue long sleeve shirt underneath it. All of their clothes were in desperate need of a wash and mending but if the kid was desperate enough to play lookout for a bunch of electronic store thieves then he was either homeless already or damn close to it.
“You don’t have to be afraid of me, I’m just a vigilante that’s passing through the city on my way to somewhere else. I’m not gonna turn you over to the cops or anything. I’m just worried about you. Are you hurt anywhere? I didn’t grab you too tight when I snatched you up did I?”
The kid shook their head at first but paused, as if considering. After a moment, they held out their left hand towards Jason as they finally looked up at him. Jason took the kids hand and noticed it was all scraped up and actually bleeding. “I got my hand on the fire escape,” he admitted.
“Well shit,” Jason took his hand carefully and examined it. It wasn’t too deep but it was across most of the palm and was going to need to be cleaned out really well before it was bandaged properly and he was probably going to need a tetanus booster. “You’re gonna need to get yourself to Leslie’s clinic. You’re gonna need a tetanus shot kid.”
The kid ripped his hand back from him and Jason looked down into angry, defiant eyes. “Do you think if I could afford to go to the Doctors I’d be trying to join the Wolves? Which, on that note, I most definitely failed the initiation so now I’m going to have to figure out how to make money or my little brother and I are going to starve on top of hoping this doesn’t get infected and give me lock jaw. FUCK” the kid swore as he began to panic again. He balled up his still bleeding hand and held it against his chest.
Jason felt sympathy because he knew exactly where the kid was coming from. “Hey kid, can I touch you? I want to try and stop the bleeding and you're gonna spiral into another panic attack.” Jason reached his hand out halfway towards the kid as he blindly pulled out some disinfectant wipes and gauze from one of his belt pouches with his other hand, keeping eye contact with the kid. The unfamiliar red helmet and purposely creepy voice modulator probably wasn’t winning him any trust with the kid but eventually they held their hand back out.
“Sorry, it’s not your fault. If anything I owe you for saving my life. No way was I gonna survive that fall and then my brother would definitely be in deep shit. Why did I think this was a good idea? I can’t chance something happening to me and him being left alone.” The kid sniffed as he held back tears. Jason let the kid talk as he cleaned his hand as best as he could. He knew the kid wasn’t really talking to him. He was just berating himself as he came down from the adrenaline and shock of almost dying.
“Look, kid, don’t blame yourself. It’s rough out here. I don’t agree with kids joining gangs but I understand it. You’re trying to survive and take care of your brother. I used to jack tires for cash when I was homeless so I’ve been there. I can point you in the direction of some people and places that can help and aren’t just fronts for the gangs or a rogue if you want but promise me you won’t go doing some stupid shit like this again and risk your life.” Jason lectured as he finished wrapping the kids hand up and let it go.
The kid looked Jason straight in the eyes of his helmet. The dim lighting of the alley made it hard to make out the color of the kids eyes through the ski mask but with the feed on his HUD he could still clearly make out how watery the kids eyes were.
The kid sniffed again. “Thank you Mr.”
“Just call me Hood.” Jason offered. No way was he going to let the name Red Hood come out of his mouth at this point in time. He hadn’t started associating that name with anything good yet, the red hood gang was still just the name of the Joker's first gang and his first alias.
“Like Robin Hood?” The kid asked.
“Sure, let’s go with that,” Jason huffed, amused though it probably didn’t come across that way with the modulation.
The kid nodded as he absorbed the new info as he reached up with his good hand and pulled the ski mask off finally to reveal the face of a fifteen year old boy with dark auburn hair and a cooked smirk. “Well thanks again Mr Robin Hood. My name’s..”
“Danny?” Jason gasped, shocked as he stared in fascination at a face he hadn’t seen in fifteen years and spoke a name he hadn’t in almost as long. Jason watched Danny’s eyebrows knit together in confusion as his insides twisted.
