#The Crime Alley Kid

[therealbeachfox]

The Perfectly Normal Adventures of a Crime Alley Kid

The Crime Alley Kid Meets Jason Todd Chapter 2 is finally out!

Which is also Chapter 1 of "Tim Drake Meets the Crime Alley Kid". It makes sense in context, I promise. Regardless, come for 1990s Tim Drake getting kidnapped by Two-Face's goons, stay for Conrad's dad being the absolute worse! With occasional commentary from the Bats and the Outlaws because both Conrad and Tim are telling their respective sides of the tale on this one.

Again, I swear it makes sense in context.

[therealbeachfox]

"Why do we make laser grids like these?" came the chirp from across the table.

"What do you mean?" Otto responded without looking up.

"I mean, instead of a messy random arrangement of lasers that a nimble intruder might be able to jump through, why not a simple grid wall with no gaps large enough to allow a person to pass?"

Otto sighed heavily and looked up from the blueprints he'd been amending and reworking to focus on his nephew. One of his nephews. One of his multitude of nephews because none of his siblings understood the concept of wrapping it up. He was at Mykola's place, so probably one of his. Too young to be Aiden, too old to be Eric. A, B, C... Connor? Conway? Conrad? One of those. At that extra annoying age where they're too curious for their own good, and have started to believe they actually know something, so get real argumentative about it when you prove they don't.

There's a reason why Otto didn't have kids. Or deal with kids. And tried to talk the Boss out of putting kids into his deathtraps. Fucking kids. Ugh.

"Because if we did that, it'd be impossible to get through." he said, hoping it'd satisfy the kid.

"But isn't that what you're trying to do?" Mykola's boy had his head twisted around to try and look at the blueprints from his uncle's perspective and was tracing out the twisting pathways with his eyes. "This whole thing is a giant 'You Can't Get In Here' tunnel. I don't understand why you're leaving holes in the security."

Well, the kid had actually asked, instead of just flat out stating that his way would be better. Otto grit his teeth and settled himself back for a proper lecture. "You're thinking too mundanely, kid." The boy looked up curiously and brushed a tangle of near-black hair out of his eyes. Slightly mollified, Otto continued. "This isn't like designing security for a bank or vault or something. This is something for my Boss. So we're already not designing like we would for the public sector, right?"

"Yeah? Yeah." Con-whatever agreed, though still looking just as confused.

"So, our issue is, whoever comes looking for whatever it is that the Boss is gonna put at the end of this is already going to be uniquely skilled and driven. Not just your average jewelry robbers or beat cops, right?"

"Right, yeah, you're going to be dealing with capes or cowls and stuff, sure. But wouldn't that mean you'd want it all extra locked down?" The kid was now looking directly at him. But with the intense look of someone who didn't understand but wanted to. It was by far more annoying than if the kid had just been flat-out disparaging of the whole process. Now Otto couldn't just tell him to shove off without feeling bad about it. Ugh.

"Well, here's the thing. If this was something the Boss really wanted to keep away from people, he'd have it put in some indistinguishable bank vault lock-box by a patsy that one of us underlings had hired through a third party, leaving two whole layers unaware of who even wanted the thing in there, and at least three whole layers who have no idea what the object even is besides. But he's not doing that, he's putting it at the end of a long tunnel of traps, alarms, and obstacles. Which means, what he wants is for whoever's coming after him to go through the whole thing. Which means it's gotta be at least theoretically possible to get through the whole thing. If you were a cowl and you came across a perfect laser grid that there was no way to squirm your way through and no way to work around, what would you do?"

Mykola's kid frowned down at the blueprints, eyebrows furrowed in tweenage concentration. "Start cutting through the walls, I guess. Either to find a way to cut the power, or to bypass the tunnel all toget-OH! Ooooooh, okay! I see, I see!" Otto grabbed the edge of the table to steady it as the kid started bouncing a little in his seat. "If you make it impossible, the cowls will start thinking outside the box and start looking for ways to end-run around the whole thing. If you make it difficult, but still possible, they're going to be too busy focusing on how to do the almost impossible thing so they're still playing by your Boss' rules instead of making up their own!"

Otto grunted and bit back the hint of a smile that wanted to cross his lips. Last thing he wanted to do was encourage the brat; then he'd be stuck answering questions all day. "Now you've got it. Make it hard enough that they waste as much time getting through it as possible without breaking out their bat-themed metal cutters or retreating and finding another way to come in altogether. Same reason why museums do it this way. Otherwise, the only way to get at shit would be to blow a hole in the floor, and that'd damage way more artifacts than whatever the thief was targeting originally."

"Okay, I think I totally get it. Is that why the HVAC ducts are big enough for sidekicks to get through? In case they can't work stuff out?"

Otto blinked and scowled back down at the blueprints to figure out what the kid was talking about, "No? No! I've got them as small as they can get without leaving the air rank, and we've got mesh grids every five feet just in case they try anyway."

The kid pointed down at one point in the blueprints and traced out a line that went way from one-third of the way through the hallway to right near the end, "Not on this one. And it's got this other branch that leads out to the bathrooms in the laundry mat you're using as a front, even!"

Otto squinted down at what the kid was pointing out. It was a second branch of the air circulation network, focused mainly on the above ground business, but with a few pipes down below ground as federally mandated backups to the system he'd been focusing on locking down. "No. That's not for the sidekicks." He growled and grabbed for an eraser and pencil and got to work grinding out alterations.

"Huh. So what about the-" the kid started.

"One thing at a time. Let me get this fixed, then you can ask the next one, okay?"

"Yeah, sure, okay!" The kid shrugged and grabbed up one of Otto's old notebooks that had the first iteration of designs for the Boss' main vault and started reading while kicking his legs.

Otto just ground his teeth and focused on his work. Only thing worse than a kid was a precociously bright kid with an honest interest in your work. Worse thing in the goddamn world.

He should message Mykola and let him know he needed to get one of his other kids to bring up snacks for the brat. He was at that age where he was going to get hungry long before Otto was done.

"Why do we make laser grids like these?" "What do you mean?" "I mean instead of a messy random arrangement of lasers that a nimble intruder might be able to jump through, why not a simple grid wall with no gaps large enough to allow a person to pass through?"

[kallioz]

dick took it as blackmail on jason

[redsray]

the funniest part of any Robin meeting the JL is that every Robin is so distinctly different from the previous one in terms of personality and vibes that the league literally gets backlash. and like, I don't blame them. not to mention that they are non-meta children that dress as a traffic light and fight crime alongside batman in gotham on a nightly basis. i'd also be a bit concerned. Batman, literally The Night of Gotham personified in the League's eyes, coming into a JL meeting: This is Robin, my crime-fighting partner. 11-year-old Dick Grayson, dressed in the brightest primary colours possible, vaguely hidden murder behind those eyes, never stops moving even for a moment: Hi! Superman: That's a child. That's-- Bats that is a child. You let a child--? Batman, deadpan: You try to stop him. Would you rather he try and murder a grown man with a wire?

