#red hood as a benevolent crime lord my beloved

[tryingahandinholdingapen]

oh, you want to know why I report to the fucking Batman?

got a new fic yall! as may be hinted at by the title, this time it’s a DC fic. canon doesn’t exist except when it does, apologies in advance for that and also the fact that this is basically entirely a long monologue from Jason Todd as Red Hood to the Justice League. you can read it on ao3 if you want, at this link:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/44645986

or you can read it here on tumblr, below the keep reading bit!

hope you enjoy :) I had fun with this one; made myself laugh

here’s the summary first though:

There is a pause. “Looks like there’s no more League business today. Can I tell that long story now? Why I, a very evil villain, am reporting to ‘the fucking Batman’?”

You may be forgiven for thinking this was leading towards certain secret identities being revealed, or a discussion of Red Hood’s past, or even of Red Hood’s relationship with Batman, truth or lies. You would be wrong. It was not.

They’re in the middle of a Justice League meeting up on the Watchtower when suddenly the blank screen on the wall flickers to life.

To show a Gotham villain, sprawled across a chair in a dimly lit room, armed to the teeth and looking casually at the camera. It seems to be a live stream. It’s usually safe to assume that a villain wouldn’t hack into an extremely secure location to show a livestream of themselves talking to heroes without it being some sort of extreme threat or disaster, so people tense, ready to react to some new danger when the villain starts to speak.

“Batman,” says the fucking Red Hood of heads nonchalantly stuffed in a duffel bag, “why do you always miss check-in times? You get on my fucking ass for not giving appropriate reports but I can’t fucking report in unless there’s someone to report to, a’right, I’ve got limited time before someone questions why I’m missing.”

What.

Why would the Red Hood be reporting to Batman?

“Hood. I’m busy.”

Red Hood snorts, a sound weirdly distorted by his voice modifier, and rolls his head to the side that is very clearly the same gesture as a sarcastic eye roll. batman does not react to this at all. Why is he not reacting to one of his villains hacking the Watchtower, claiming he failed to check-in, and then sassing him? Also, wait. They’re responding to each other. This isn’t a livestream but a fucking video call? Can Red Hood see the League right now? Can he hear them?

What the fuck is happening, everyone thinks silently, staring at the exchange before them.

“What the fuck is happening?” Someone says, out loud.

Batman sighs, like he’s had a very long day and the people around him are unexpectedly and unreasonably making it much longer. He does not answer.

“Well,” drawls the Red Hood, which answers whether the villain can hear what’s happening in the most secure hero base they have, what the fuck, “I am trying to give my weekly report, but some people’s inability to mind their own business, and other people’s fucking inability to mind basic responsibilities” - a pointed shift of body language to face Batman’s direction, who is now stubbornly ignoring the screen - “is making that very. Difficult.”

They have so many questions.

“I have so many questions,” says someone, possibly the same League member as before, “starting with: what? who? why? how? what are you doing, who are you reporting on and to, why on earth is a villain reporting to the fucking Batman?”

They can’t see Red Hood’s expression of course, with the helmet, but the way he suddenly straightens up from his sprawl, before leaning forward towards the camera, hands bent against his legs and a tad worryingly close to his holsters, screams ‘malicious delight’ and maybe ‘surprised glee’.

“Well,” he starts again, in much less of a drawl but more of a sharp, cleanly cut tone, that isn’t distorted nearly as weirdly by the modifier but sounds much less ‘I am threatening you’ and more ‘the threat has already come to pass, and I am quickly but cheerfully informing you of your incoming demise’. He is cut off abruptly.

“It’s a long story,” says Batman. “We do not have time to delve into that now. We need to plan the upcoming raid, and then I need to take Hood’s report and deal with it appropriately.”

A notification flickers to life on another screen, near the opposite side of the room. Everyone glances at it. Red Hood leans further to the camera. Can he read the screen from wherever he is? The notification informs them that the enemy they had been about to plan a raid against has already been defeated by the local hero of that city.

They turn back to the screen showing Red Hood.

Red Hood turns his attention back to them.

There is a pause.

“Looks like there’s no more League business today. Can I tell that long story now? Why I, a very evil villain, am reporting to ‘the fucking Batman’?”

-   -   -   -   -

You may be forgiven for thinking this was leading towards certain secret identities being revealed, or a discussion of Red Hood’s past, or even of Red Hood’s relationship with Batman, truth or lies.

You would be wrong.

It was not.

