FremiMay Day 21: Inazuma

Hectic

It was just a rumour at first, an unbelievable one since no one really believed it at first but it slowly grew a little bit more every day as the hero community and more importantly Gotham's underworld noticed the changes in Red Hood.

He was all over the place.

One day he was in Metropolis. The next he was in Coast City. Then Star City and so on. Him and his team were hunting something or someone but the biggest change was the fact that Jason wasn't killing anymore.

He wasn't breaking the big bad bat's golden rule but he was hurting them. It didn't matter if it was an everyday rogue or one of those strange men in suits, Jason was breaking his enemies just enough that they weren't getting back up as quickly as they usually would. If anything the rogues and street criminals seemed to have it easier when compared to whatever group the Outlaws were dismantling.

His family thought he was spiraling again.

They couldn't find anything on the men in white or why Jason was targeting them so there was always the worry that his Pit Rage was somehow getting worse and Batman himself was seen stalking the shadows of Red Hood's territory in search of his wayward son except he couldn't find a trace of him, only the aftermath of his attacks against the group.

He stood before burning buildings and broken bodies night after night but was still somehow just a step or two behind his son.

Nightwing couldn't even pick up a trail and Oracle's ever present eyes were blinded by someone or something able to erase Jason's digital presence whenever he was out on one of his hunts.

After weeks and weeks of searching they were only whispers and rumours and they were close to asking for help when the alarms in Arkham went off.

It was a massive breakout.

Multiple rogues.

More importantly Jason was in the area and quickly responded with a huff of annoyance and a promise to be there and while they never saw him the Bat Family heard Red Hood's presence through the comms. "He's barely even using his guns." Barbara's voice echoed through a private channel.

"He's faster."

"Maybe he's picked up a couple of new tricks?" Dick suggested, sounding almost hopeful until Jason accidentally stumbled across the last person he ever wanted to see.

Neither Tim or Barbara could piece together the beginning of their conversation but every single one of them heard the Joker's rage filled screams as the madman mocked the little bird fluttering around their wayward bat and it caused them to freeze for just a second because no one was anywhere near Jason at the time. Batman and Robin were on the other side of Arkham dealing with Ivy at the time and Red Robin was busy with the Riddler so who was shadowing Red Hood?

Most of the cameras in the area were down so they didn't have much to work with when they started looking into it later. The few that weren't were heavily compromised leaving behind staticky images and blurry video that they watched again and again.

Bruce watched it the most, the brief confrontation as his son walked into frame, barely even glancing at the Joker, the only rogue still locked in his cell for some strange reason trying to goad him into responding and almost succeeded. He could practically see the green creeping into Jason's eyes as he stared down his tormenter before it vanished just as quickly as the blurry image of a hooded boy around Damian's age ran past on the upper floor urging him to hurry up with a shout of, "Come on old man!"

They'd apparently had a game going, a bet to see if the kid could take down more criminals than him and that had been more than enough for Jason to turn away from the Joker with a small shake of his head and an amused smile.

He didn't hear what his son said in response but Bruce watched that moment again and again as Jason walked away leaving the Joker pounding on the door to his cell screaming threats at him and the kid, trying to get some kind of response out of him since the electronics in the door were fried.

They'd been lucky there. A sudden power surge moments before the attempted prison break had left him trapped in his cell and out of the way. Reports claimed it would be weeks before a technician could get it open and Bruce was keeping an eye on it in case anyone from his gang tried something.

He read every report.

Tracked every log in and watched through a dozen different monitors as the Joker grew more and more annoyed about his recent turn of bad luck but his gaze always drifted back to the brief footage of the unknown boy that danced around Jason as they worked together to clear their part of Arkham before backup could arrive.

They had the bare bones of a file, brief moments of footage that showed he could fight, possibly had some kind of League connection judging from the style but nothing else. No alias. No other sightings. Nothing. The kid was practically a ghost and they still couldn't find any trace of Jason anywhere. He was back in Gotham. Reports had him and his new partner patrolling Crime Alley and beyond like nothing happened but soon enough there were news reports and theories and speculations and conspiracies all slowly starting to spring up about a black and grey bird fluttering around the dark red bat.

After months of nothing there were suddenly pictures of Jason and his new partner sitting on the edge of a rooftop eating burgers and fighting rouges along with grainy footage from Star City showing Roy helping the kid do a handstand while Jason watched on with a rarely seen smile.

"He looks happy."

The news labeled this new unknown Sparrow, they speculated over who he was, could he be Batman's newest bird, a sidekick or maybe even an Outlaw but Bruce was more focused on everything the news wasn't reporting.

Jason wasn't killing anymore.

He hadn't even come close in nearly two years now and while there were some concerns over his new approach to handling criminals even that was slowly fading away with every new piece of information they were able to piece together.

-_- -_- -_-

"He was expanding." Tim explained as he pulled up a map of Jason's old territory next to the new one that was easily twice as big. "Those weeks of unexplained rage we were concerned about was really just Jason pushed the mob families out of the areas surrounding Crime Alley."

Well them and the strange groups always dressed in all white. They still didn't know anything about the group or why Jason had been so hell bent on hunting them to the ends of the Earth but he'd pushed them out of Gotham before they could even begin to set up shop.

-_- -_- -_-

"Come on Roy. Please..... I'll beg if I have to."

"No."

"Please."

"No. He's asleep right now and I'm not gonna wake him up."

"You mean Sp-" "No, Jason. Danny's at school right now." Because Jason had thought tooth and nail for the kid to have a somewhat normal life and his definition of normal meant setting Danny up in a safehouse in Star City and quickly having a mini freakout over behaving like Bruce whenever he caught himself coming up with contingency plans to make sure no one could disrupt that. It was kind of funny to watch.

"Then send me some pictures."

-_- -_- -_-

"You must be the revenant. I'm here in search of the Great One."

Jason stared at the yeti standing out in the middle of the hallway blinked and slowly closed his door.

"Danny!"

I don't know what would fit better for this but I was stuck on two main ideas for how it could happen. Either Danny's parents hired the Outlaws to handle the GIW while they had to go on the run or Clockwork meddled and made a deal with Jason that he couldn't refuse. Either way Jason gets help with the pit, gets a kid who can curse the Joker with bad luck and calls some friends to help take down a rogue, badly run black ops group trying to destroy another reality and kind of forgets to let his family know what's going on so they're stuck learning about it through the news. It's not his fault. He asked Roy to keep them up to date. Roy just assumed they already knew and Starfire thought Roy said something since he was the responsible one.

A deaged Danny on the other hand, cause I like the occasional gremlin kid Danny fic is more than happy to let the adults handle things. Clockwork and or his parents trust Jason and he could finally put some of his fighting skills he picked up while time traveling to good use. League? What league? Oh, they're calling me Sparrow now. It's better than Invis-o-Bill so why not. Can I curse the clown? Please, please, please, please. It'll be so funny.

FremiMay Day 21: Inazuma

More Posts from Often-daydreaming and Others

Hectic