Batman: This is Robin. 12-year-old Jason Todd, with the biggest grin on his face, about 3 books in his hand, stars in his eyes and a distinct street-kid drawl: Hey!!! Green Lantern: That's ... that's a different child. What?? Jason: I stole his tires :) Batman: Tried to. Jason, stage whispering to the League: basically did. Green Lantern: that is a different kid, right?? I'm not seeing shit??

Batman: This is Robin. 14-year-old Tim Drake, bo staff clutched in his hand, a wary and tired expression on his face, more on the quiet side, the literal walking definition of don't judge a book by it's cover: hello Flash: Where do you even find these-- Tim: I found myself.

Batman: This is Robin. 17-year-old Stephanie Brown, literally blonde, with a shit-eating grin, eyes full of nothing but mischief and the most explosive personality you've ever seen: hiya!! Superman: I give up. Stephanie: I know, I have that amazing effect on people.

Batman: This is Robin. 13-year-old Damian Wayne, a literal wet cat that will hiss at you, has a sword, the most judgemental stare you'll get from a teenager, ready to jump anyone there: Green Lantern: WHY DOES HE HAVE A SWORD?! Batman: ... he came with the sword.

[therealbeachfox]

*stumbles across a tag nominating his own work in the wild and gets all lower-lip wobbly*

"Gotham is Just Like That" is a major undercurrent in my Crime Alley Kid stuff, but it usually takes a back seat to "I swear I'm -not- a Hench -nor- am I crushing on a feared crime boss" shenanigans.

Gotham is Just Like That specific pieces you might enjoy, however:

Legends of Gotham, where we learn what theories Gotham's kids have about where Batman and the Robins/Batgirls come from:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/53769745/chapters/143741794

r/Gotham - Job Hunts and Henchwork: Where we get advice on how to avoid accidentally becoming a Henchman in Gotham, and various Gotham-specific jobs you might try applying for.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/47627515/chapters/123923356#workskin

And finally, the opening section of The Crime Alley Kid Meets Jason Todd is an extended bit about what kinds of dining establishments are able to succeed in Gotham and why there's only like three McDonalds in the entire city. (Then it returns to the normal gay goon/Jason Todd hijinks)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/54663994/chapters/138528661

As for Gotham Life works I enjoy...

Continuing on the subject of "Gotham from the POV of Mooks who work for Red Hood", there's He's Ours Now, where Jason's gang band together to protect their boss because -somebody- has to, the big adorable idiot.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/46965049

Also on the criminal side of Gotham life: turn the beat around, following the lives of goons who've carved out a niche as Professional Bruce Wayne Kidnappers. For whenever you want to try and kidnap Bruce Wayne for whatever reason. They love the guy, honestly.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/37624642

And also Lucky Shot, featuring more professional Henchmen in the aftermath of accidentally actually managing to shoot Nightwing despite their best efforts not to.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/51722458

Shifting over to other professionals in Gotham, we find:

A newly arrived Physical Therapist who is aghast that the APTA does absolutely shitall in Gotham in you've walked a hundred times before

https://archiveofourown.org/works/54857077/chapters/139052734

The f'ing -hilarious- and I Cannot Recommend This Enough tale of the adventures of an overworked Child Protective Services agent in Gotham who's got a whole Powerpoint presentation to force Batman to watch if he ever catches him on the many many ways making kids be Robin is immoral and illegal, Ain't No Compass, Ain't No Map

https://archiveofourown.org/works/38048365/chapters/95037589

Something about Tim Drake lends him to AUs where he's a non-Batfam professional of some sort. Two that intersect with WTF Gotham shenanigans are The Accountant (where he's Red Hood's accountant)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/34141567/chapters/84945439

and Executive Assistant to the Batman (where he's EA to Bruce Wayne and retains an incredibly flimsy and acidic plausible deniability when it comes to his boss' nighttime activities).

https://archiveofourown.org/works/6046332/chapters/13862979

And finally, IRIS Log #1548, which is more Batlife Shenanigans rather than Gotham Shenanigans, but makes the cut because it is utterly hilarious.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/51647209

*jazz hands* Enjoy!

Does anyone have any Gotham Is Just Like That fic recs? Anything from a major plot point to something that’s stated as understood worldbuilding, nothing to see here.

What I mean by Gotham Is Just Like That:

-this fic I once read where a random old lady beat the joker to death with her purse and approximately 200 witnesses pretended to have not seen it

-yeah, yeah, the chemicals in the water, everyone’s heard of them

-Justice league tries to come to Gotham but the vibes are so rancid they have to leave

-“you got everything packed? Lunchbox, homework, gas mask, steel toe boots, pencil case?” “Oh no I forgot my pencil case”

-my prof was out so she called her friend from grad school Poison Ivy to teach class today and honestly she was a pretty good teacher

Etc.

[prlssprfctn]

Batboys, who finally got Jason to agree to join them in their Farm Weekends at Kents, and who beforehand warned Kon and Jon that, well, Jason can be a little flippant, but it nothing personal, only to find out that Jason has an awful, tooth-rotting soft spot for Supers.

Kon, sighing: Okay, Jon, remember, this guy is probably like Damian but older and worse... On the other side, you probably would like that, but just in case if he makes you cry, call me. I'll deal with him. Jon, giggling: Don't worry, Kon. Jason, appearing on the doorsteps: Hey, little ones. I wasn't sure what people usually bring as a gift when they are staying at someone, so I bought the bunch of sweets for ya. You don't mind, do you? Kon: L-little ones? Jon: SWEETS!

Batboys are flabbergasted. Jason never acts like this with them, so what the actual fuck. Tim checks on Jason's temperature, like, three times in the row, and gets his hand smacked. Damian stares at Jason, trying to figure out if the Pit madness had returned in a different light. They have no explanation for this.

Kon: Dude, you said that he was meanie. Tim: He IS. Usually. Kon: I don't know, man... He lets Jon sit on his shoulders and piggybacked me this morning. That's not really mean to me. Tim: WELL. HE NEVER DOES THIS WITH US. Kon: Maybe he just doesn't like you that much. Tim: SHUT UP.

Jason, helping to Lois with some chores: So, I need some help in stalls. Pretty boy, come and help me. Kon: (keeps standing cluelessly) Jason: (glares at him, confused) Kon: Oh! I am pretty boy? Jason: Yeah? Chop-chop, come on. Tim, muttering: All I get is Timbers. And Timberline. And Timmers.

Jason, cooing on Jon: Aw-w, here goes my itty bitty tiny- Damian: (growls) Tim: Somebody sedate me. Kon, twirling around in new leather jacket that he stole from Jason: Yeah, we are his new siblings at this point.

Dick: I am. SO. Happy. That. Little. Wing. Finally. Can. Unleash his. True. Cringey brother. Personality. Tim, concerned: Is that kryptonite in your hands? Dick: No. No. Don't get me wrong. I am very happy. I had waited for this day for years, even. Well. I expected ME to be his itty bitty tiny weenie. But. That's fine. I am fine. Damian: I'll fetch father... Tim: Yeah. Please.

[redhoodisgod]

Does anyone else think that the alley kids have an almost familial affection for Red Hood? Like, imagine that a giant man saves you and makes your home safer. It is obvious that at first they will be scared, but after saving them so many times and being affectionate, the children already love him, they will even give him nicknames.

Red Hood who just defeated some guys who were threatening the children.

Hood: Is everyone okay?

Random kid: Yes! thank you for saving us Tío hood!

Jason is already used to all kinds of nicknames and in all languages, he even memorizes a couple.

Random girl: You where so cool in there mom!

But it seems that he had not heard all of them

Hood: Sorry, I think I heard wrong.How did you just call me, little girl?

Sara: My name is sara! Not little girl!

Hood: Ups sorry sara, but how did you call me a second ago?

Sara: Mom!

Jason is left speechless and has to process the information

Hood: Why that?

Sara: Well because you always take care of us and talk nice to us! like a mommy.

Jason doesn't know what to respond to little Sara and her look full of hope.

Sara: What do you not like?

A small pout formed on the girl's lips.

Hood: NO! I love it! I absolutely love it!

Sara: Yeey! Mom hood like it!

And that's how mom Hood was the new nickname that the alley kids gave him. The bats tried to ask about it but a bullet answers a thousand words.

[therealbeachfox]

The Crime Alley Kid Saves Christmas!

[[A semi-noncanonical tale of that time Conrad got conscripted into a bunch of bullshit he didn't sign up for, and his Boss With Benefits didn't fare much better.]]

Twas the night after Christmas, and all through the Nest Not a creature was stirring, except for one guest. While the wind howled outside, blowing snow to and fro A certain hench worked by computer screen glow When up from above, there rose such a clatter He shot from the chair to see what was the -UNGHHPH!-

     There was a sound not unlike a rapidly approaching motorbike, but before Conrad could even process the impossibility of that scenario he was no longer standing up from his chair, but instead embedded into the far wall of the Nest’s main chamber. His head bounced off hard enough to send explosions of light across his vision and he was certain that the metal paneling had crumpled slightly from the impact of his body.

     He cursed from the pain, but all that came out was a gurgling squeak. He couldn’t breathe either. A heavy pressure was wrapped tight around his throat and keeping him a good foot off the ground to boot. A steel beam wrapped in a leather jacket if his fumbling attempts to grab it were anything to go by.

     Someone was speaking to him, but his brain refused to make sense of the words. His vision was starting to clear, though. Details began to filter through the piercing brightness of the Nest’s overhead floodlights. A shock of black curled hair. Sunglasses? Sunglasses. Inside. At night. Ear-piercings that caught the light and glinted like daggers into his eyes. A snarling face. Black leather jacket. Blue shirt with a yellow and red pattern he couldn’t quite process.

     The steel beam wrapped around his throat lifted him another inch and shook him, which just made the no oxygen problem even worse. No helping it. Conrad swung his legs forward and slammed his boots against the gut of whoever was pinning him to the wall.

     It was like trying to kick through a concrete wall.

     Conrad swung again, further this time, bending himself almost double to wrap his legs around the arm pinning him in place. He managed to keep his grip for almost a full second before something grabbed his entire body and slammed him flat against the wall. His arms and legs went flat against the wall, spread out and pinned like he was strapped into-

Momentary panic. Memories of a soundproofed room with walls of alternating black fabric and mirrors. So many different angles to see himself from. Strapped down across a giant X, every whip welt displa-

Just a moment of panic. He barely noticed either the flash of memory or stuffing it back down into it’s box in the back of his mind.

     Conrad squinted his eyes and fought through the headache to get a better look at his assaulter. The symbol across the guy’s chest was the first thing to flicker into focus.

     Oh.

     Oh no.

     “You need to get down here, Rob!” Superboy called over his shoulder. Because that was Superboy, floating(!!) a few inches off the ground and pinning Conrad in place with a single finger against his forehead. Somehow. “You’ve got an infestation in your Nest!”

     Wow. Rude. Superboy should count himself lucky that he had a weak spot for pierced punk boys in leather who could kick his ass. Although… He scanned the floating kid up and down and frowned. “Weren’t you older than me?”

     Superboy’s head snapped back to him, black eyebrows furrowed in anger. “What?”

     Conrad tried to gesture between the cape’s face and his own, but his fingers barely twitched. Shit, he used his hands a lot when talking, didn’t he? “When you first showed. You were older than me. By at least a year or two. But now you look…” he let the rest of his thought drift into silence. The stormy expression Superboy was giving him would’ve been unnerving even if it wasn’t coming from someone who, Conrad was near certain, could shoot lasers from his eyes.

     He coughed and broke eye-contact as he caught motion from the staircase in his peripheral. Red Robin was coming down the stairs, frowning at a slim pane of black glass that looked stupidly expensive. “That doesn’t make any sense. There’s no sign of an intrusion, just a couple of pings from-” He looked up, and the faintly glowing white eyes of his cowl widened slightly before he facepalmed. “Goddamit, Con.”

     “What?” Conrad exclaimed in perfect synchronicity with Superboy. Con blinked in surprise as the other boy glared back.

     “I can’t deal with this right now. Con, keep him there, we’ll figure out…” Red Robin trailed off as he took in the over-screen of the Robin-computer or whatever he was calling it. He stood like that for several seconds before turning towards them with enough force it left his cape swirling around him. “Con, what the hell is all this?”

     “How the hell should I know?” Superboy asked.

     “Pretty sure he’s the one keeping me here.” Conrad replied at the same moment. The two of them returned to exchanging bewildered-slash-suspicious glares.

     Red Robin gave a sigh that was all Batman while massaging his temples. “Oh for… Conrad, also known as Con, meet Superboy, also known as Kon-El. Kon-El, my truest friend and companion, meet Conrad, some guy my brother’s banging. Who somehow broke into my stronghold while I was out.”

     “You gave me the keys ‘in case of emergency’! And you weren’t answering your bat… pager.. thing when I was trying to get permission!” Conrad tried to explain in a way that didn’t come off too much like he was trying to convince an older sibling they shouldn’t sell them out to their parents over some infraction.

     “Wait, which brother?” Superboy asked over him. “Because that hair’s not nearly red enough for Nightwing, and I know Batman would never let someone his age anywhere near Ro-”

     Conrad wheezed as the pressure around his throat slammed back full force. Superboy was close enough their noses were nearly touching. All he could see was the other kid’s eyes. Piercing unnatural blue, with bright red pinpricks glowing in the center of his pupils. Where did his sunglasses go? “He’s fucking Red Hood?!”

     Oh god, Superboy was choke-pinning him against the wall with his lips close enough to kiss. “I wished on a monkey’s paw when I was 15.” he choked out, muscles straining against whatever force was keeping him immobile. “It’s the only explanation for this.”