-   -   -   -   -

Red Hood has grabbed a glass of some sort of drink, from somewhere. Nobody quite sure where, they didn’t see him pick it up from offscreen and there is nowhere shown onscreen it plausibly could have come from. They’re also not sure why he’s grabbed the glass. It’s not like he can drink with the helmet on, and he doesn’t seem at all inclined to take it off. Mostly, he’s using the glass to gesture as he begins to speak.

“As I’m sure we all know, Gotham is really fucking weird.” 

Someone snorts and begins to say something.

Red Hood raises the hand with the glass, and points a finger of that same hand at the screen.

“Shut up. Do not interrupt me. I managed to get past enough of the security at your pretty little tower to talk to you like this, do you really think I didn’t get into anything more....dangerous to you inhabitants, at the same time? Do you want to risk it? I am going to speak, and you are going to listen, and it is going to take a while to get back around to the original point in this explanation but I will get there and then you will have your fucking answer. We good?”

Silence.

“Good. Okay. Where was I...”

“Right. So Gotham is fucking weird, I’m sure you’ve all noticed some aspects of that, it’s impossible not to notice something when there’s so goddamned many things that are weird about it or off or just wrong. Here’s one I bet you’ve never noticed or thought about before: the population count. It stays pretty steady, average for most cities. It should not be so steady.”

“Gotham is a fucking death trap, okay, between Ivy’s pollen, Scarecrow’s fear gas, and Joker’s fucking toxin, it’s close enough to constant fucking chemical warfare that no Gotham citizen ever goes anywhere without a gas mask. In addition to the rogue’s gas du jour, there’s the rogues themselves; there’s a metric shit ton of organised crime, like, an unreasonable amount, plus a truly implausible amount of independent muggers, rapists, thieves, you name it. You go almost anywhere and you can hear gunshots, you can hear sirens, you can hear screaming. So fucking many of the police force are corrupt. All the rogues have far too many goons backing them up. On top of everything else, a lot of people are both very paranoid and also armed, and whilst that’s beyond understandable due to Gotham’s,” Red Hood gestures broadly with one hand - he has a gun in that hand, why does he have a gun in that hand, should they be more alarmed than they already are - “mm, everything, it does mean that even in an interaction between two ordinary, non-criminal civilians on a day there’s no gas making people loopy or rogue threatening people, there’s still a high fucking threat of friendly fire if the one makes the other too jumpy.”

“Gotham is a death trap,” he repeats, with intense emphasis, “and people die every day. It’s the most crime ridden place you’ve ever heard of, and people die every goddamn minute. So. Many. People. Die. Exponentially more than literally anywhere else on the planet, basically.”

“So with that much constant, unending death you’d expect one of two things, right? Either option A,” he weighed up one hand demonstrably, “Gotham’s population must be decreasing like crazy, or option B,” and he let the first hand drop, instead weighing up his other hand, “there must be a fucking unbelievable amount of immigration and or a very high birth rate in order to increase the population back up enough that overall, it mostly holds steady. So, take your guesses! Which one is Gotham?”

There was a pause, as though he actually expected the Justice League to vote or at least internally make a guess on this. Then he clapped his hands together - some people startled at the sudden, loud sound - and continued.

“If you guessed option C,” he jerked his chin up in a ‘come at me’ gesture, raising two middle fingers, “which is, ‘neither, asshole’ then congratulations! You would be correct. Immigration to Gotham is virtually nonexistent. Understandably, because as aforementioned, fucking death trap, and that’s without mentioning the things that will fuck you up without killing you. The majority - not an overwhelming majority but a majority - of adults in Gotham have never had children. Of those who have had children...almost every child is an only child, or only has one sibling. Combine that with the unbelievably high mortality rate, yet eh inexplicably steady population count, and you’ve got a picture that just makes no fucking sense. It shouldn’t be possible. It isn’t, physically, actually possible. But it happens! It is happening, right now, where I’m sitting in this super sketchy basement to talk to yall in Gotham. There are very few possible explanations to this.”

“Several possible explanations that both unfortunately have the same reason they can’t be true: maybe people are just lying, or maybe some of the many, many orphans don’t realise they have a secret half-sister, or the many street rats don’t realise their asshole parents gave them brothers after kicking them out. maybe, considering the rather numerous children on the streets and the inexplicable population increases coming from somewhere to counter all that death, maybe these children just fucking spawn on the streets or something, like mobs in a video game. Nope! Pick a random person in Gotham. Any random person, adult or child, potential parent or not. Trace their history and family. Carefully. Professionally. Dig through all the planted history, the fake IDs, the falsified records. