#Jason isn't Red Hood yet so he has a job to hold himself over while he prepares

[radiance1]

Danny, Sam and Tucker co-own a resturant. (Yes this is going exactly how you think if u got it) Danny makes the mascots, Tucker supplies the coding and Sam is both their biggest donor and takes over the vegan menu.

Surprisingly, the resturant goes extremely well and so far hasn't been robbed even though they're in Gotham.

They hire a nightguard just in case.

However, none of the three knew that a few specific ghosts keep coming back every night to possess the animatronics and have their fun while also throwing out intruders.

Jason Todd thinks that his bosses should've at the very least told him their mascots would try to put him in the grave again.

(They aren't but he doesn't know that and they don't know he's supposed to be here.)

[potatoesarecheese]

part two, y'all.

batfam au where, hunched over in the darkness, Timothy Drake stares into a screen.

With no Batman to chase across rooftops, and no mysteries to unravel, and no family to rely on, Tim went a little mad. He won't admit it, of course, especially not in front of his parents who need him to be able to hold himself together. So he does an excellent job at hiding it, but his head isn't always screwed on the right way.

But what happens when a genius loses their shit? a nightmare, that's what. a nightmare that has a hand in every pie, a nightmare that is aware of every stone falling in Gotham. he was never given a challenge, never given a mystery to solve, never got to punch the Riddler in the face, so he spun his own riddles. He answered his own questions.

How long would it take for you to hack into GCPD's comms? (5 minutes, next) What would happen if you turned off power in the Narrows? (Carnage, next) What would you do if the Batman came back? (Wait-- what?)

The Batman was back, and suddenly there was an unanswered question that needed to be solved. but Tim is Tim.

So he figured it out.

He noticed immediately that Batman was back. He noticed that kids have been going missing (all over the world) for a while. And he also noticed that someone's been making waves in the Narrows.

That someone arrived a couple months ago, and seems like he's trying to wipe out every single criminal that he spots. This person is also throwing in seemingly random murders and side quests that don't fit into his agenda.

this person, as it turns out, has chosen to go by "Red Hood," and this fascinates Tim, terrifies Bruce and gives Dick a challenge that he's never really had to face before. Up until this point, Dick has just been a scary threat to keep criminals in line, now there's someone that's going to punch back.

Tim approaches the Red Hood, and offers a deal. A mutual partnership. Tim is the brains, Hood is the brawn. Tim hasn't quite discovered who Batman is yet (because, well, you can't really do a summersault with that giant cape.) They're both villain-adjaent, so why not make a little team?

There's probably a handful of fights and rooftop chases and interrogations that follow. The small kind of stuff that I cannot resist adding to my fics. But that all changes when you realize that Tim's been digging into the missing children.

And he figured it out.

It turns out that those missing children have been the Joker's little pet project to try and get Bruce to be Batman again. The League of Shadows too the opportunity when they saw it, and they've been going around and collecting these kids.

Saving them from the brink of death, dunking them in the Pit, and creating their own little army of people who are already dead, who are all pumped full of anger and are young enough that they'll be searching for "parents" to take care of them. (One such kid went by the name of Jason Todd, but that's not important)

It also turns out that the Batman believes that Red Hood (and by extension, Tim, even though B doesn't even know that Tim exists) is responsible for those disappearing children, and that's why he hates them so much.

See, Tim's all fine with being a bad person, but even he is above things like... murder. And he doesn't really appreciate the false accusations. So he reaches out to Batman and strikes up another deal. After all, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, right?

Let's go find the Joker together.

And it makes sense, it's all mutually beneficial. Jason will get his revenge, Dick will clean up Gotham and Tim will make it very clear that he's not THAT evil.

Bruce doesn't like this idea, Alfred... doesn't completely know what to think but he sees the benefits to working with people like Jason and Tim.

And so starts the shakiest, rockiest team you've ever seen. They don't really fit together well, and they're certainly not the best "team" that Gotham could ever ask for. But it's the team that Gotham is going to get.

But they figured it out.

batfam au where bruce gave up the batman costume when he became dick's dad, because he was mentally sane enough to realise that an actual child should not be fighting actual murders.

and the world carried on.

batman becomes a folktale, something that parents use to get their children to sleep, and something that every thug thinks about when the night just a little too quiet and things are going a little too well.

occasionally, some angsty teenager or some bitter man will make their own costume, and try to be batman. and it makes headlines, it keeps criminals in check. but these New Batmen never carry that mantle for very long.

Jason, Tim, Damian, Cass, Steph, Babs, Duke, everyone. They are never found, they are never rescued, they are never born. the villains never become villains. the joker disappears

sometimes, Alfred gets this feeling that there's someone missing, multiple someones, but he doesn't even know who. he mourns a family he's never had, and holds space for someone that he never knew.

but the world carries on

this all changes when two things happen very, very quickly.

One, some scrappy teenager flies to Ethiopia, looking for a mother he didn't even know and drops of the grid. completely unrelated to this teenager, a warehouse explodes

Two, dick starts poking around the manor, accidentally stumbling upon the remains of his father's past-- is father is Batman. was batman. and dick doesn't really know what to do with that information. so he does the only logical thing and tries to become the actual Batman.

At first, he tries to be batman without any training and immediately gets his ass handed to him. And, while he's dragging his broken body to the cave, he sees Alfred. Alfred, who patches him up and tells him that, if he's going to be batman, he needs to go back to the classics.

he needs to tell bruce.

he needs to tell bruce, or bruce is going to figure it out for himself. he isn't the worlds greatest detective for nothing, and it's better to tell him sooner rather than later.

when dick tells bruce, bruce... doesn't know what to think. he doesn't want his son -his precious son- to go out fighting the one-man war that he'd once tried to fight. but he also knows that there's probably nothing that he can do to stop dick.

the best way for Bruce to protect who he loves is to teach him how to fight. how to actually fight.

and so he does.

he trains Dick with everything that he knows. teaches him with the intensity and the drive that canon Bruce taught Tim. He will not lose his son, he will not let dick lose the one-man war. and he will not let his past as Batman be the thing that tears his family apart.

The Batman returns to the streets of Gotham. Criminal activity is at an all time low. the people who would have become villains have already moved on with their lives.

so the world carries on, bringing Batman with it.

end of part one (because this has been rotting in my drafts and I need to post this now or ill forget again)