     The last came out more gurgled whine than actual words, but that was apparently enough to earn his release. Gravity returned with a vengeance, and the very familiar sensation of landing ass-first on cold hard ground shot up his spine. Conrad made the executive decision to just stay there for a quick bit. Partially to massage at his throat and catch his breath, mostly to come off as utterly nonthreatening and not worth the bother of slamming up against anything else.

     “What the fuck?” Superboy was a foot off the ground and several feet distant by the time Conrad could look up.

     “When you first showed up,” Conrad hacked out, “you were older than me. You’re allowed to have fantasies about people older than you! But now you’re younger-” Conrad broke off and shook his head firmly. “You know what? No. I’m not even asking. Not my business, I don’t need to know. Now or ever.”

     “Kon-El got decanted ahead of schedule and one of the side effects was a lack of aging until we figured out how to get that kickstarted. He’s been alive for about six years, is about 17 physically, and mentally…” Red Robin trailed off and waggled his hand with a shrug.

     Conrad bit back an exasperated sigh. “I just said I wasn’t going to ask.”

     “Okay, why are we telling one of Red Hood’s mooks my tragic backstory? And why is he here?”

     “Because Red Robin gave me a key!”

     “Con! Kon! Focus. Conrad. What. Am I. Looking at?” Red Robin pointed firmly at the screen which was currently taken up by a map of the greater Gotham metropolitan area. Specifically, he was pointing at the dozens (two dozen and three, supplied the part of his brain that sounded vaguely like his mother and never shut up) of routs that crossed, looped, and spread across the breadth of the city.

     Con bit his lip and debated. This was something that was almost impossible to explain to someone who hadn’t had to live on the streets as a kid, even before you brought in all the… side details.

     But Red Robin was a Bat. Perhaps the most Bat’esc Bat aside from the original. Con might not get dangled off a building during the process, but he’d still get interrogated a dozen different ways until he gave up every detail. Better to just bite the bullet.

     “Okay,” Conrad pulled himself off the floor and squared himself into his most ‘I am a professional and am delivering a professional report’ stance. “Before I start, I just need to say: I promise I am not fucking with you or making anything up. I know how it’s going to sound, but-”

     “Oh my god, dude, I spent last week having a fistfight with a version of me made out of sentient crystal that was trying to take control of the world’s beetle population. Just spill it, already!” Red Robin placed a hand gently on Superboy’s shoulder and lightly pushed him down until his feet were against the ground. Unreadable mask eyes turned back to him.

     “Please. Just tell us.”

     Con took another deep breath. “Okay, so. There’s this, um, care package… thing that homeless kids get around this time of year. Sweaters, cold-weather gear, snow-rated sleeping bags and shit like that. But it didn’t show up this year and we-”

     “Oh &*#$ me, it’s a Santa thing!” Superboy exploded, suddenly two feet off the ground again. “I swear to whatever gods Krypton had, I’m going to go full Grinch if they pull this shit ever again.”

     Red Robin ignored him and stepped forward closer to Conrad. “Santa’s presents weren’t delivered to the homeless kids in Gotham, so you’re trying to arrange deliveries of those supplies yourself. Thus…” He waved at the screen. “this whole thing to hit every location in Gotham in the minimum amount of time. Right?”

     Conrad just stood there with mouth slightly agape for a second. Not at Red Robin figuring out what was going on just from examining the map and getting a sentence of setup. He was a Robin. Robins were smart. It was the Santa thing that’d clotheslined him. That’d always been the hardest part of the sell, even with the BossJason. He’d never once encountered easy acceptance of it from anyone over the age of maybe twelve. It took a light throat-clearing from Red Robin to snap him out of it. Superboy was up in the rafters now, mutter-ranting to himself. Red Robin was ignoring him, so Conrad did as well.

     “Right. Um. So, this actually happened once before about-”

     “Four years ago, when nothing showed up until late February, middle of March.” the vigilante inserted.

     “Early February, but… yeah. We were lucky it was a mild winter that year or it could’ve been… Real bad.” Conrad shrugged off the echoes of dread from that long month that still lingered. “It’s something I’ve always tried to have a plan for in case it ever happened again. So when Christmas morning arrived with no deliveries...”

     Red Robin nodded decisively. “Kris Kringle was abducted by forces unknown into a splintered off timeline tangent two days ago.” He said like he was just filling Con in on a few extra details about a shoplifting plan. “The elves didn’t contact us until yesterday; just hours before deliveries should’ve started.” The wrinkle of his nose showed just what Red Robin thought about that particular choice. “Most of the team’s followed the abductors into the timeline splinter, but a few of us stayed here to try and get Christmas deliveries taken care of.” He gave a rueful snort, looking back up at the big screen. “We’d come down to use the Nest’s mainframe to calculate our optimal routs. Guess you had the same idea.”

     That was. A lot of information. Conrad shoved most of it on the back-burner to process when he had the time and focused on the important pieces. “I really just needed the Nest’s databases.”

     Red Robin turned back to him, head tilted slightly, featureless white eyes watching. Conrad hurried to elaborate. “Hood’s got a lot of supplies saved aside for things like this, and if it was just the Alley kids we needed to look out for it’d be more than enough, but we’ve got a whole city to cover.” He waved his hand at the map like the vigilante didn’t realize just how fucking huge Gotham was. “I tried getting information on which companies or warehouses would have cold weather gear in stock that we could ..buy,” there was barely a millisecond of stumble over the quick word substitution, “on my own, but no one’s publishing their exact stock figures online and I don’t know how to acquire that kind of information directly from their systems.

     “I tried asking Oracle for help,” that is, he’d turned on his webcam and mic, loaded up an empty Zoom call, and asked for the ghost-in-the-machine’s help every five minutes for an hour “but I don’t have any direct way of contacting them and my signal flares went unanswered. I pinged your…”

     “Batpager.” Red Robin supplied the moment it looked like Con was struggling with the word. “Just call it the Batpager. Most of us do.” The faint undercurrent of exhaustion in his voice suggested that he himself was not one of them.

     “Batpager, but I you were busy... with elves?”

     “Rabble-scabble frigging elves.” Superboy muttered as he slowly drifted back down into the conversation. “Zap us away from Christmas dinner with demands, then refuse to let us use any part of their mission control setup-”

     “Because lil’Lobo tried to set it all on fire with a flamethrower.”

     “Which brings me to my next complaint of why was lil’Lobo brought on in the first place!”

     “They were pretty liberal with their definition of ‘Young Justice Members’ when casting the summons, it looked like.”

     “He hasn’t been on the roster for years,” Superboy continued like Red hadn’t even spoken. “I don’t think he was even with us the first time we had to fill in!” He stopped, furrowed his brow, and turned to Red. “Was he?”

     “Dude, I don’t even know. My memories of those three months are completely shot.”

     This was a situation Conrad was comfortable in. The guys in charge had gotten distracted by a conversation/argument about shit he had no knowledge of. He just had to hang out and be part of the background until they circled back around to him. Normally, this would’ve been the part where he also turned all the audio into static until he heard his name, but HoodJason kept being real insistent about not doing that anymore, so he didn’t. Instead, he just focused on the name lil’Lobo.

     Lobo sounded like a mirror-inverse of Lupu, honestly. That combined with the lil’ gave Conrad the vivid mental image of a mirror-universe version of one of his cousins. Evil. With a goatee. God, evil Caleb with a goatee and a flamethrower. He could see it all a little too well, honestly. Mirror-flipped so his skin was super white and his body was super jacked. Hair so faintly brown it was nearly white? Or still a dark brown, just with blue-highlights where it caught the light? Some sort of meathead asshole just barging through things without a second thought about anything. Fucking terrifying.

     “Anyways,” Red Robin broke into Superboy’s ranting, making Conrad snap back to attention. “You couldn’t get in contact with anyone, so you broke into the Nest.”

     “You gave me a key!” Conrad’s explanation was getting a little more strained with each repetition.

     “For emergencies.” Red Robin replied.

     Conrad’s expression went blank. “We have blizzard conditions expected within the next 36 hours,” he said evenly. He wasn’t going to shout at a Robin. Definitely not when they had someone next to them who could punch through his spine. “with as much of five feet of snow and temperatures down to 5 degrees Fahrenheit. Kids will die without cold weather gear. Even if every shelter threw their doors open, there aren’t enough beds across Gotham to house more than maybe a quarter of us. Them.” It’d been almost three years, and it still took effort to remember he wasn’t one of them anymore. No longer homeless, definitely no longer a child.

     “Kids are going to die from this and there’s not much shit I can do about it; but I can make sure that the death toll is in the low dozens instead of the low hundreds. I know it doesn’t count as an emergency by Bat standards – there’s no one to punch to make it stop – but it counts as one to me. And all I needed was information on where in Gotham additional supplies were located so the volunteer runners could pick up shit between stops. It was going to be a quick in and out. I’d only been here about half an hour and would’ve been gone in another twenty if you hadn’t shown up.”

     Red Robin frowned and moved to the keyboard. A flurry of quick keystrokes and electronic blips and the symbols on the map Conrad had put down to mark warehouses and army surplus shops where additional gear could be acquired lit up. Con watched as the younger man tracked the various routs, seeing which ones passed by one of the restock points and which didn’t, which ones were sent out with all the gear they’d need and their paths verses the ones who’d be getting most of their supplies along the way.

     “You have the usual districts divided up further into…”

     “Gang territories. Most homeless kids are hooked into one street-kid gang or another. It’s almost impossible to stay alive and not snatched up by CPS or unmarked vans without support. Kids age out as quick as they come in, so the territories and numbers and even names of the gangs are always in flux, but I do my best to keep track of ‘em. I’ve no idea how to track down whatever kids are running independent, so I’ve got to focus on using the gang leaders as the point of contact to drop shit off with. There are a few groups,” He gestured to the larger circles centered around the Tricorner Tunnels access and the plaza around “Simon’s Church” on the southernmost island as examples. “where there’s more of a joint gathering spot for all the local street kids, so those drop-offs are a lot more straight-forward.”

     “And you’ve got each path here making no more than five dropoffs-”

     “The runners are gonna have to roll some diplomacy and spend time convincing them the gear isn’t some sort of trap, so we can’t be rushing people. I’m just glad so many volunteered to help.”

     “Each route has a bare minimum of turns or side-streets required-”

     “Needs to be easy to remember without having it written down. Not everyone can read that good.”

     “Though there’s some weird changing around with the streets and notes about times that I don’t quite get…”

     “Enough people’ve got work that there’s going to be the usual traffic. Plus, we almost always have someone pulling shit at the Steel Gables bridge in the first few days after Christmas, so we can’t rely on that being open.”

     “And the neighborhoods on each side of it are getting taken care of by routes that follow the shoreline. There’s just…”

     “Twenty-seven routes. We had sixty-odd volunteers and I wanted there to be at least two riders on each route so they could back each other up in case of trouble. A few of the least experienced I tripled up with an old wolf because there was overflow.”

     Red Robin shook his head slowly before turning back to look at Conrad. “And you set up the algorithm for this in just thirty minutes?”

     Conrad blinked again, eyes darting over to Superboy for a second (he was still scowling at him, damn) then back. “Ah. No. I… Don’t know how to do that. I already had the rough routes plotted out, then once I knew where supplies were located I just had to tweak things to account for them.”

     “And you just… what, did that by hand? In half an hour?”

     Conrad didn’t like that tone of voice. It wasn’t Red’s fault, he’d just heard it too many time from assholes (parental and otherwise) growing up. The ‘Pretty sure you don’t know what you’re talking about and are too stupid to even realize it’ voice.

     He might be being unfair to Red. Probably wasn’t even what that voice meant coming from him. It was an effort to keep his hackles from rising, though.

     “I had most of the routing already mapped out, but the adjustments for supplies, yeah. I was going over everything to make sure I hadn’t made any mistakes when, um,” he rubbed at the growing bruise around his throat distractedly, “you arrived.”

     Red Robin was giving him the exact same look that Jason had many times at the start of their relationship. Like he was trying to pull up Conrad’s source-code for a deep dive to figure out exactly what was going on in there. He tried not to shift under the attention.

     “So how did you plot the original routes?” He asked in a mild voice that Conrad did not trust in the slightest.

     “It’s just something I work on in my head during downtime while security guarding. I update it as the various kid gangs change, that sort of thing. It’s just back burner shit.”

     “So you worked all of this out in your head.” Red Robin continued in the same mild voice. Conrad nodded cautiously. “Then you reworked it to account for having to hit up places to restock. Also in your head. In half an hour.”

     Conrad took a deep breath. He was pretty sure he knew where this was heading. He let it out in a slow exhale and nodded again. Red Robin made a small hmm of interest and turned back to the map.

     Superboy landed with the faintest sound of sneakers against floor and slid around to break Red Robin’s line of sight. “You alright there, birdbrain? You’re doing that squint thing at the corner of your eyes you do whenever you’re upset someone’s done a smarts thing you couldn’t.”

     “He does it in his head.” Red Robin said in a quiet even voice.

     “That’s what he says…” Superboy gave Conrad a dubious look over Red’s shoulder. It wasn’t a glare, at least.

     “It’s the prototypical NP-Hard problem, arguably what computer programing was invented to solve, where even the best quantum-exact algorithm can’t do better than 1.8 to the n’th power. And he’s just… ‘doing it in his head’.”

     Now it was a glare. And he’d been doing so well. Conrad just shrugged helplessly back.