“How do you know my name?” Danny asked, skeptical and obviously on guard.
Jason swallowed as he scrambled for an excuse while the majority of his mind was screaming about how badly he fucked up but at the same time not giving a fuck because his big brother was alive right in front of him. Not dead after falling from a collapsed fire escape in a gang initiation gone wrong but alive and probably seconds from bolting. How had he not put the pieces together in his brain? He knew the date of the night his brother died. He knew how it happened and knew he was in the past. He had spent so much of the last fifteen years trying not to think about Willis, Catherine, and Danny so much because of all the pain it caused that he hadn’t noticed. He had fucked up big time.
Danny took a tentative step back from Jason when he didn’t answer immediately and the motion snapped Jason out of his spiral enough for him to finally snap out an answer. “I knew Catherine. It’s been years but I used to know her. I recognize you. You look a lot like your mother. Jason probably looks more like Willis right?” Jason wasn’t lying technically but there was no way he was telling his supposed to be dead brother he was his little brother from the future.
Danny paused and tilted his head and glared. “When you say you knew her, how did you know her? You said you used to steal tires when you were homeless. You weren’t one of her dealers were you?”
“Fuck no! I tried to get her to quit.” Jason vehemently denied. “I knew her through my family. It’s complicated, kid. Just know that If I could have prevented what happened to her and you kids I would have but I wasn’t in any position to help at the time.” Jason reached into another of his pockets and pulled out a bunch of bills and began going through them. He normally kept a couple hundred on him at all times just in case but now he had to go through all of them and find ones old enough to not look counterfeit.
Luckily, he had a couple fifties and twenties that were old enough and he handed Danny a little over four hundred dollars. “Take this and get you and Jason something to eat and head to Leslie’s for that hand. She won’t charge you, I promise. Head to the shelter on 37th and Henderson. They can help you get help through some of the Wayne projects if you can’t find an honest job. They aren’t one of the shelters that like to funnel unattended kids to traffickers.” Jason paused as Danny tentatively took the money from him as he stared at him curiously, as if he stared hard enough he’d be able to see through the helmet.
Jason made a split second decision as Danny continued to try and gain x-ray vision through sheer force of will and pulled out a small notebook and a pen and wrote down a string of numbers before ripping off the page and handing it to Danny also. “If all else fails, and I mean everything else, drag yourself and your brother to Wayne manor and hand this note to Dick Grayson and him only. Don’t let Bruce or Alfred see it until Dick has. Tell him he was the best big brother the first time. He’ll understand.”
Danny took the piece of paper and opened it to stare at the seemingly random string of letters and numbers. “Thanks I guess. But there’s no way I’m dragging my ass anywhere near a Wayne.”
“I saved your life kid. Can you just trust me on this one?” Jason asked, nerves almost shot as his entire body is on edge with the thought of how much more he is probably messing things up. Maybe if he still nudges little Jason towards Bruce the time line won’t be as bad.
Danny chewed on his bottom lip as he looked back up at Jason. “Okay, I promise. But I’m gonna try all the other shit first.”
Jason nodded, figuring that’s the best he could hope for aside from grabbing his brother and dropping him off the roof of the building to stage his original death and return the timeline to the way it was originally. There was no way in hell he was doing that so this would have to do. “Thank you. Do you want me to walk you to the clinic?”
Danny shook his head. “No, I know the way. And thank you again, for saving me. I won’t forget it.” He took another step back from Jason and when Jason didn’t say anything or move to follow, he turned and walked quickly down the alley, away from the Red Hood and towards the Main Street, presumably towards Leslie’s clinic.”
Jason watched him go as he shored up his emotions. He was screaming at himself internally at how royally he had fucked up but at the same time he couldn’t find it in himself to regret it. It was already done and it was too late to take it back. He took one final deep breath to center himself as Danny disappeared around the corner before he pulled his grapple back out. He needed to get to Barry before he changed anything else.