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I shot the rogue (but I didn’t shoot the warden)
As soon as he realizes his only good in is undercover work, he leans back in his creaky chair, laces his hands behind his head and stares up at the moldy wet spot in the ceiling. Because it’s an awful idea but at the same time it’s a good one. He doesn’t have much to lose and not much to do besides seeing this through. And yes, maybe he’s growing a bit tired of the same old well known song-and-dance of him being constantly one step in, one step out.
He would need an identity, he thinks, something to cover up after himself. He can’t just waltz in with his real name, that one belongs to a dead boy, and yes he might be an asshole, but giving that away also means leaving the door wide open for everyone else. It would be a matter of dedicated nerds to figure out that if the Red Hood is Jason Todd, supposed deceased son of Bruce Wayne, then that means…
But it’s true that he doesn’t have a lot of time to lose coming up with all the paperwork for something new. All the bad things he needs to do in order to be sent to Blackgate. His one golden key is the red of his helmet and the red dried in his hands.
He knows that any blood work is going to come up a mess. Not because his blood is any different, but because he’s altered all his records from when he was a wide-eyed bird. And the more he thinks of it, the more he likes it, the more he’s convinced this might be a generally bad idea but one with a whole lot of potential.
Jason, he can keep. There are lots of ‘em. Jason what, though?
One of his burner phones beeps next to the files strewn all over the table. His fingerprint unlocks it, of course, and the bright light washes his face, brings life to his eyes that are too busy staring at his background picture instead of checking out the notification he just received.
It’s sentimental and, above all, stupid. Still it brings a grin to his face, brings a little bit of fire, so he grins all the wider.
Jason Harper it is.
Two days later, he’s strutting into the precinct with a carton cup of coffee in his hand. The ugly neon lights reflect off his helmet and he smiles a feral thing when every single cop in the vicinity stop what they are doing to either gape openly at him or aim their guns. Gordon looks old and tired, he’s the only one who doesn’t move from his standing position next to a desk. He also looks annoyed, like he’s beginning to visualize all the paperwork this visit means, and so Jason stops a couple of steps away from him. Sets the coffee cup on top of a pile of manila folders and shrugs.
“‘Sup,” he says, failing to stop himself from smiling a little, and lifts his hands up by the sides of his head, right where everyone can see them, “I’m doing everyone a favor. Cuff me up.”
“Right,” Gordon’s voice is clipped, harsh, grabs his own pair of metal handcuffs without waiting a second, no further questions asked.
This is how the feared Red Hood is finally caught.
Of course they unmask him. He came in here ready for all of that, for his picture to be taken a thousand times, and he rightfully assumes the press as a whole is having the orgasm of their entire accumulated existence when the news finally comes out. Jason takes this seriously, answers as much as he can without giving anything away, and when Gordon finally stops drilling him with question after question, the poor guy takes off his glasses, remorse and something close to worry clear in his expression.
“Why are you doing this, son?,” he asks because of course he knows who Jason happens to be, that’s why Jason handed himself in to the man in the first place. He didn’t trust anyone else.
“I don’t know,” he lies easily and tilts his head in acknowledgement when Gordon lets it go for what it is. “I’m really tired.”
Blackgate is not half bad.
Sure, during his first months he spent almost every waking moment defending his place there and his very life. Lots of the guys in here are precisely in that position because of his actions as the Red Hood, after all. And they should’ve known from past experiences that they had no chance at winning, but they probably believed in the efficiency of numbers. They did land some hits that truly hurt, and he did end up in the infirmary more than once, but he remained victorious. It was only a matter of time before they stopped insisting in trying to shank him in his sleep every other night.
Once they were all past that whole mess, Jason accepted the truth: Blackgate is not that bad.
Yes, it’s a high security prison and he’s with the worst of the worst. But he’s got a nice thing going on with the guards, plays cards with some of his fellow inmates, even helps the ones he likes best train - spots for them, corrects their postures, does lifts with them. It’s ridiculous to say yet it’s undeniable, he’s actually making connections in here and no one treats him like he’s a fuck up, a mistake, an eldritch horror of what was once a sweet kid. He’s free of his past, of that ghost he can never shake on the outside.
Two months and two and a half weeks later, he successfully finishes the mission he willingly walked into Blackgate for in the first place. Two months, two and a half weeks later, he decides he can maybe stay a little longer. The food isn’t that bad. He’s respected here. There’s a cute nurse that’s never without a guard that looks at him during health check ups and blushes a whole lot. Stutters out “Harper” like it’s a complicated thing to say. Jason smiles and the nurse’s knees go visibly weak.
And while it’s true that no one ever visits him, he’s not really lonely here. Joshua from two cells down the hallway slides new books under his cot when the warden and the guards pretend not to notice. Sergei works out with him and tells him everything about how he’s learnt to blow up basically anything with little ingredients to make up the bombs.
It’s impossible to believe he’s more accepted here, among people he’s beat up and helped destroy all their chances of having a semi-normal life, than out there, with those who like to go on and on and on about how they are family. And yet.
Jason keeps his eye out for the rogues he knows well. Not the run-of-the-mill mobster, not the henchman that mostly took the job because of the money. No, they are not his worry. He’s always paying attention to the rogues he would be fighting had he never turned himself in to the authority. The fuckers Batman and the like fight every single night like the worst, most fucked up case of groundhog day in the history of the universe.
The few ones that make it into Blackgate soon learn to avoid him. They don’t really stand a chance. There’s no hope for escaping either.
Everyone is more or less attuned to Jason.
So when they get news that there is a bastard running havoc on the outside, going on killing sprees, abducting children… the guards look the other way. The warden suddenly has a very important call in his office. The other inmates nod.
This is ridiculous, Jason tells himself, knife (that no one should have but come on) in hand, as he breaks out to deal with it the best way he knows how.
He comes back three days later, sans weapon. Walks up to Gordon, again, smiles apologetically and confesses.
“Yep,” he rolls his right shoulder once, twice, until the tension there grows loose, “I killed that bastard. You’ll find I dumped him in that same alley he dumped Allison.”
“Were you friend of the victim?”
“No,” he says, eyes growing firm, made of steel, “but I don’t need to be the friend of a woman to want her safe. Or, in this case, avenged.”
It goes on like this:
Whenever there’s news some crazy jackass is out there making the world an even shittier place, he breaks out, deals with them, walks back into the precinct and gives Gordon a gift (coffee, donuts, one particular time: a watch) for his troubles. And as it goes on, so do the visits start. Random, at first, though not unexpected. As well as it isn’t unexpected that the big man himself hasn’t come around his cell yet.
They think he’s crazy. They did try to send him to Arkham. He lasted a week in there before he was transferred back to Blackgate.
And it feels so good that they can’t threaten him with locking him up. He’s taken that token of power straight from their hands and he made it into something useful to himself and no one else. He’s beat them up at their own game.
A guard, Anthony, soon to be married to his high school sweetheart, Claire, hands him the Gotham Gazette one morning with a small smile on his face.
Red Hood, the imprisoned anti-hero.
He’s done good to all of us, the writer of the opinion column says, all of us common folk who live in the bad parts of Gotham. The criminal activity has slowed down considerably. One would imagine things like these only happen in the movies, in fictional worlds dictated by an author hunched over their desk. But Red Hood is real, and he’s on our side.
When the Joker is apprehended, silence rules over both Blackgate and Arkham.
Everybody knows what’s coming.
And when it happens: relief. Freedom of fear.
The big old Batman tries to pay a visit, but Jason doesn’t ever see him - not his cowl, the end of his cape, the shape of his shadows. The other inmates chase him away.