     “Alright.” Red Robin snapped out of whatever disassociation he’d been in between one moment and the next making both Conrad and Superboy jump in surprise. “Kon,” he helpfully pointed at which of the two of them he meant, “grab the portable computing setup and the mega-atlas from Reference. I’ll get what the elves gave us onto the system so we can actually look at it and grab arctic gear for the three of us. Con,” this time the finger was pointing at him, “call whoever you need to and let them know you’ll be out of town. Hopefully just for a few days. Assuming lil’Lobo hasn’t burned everything down by the time we get back.”

    “Where did he even get that flame-thrower?

     “Uh, sure thing, boss.” Conrad answered instinctively, already pulling out his phone. “What exactly should I be telling them?”

*****

     “ So let the guys know we don’t need the volunteer riders after all; I’ll sort out getting everything back to the supply caches when I get back, sorry for that too. And let Elina know she’s on the line for keeping the gremlins in line for a few days. I think that’s everything. Again, I’m real sorry about this, Boss, but at least it's gonna be a way more cost-effective way to get all the Gotham street kids bundled up for the year. And the rest of the world’s street kids, too .” (‘and every other kid!’ someone shouts in the background) “Sure, and also that , I guess. They’ve promised to get me flown back once I’ve worked out a usable flight plan for,” a small sigh, “the entire world. I’m just hoping that by the time we get up there, the others would’ve already rescued Santa. Fingers crossed. Love you, babe. Stay frosty! And sorry again, Boss. ”

     The message ended with a beep. Jason looked up to Bruce from where he stood over the table with hands braced on each corner, his phone resting between them. “So yeah. Care to explain exactly why I woke up to a phone message telling me Tim shanghaied my boyfriend because of Santa Claus?”

     “When was this call made?”

     Jason blinked at the ice cold growl in Bruce’s voice. The man was still in the very exact way he got whenever he was keeping himself from vibrating in place. “Really don't think that's the thing to focus on, Bruce.” The man growled in response. Jason resisted rolling his eyes. “Three hours ago.”

     Bruce – no, it was solidly Batman now, cowl or no – strode away without another word. Jason cursed and hurried to catch up. Whenever he was in this state, Batman’s grim stride tended to outpace anything slower than a quick jog from Jason. He followed the asshole across the main floor of the cave to the matted black cases where he kept his ‘specialized equipment’. Jason didn’t know what he expected to get pulled out, but a flip-phone that looked like it was made out of glittering ice and colorful tinsel was not it.

     The entire world except for him had gone insane, then.

     Batman had flipped it open and was already growling at whoever was at the other end by the time Jason caught up. “No, what I’m asking, Merrytwinkle, is why I had to find out my mentor had been kidnapped fourth-hand?” Jason couldn’t help the utter disbelief that crossed his face. Batman just held up a hand towards him. Though he did stick up one finger, then curled his thumb in the ‘one moment’ signal that’d developed between them back in the early days.

     Jason was not going to dwell on the fact he still remembered it.

     “It doesn’t matter if they’re the only other people in existence with experience running the Sleigh if they never got any training for it!” Another moment of silence during which Batman shook his head and shot Jason a ‘can you fucking believe this asshole?’ glare. Jason nodded back, brain spinning too fast to do anything else. “No, Merrytwinkle, that actually makes it worse.”

     Batman’s nostrils flared at whatever ‘Merrytwinkle’ was saying. His lips thinned and jaw set and Jason nearly groaned out loud. The idiot on the other end had hit one of the Do Not Touch buttons. Everything was about to get Batman’ed up.

     He was still listening, but Batman’s attention turned towards unlocking and flipping open storage cases from the Specialized rack seemingly at random. His free hand flashed a series of quick signs that had Jason already moving before he’d consciously translated them into “Collect contents. One for each of us. Time critical.”

     “No, I’m already on my way. If I arrive and find nothing but ice-flows, I wont hesitate to force my way through the Normalcy Shield. … Yes, that’s exactly what would happen, which is why it’s not going to be up when we arrive.”

     Jason didn’t recognize half the stuff he’d pulled out of the cases, but it was easy to tell where they were supposed to be equipped. Batman had already stalked off to Outfitting. There was nothing left in him to be surprised when the old man returned with arctic gear that matched both their current uniforms. The extra fur padding across his chest was even stained red with a scrawled bloody bat.

     Batman snapped the phone shut and shoved it into one of his belt pouches as he strode past Jason towards the plane. Jason followed without even being directed to. Only the smallest part of him could make the effort to be pissed about it.

     The engines were firing up as Jason hauled himself in, locking and sealing the doors for takeoff by muscle memory alone.

     “Okay, old man.” he said as he dropped down in the copilot seat, only slightly disquieted to discover a winterized version of his helmet already waiting for him on the console. “What, respectfully, the fuck is going on here?”

     Batman glanced over at him, and Jason would swear there was the slightest hint of a smile on the asshole’s lips. “What else? We’re going to save Christmas.” The faint smile vanished under the much more familiar scowl, “And those little bastards can just try to stop us from doing it.”

     Jason groaned as he let the G forces of their takeoff push him back into the seat. He shouldn’t be here. He should be home. Or at headquarters. Planning shit. Prepping his holdings for whatever bullshit was going to get sprung for New Years like it did every year. Not in a supersonic jet with a possibly insane problematic father'esc-figure on the way to face off against non-existent children's stories.

     Conrad was so fucking lucky he was hot.

[therealbeachfox]

Conrad's Tips To Avoid Accidentally Henching #17

"Keep one of those Encyclopedias of Myths and Legends - or a few of them, honestly - on hand and quickly look up any unfamiliar names or terms you come across before applying to a company or specific boss. Learned my lesson after that "Janus Security" debacle. How the hell would I have known that Janus was some ancient Two-Faced God? And even if the company in question wasn't set up by the Rogue it's name points to, then that just means the Rogue's going to target it at some point for infringing on their trademark or whatever."

I bet the GCPD learns so much random trivia as they study a Gotham villain's latest hyperfixation crime scene.

Metropolite, losing at Jeopardy: "How the fuck did you know what that day was? You're not even religious!"

Off Duty GCPD officer, shrugging: "Calendar Man."

Metropolite, having lost again: "Okay, how did you know Lewis Carroll's real name?"

Officer: "Jervis Tetch used it as an alias once."

[crow-crystal]

DP x DC PROMPT

Waylon didn't plan this. He didn't plan to meet a kid in the sewers, and he certainly didn't plan on adopting the little tyke. Then again, the toddler kinda adopted him first. Danny was obviously a meta or something. No normal kid looked like a strange mix of fae and animal. Though the kid was happily calling himself a crocodile anytime someone asked what he was nowadays. It wasn't too long after Waylon adopted (Danny refused to leave and started calling him dad, so he gave up and accepted his fate) that another kid appeared. She was a spitfire, that was for sure, a little red-headed werewolf named Jazz. She was only a bit older than Danny, too.

Tucker is a meta (You decide the powers) and visits the family in the sewers with new random tech he makes. He was reborn in a nice (eh) part of gotham. His family chose to reincarnate with him, so they knew everything. They're just happy to enjoy trying things and jobs they didn't get to last life.

Sam is rich, again, much to her loathing. She's the daughter of a couple owning a company that is mostly focused on making things clean the earth (only reason she isn't seething), and also, she's a meta with control over plants. Her parents are infact ghosts that the group had befriended that happened to be planning on reincarnating anyway. They don't remember everything. Not everyone was allowed that, (ghost king Danny had privileges to ensure he didn't ignore infinite realms issues. Stupid Observants.) So Sam gets along swell with her new parents, and Tucker does as well.

Danny and Jazz end up being the reason Waylon gets an apartment. Its in crime ally, but hey, it's better than the sewers. (They still go down to the sewers. It's still their territory, their haunt. Plus, Uncle Grundy is there!) It makes it easier for Tucker to visit. (Tuck and his parents' visit for Thanksgiving and Christmas, Waylon has adult friends now, yay!).

Yada Yada, after a year or two passes, Danny gets summoned, and the Justice League is too late to stop it. Baby Danny is in ghost king regalia, confused, but before the Justice League can do anything, Jazz has already ripped open a portal (thanks wulf and cujo) and the heroes are facing a VERY angry werewolf pup and a PISSED Waylon Jones who's too busy picking his tired and disoriented ghost kid up and letting Jazz climb up his back while growling at the heroes to do anything else. Batman, in a rare sense of smartness, let's them leave without a word.

Batman may or may not be arguing with Jason about interrogating them, but eventually doesn't as a way to appease Jason and bc he knows the tired dad look waylon has.

[orchidsarchives]

Heavily tattooed Jason who brings you a box of washable markers when you’re bored to colour in his tattoos <3

[therealbeachfox]

r/NoStupidQuestions is there a style guide/dress code for gotham rogue henchmen out there somewhere

u/RaddicalCon

"I mean, not something that's written down or printed out.

(Unless you're from my birth-family, in which case it's all written down, mostly in ancient books that stink of dry-rot and leather where Hench're called things like 'Servitors' and 'Beholden' and there's a lot of rules about which parts of the manor you're allowed to drag bodies through at what particular times of the day.)

Otherwise, it's not like there's a HenchCo HQ that puts together an employee dress code or anything. As with most things Hench-related in Gotham, it's all about unspoken rules and running tradition. Vibes, you know?

So here's some of those unwritten rules written down, because fuck the not-police.

A lot of bosses are going to have their own style and Hench-branding already in place. In this case, you wear what the Boss tells you to. Hopefully, they'll supply you the uniform so you don't have to go down to the army surplus and hunt for body armor in the exact right shade of purple or something. Be careful of any Boss who has you buy/rent your uniform with promises you get your money back when you return it. Gotham is hell on clothes regardless of who you are, and there's no way you're going to keep that uniform clean enough to be given your 'deposit' back. Fortunately, these sorts tend to be flash-in-the-pans. They usually wind up dead after they piss off one of the bigger fish, or they don't have anyone willing to bust their cheep-ass out after the first time their cheep ass gets locked up by the capes'n'cowls set.

Even if the Boss doesn't have specific uniform for their hench, they almost always have a certain theme/style of their own going on, and you'll want to play into that. When you join up, take a quick look around. If everyone's decked out in a certain style (jaunty green caps, black leather jackets, red shirts), it's probably a good guess you want to dress similarly if you don't want to draw the Boss' attention (It's almost never a good thing to have the Boss notice you as an individual as opposed to just One of the Minions).

Alright, so you found yourself hooked up with a crew where there doesn't seem to be any theming going on. Here's where the unspoken rules come in. You get to make your own outfit, but if you want to come across as a professional Hench, or at least one who knows what the fuck they're doing, you're going to wanna stick with the standards. These will depend on exactly what kind of outfit you've landed in.

Organized: 'This is a professional operation, boys, and we expect you all to look professional when on the clock.' You're working with one of the crime families, henching for Two-Face on Mr. Dent's side of the room, or fronting for Sionis because you're an unmitigated asshole or a raving idiot. Regardless, you're going to want to get yourself a nice suit. Nothing too fancy, you're not trying to imply you're as good (or rich) as one of the big players. Something off the rack at one of those Fancyish Clothes wholesalers should do you fine. Add a fedora or something if you need to keep your hair warm, consider growing a pencil mustache if you're able, or go for the classic full-eyelashes & red lips makeup if that's more your thing. You might even be able to get away with a trench-coat. Just keep it all either black, grey, or very subdued colors and you'll be fine. And make sure you know how to fight in them. There's nothing worse than watching some guy who can normally tear it up in a street fight get a knife to the gut because he wasn't used to the way tight slacks constrained his ability to throw a kick or leap out of the way of something.

Heavies: It's easy to tell if you're in one of these outfits. If you're spending all your time moving unlabeled crates from one place to another place, standing guard over nondescript warehouses and abandoned factories, or showing up in back alleys to clarify the boss' intentions to some hapless Gothemite, than you're in a Heavy crew. None of the excitement of the others, but you don't have to dress up for it. You're not in the 'Public Facing' part of the Boss' operations, so you don't have to worry about keeping on-theme or even wearing something without holes in it. Conrats. My main suggestion and the most popular getup for this gig? Cable-knit turtleneck and knit cap. Gotham nights are piss-cold nine months out of the year, and it's 9-10 odds you're going to be doing all your work after sundown. Steel-toed boots are also a must. Basically: good, durable, sout, able to handle roughness and keep you warm. Don't try and be cute and wear ugly christmas sweaters or multicolored patterned hats or anything. The only ones there to appreciate your kicking swag are going to be your coworkers (and who gives a shit what they think) or the Bats. Who're going to use the fact that you're distinctive to pick you out for the first to get face-punched. Not worth it.

Street: The Default level for Henching as a whole. Wear what you want. Something that'll keep you as warm and protected as you feel like keeping yourself that you're comfortable beating up assholes and getting your ass kicked in. Some form of tank-top/open-jacket combo is popular these days, as is the Tight Black T-Shirt and Ballcap getup. We're still not letting our freak-flag fly high, here. If you're Henching, the point is usually not to have the cops and everyone else immediately notice you when you walk down the street. If that is your purpose, the Boss probably already has uniforms prepped alongside the gas bombs and explosives. The only thing I wanna stress is to keep up on your laundry. Too many guys take the chill of this setup as an excuse not to keep up on that, and there is nothing worse than having to work with someone who stinks like month-old foot-mold and shit. You are not earning yourself a breakout out of Blackgate if you're putting your coworkers through that.

Wild: Okay, now you can let your freak-flag fly. This is what you want to go with if you're henching for Two-Face on Harvey's side of the room, or in one of those 'are we foot soldiers for a Rogue or are we a street gang?' situations. Let's be honest, you probably don't want to sign onto one of these unless you're comfortable blasting your brain chemistry to pieces on shit you've never even heard of before. In exchange, you can wear whatever the hell you like, so long as it's eye-catching. Combine your mesh tank-top, pink camo cargo pants, and an army-helmet with a dozen spikes, studs, and dyed feathers. Break out your midriff-baring leather jacket, fishnets, and combat boots. Take a trench-coat and wrap a street's worth of road signs around it. Drill elk antlers into a hockey mask and drop the whole thing into neon green paint. Just realize that if it's fragile, it's going to break in your first fight. And you will be in fights. Either against rival Rogues' crews, or with the Bats. Learn how to take a punch, and for the love of god learn how to stay down after you've taken that punch. The only thing getting up over and over again in a blood-frenzy will get you is an ever increasing stay in the ICU.

Of course, the easiest way to make sure you're wearing the right shit for Henchwork is to NOT DO IT.

I'm fucking serious, y'all. Just don't. If you want a snazzy uniform and an excuse to beat people up, join a private security company. If you want to fawn over an evil megalomaniac while furthering their plans for world domination, both Amazon and LexCorp have plenty of job openings. And if you just want to tear shit up for the hell of it, join a street gang. At least then the people by your side might actually give half-a-shit about you at the end of the day.

You can find more of my 'how not to be an idiot and die in Gotham' advice here if you're really in the mood for that.

And to answer the most frequent question: You can find piles of discontinued hench outfits at any Gotham thrift-shop. They've almost always got their own rack you can dig through to your weird little heart's content.

is there a style guide/dress code for gotham rogue henchmen out there somewhere

[writing-nothing-but-spilled-ink]

Okay but like imagine Jason Todd living in Crime Alley and he has numerous safe houses in gotham some of witch just aren't for him and in fact are apartment complexes that he bought out for cheap possibly due to a little life-threatening scare by Red Hood and any time he's in crime alley and he notices that especially in the winter months that the kids are sick or don't have a dry place to live he just starts setting them up in the apartment complex, and none of the kids ever talk about where exactly that complex is because they love redhood... Also, I imagine that once a week Jason makes like a really big dinner and he just goes outside and serves it to the kids around crime alley, the kids all love him and feel safe with him. I imagine it gets to a point where if the kids are in danger or are worried or scared they just go running over to Red Hood some of the kids have taken to calling him dad, uncle, and other various family references.. And one day on the way back to one of his safe houses he just hears one of the younger street kids yelling dad and he turns to where its coming from and theres just this small kid holding another small kid in his arms and red's just like what happened and the kid just goes shes sick and idk what to do and red just kinda sighs and goes yeah alright follow me kid and he walks over to one of his main safe houses puts his bike away and gets the kids into the car but before continuing to the doc office he calls out through crime alley of if anyone's sick yall better come here i don't wanna do numerous trips and suddenly theres a small group of kids coming out of the shadows and he ushers them all into the car drives them all to gotham general and the receptionist doesn't bat an eye at the gaggle of sick kids or the fact redhood is checking them all in because he and the hospital have an understanding so he gets them all treated and seen and has to sit in with every nurse and doctor, at one point he gets a call from bruce asking why he's not on protrol and jason thinking nothing of it just goes i'm busy im at the hospital have dickface cover my patrol and then he hangs up to speak to the doctors and check on his kids..

bruce shows up at Gotham general just to find red surrounded by numerous children with various flu's colds coughs one of them has pneumonia and was just diagnosed with asthma and he's just taking notes while there's one child in his lap crying cause she's scared and he's just rocking her gently while writing down various treatment plans for each kid and what safe house he's putting them in because he'll be personally taking care of them... and one of the docs spot Bruce and is like excuse me mr. wayne you can't be back here patients only and redhood can be here because he's there acting guardian which makes Bruce's brain short-circuit entirely

Also alfred 100 percent knows about this and has helped red set up the rooms for the kids and everything and some of those big family dinners Jason has for the kids yeah he's using Alfred's recipes

How Jason got guardianship of these kids is because of Harvey dent he got the proper legal advice from Harvey

[prlssprfctn]

Tried to fall asleep and got bamboozled by the image of little Jason Todd having no friends or toys to play, stuck in his house, worried for his mom, who entertains himself by sitting in the corner and doing an awkward shadow theatres and reciting his own scenarios. And then instantly thought of older Jason, still quite lonely, who doesn't necessarily do little plays, but who sometimes still plays with shadows quietly, maybe a tad sadly. Always alone, always having nothing but himself.

[therealbeachfox]

(This all here played a big part in having Conrad be just an inch or three shorter than Jason, almost as thick, several shades darker, and a switch.)

And as a life-long gay, I cannot -begin- to stress how whenever you see a 'big n burly' man with a 'little n lithe' man, more often than not the big and burly one isn't the top in the relationship.

i'm so tired of the yaoi-ification of mlm ships where people feel the need to make one of them (usually the fandom-assigned bottom) into a teeny tiny waifish twink and the other into a huge musclebound super aggro guy (usually the fandom-assigned top) i know this is like a thing many people have been saying for years but i just feel like it has never actually gotten better in fandom spaces. the fatphobia of it, the gender essentialism, the homophobia, it's all so fucking annoying it makes me want to scream

[littlefankingdom]

It's kind of annoying (and weird) how DC keeps trying to rewrite how Jason and Bruce met to paint Bruce in a worst light.

Originally, Batman finds Jason stealing the Batmobile's tires, the kid runs away, and Batman finds him. Discovering the kid is homeless, he gives him to the authority and Jason finishes at Ma Gunn's school. Ma Gunn is actually teaching the kids to be gang members, so Jason tells Batman. Together, they win again Ma Gunn, and Bruce takes Jason in because he sees himself in him.

Well, in Nightwing: Year One, they change it for "Batman kidnapped Jason when he found him stealing his tires and forces him to become Robin", with Jason ATTACHED AND GAGGED in the batcave. (I like this comic except for that because wtf)

In Red Hood and The Outlaws (2011), they changed it for "Jason stole drugs from Leslie and Batman was ready to beat and throw a young teen in jail, but Leslie begged him to give him a chance", which again, wtf. Batman beating up a child. Okay.

In Red Hood and The Outlaws (2016), they changed it for "Bruce put Jason in Ma Gunn's school because he couldn't handle him after taking him in". The only good addition they made is "when Batman caught Jason stealing his tires, he bought him food".

I do not understand why they need to make him awful to this 12 years old so bad. What do they want to make it as if Bruce forced that life on Jason but also didn't want to deal with him. Why they cannot let it as it is, with Bruce having fun dealing with this lil shit that stole his tires and being there for him when he needs him later on, until he finally craves and takes Jason home.

And that's why I am so critical on how Batman and Bruce is written in Nightwing and Red Hood stories, because the writers are incapable to make their main character have conflict with Bruce, without changing his character and their story to make him abusive. They need him to be the bad guy of Jason's, and sometimes Dick's, story because they don't know how to make you side and care for their character without making the other side a monster.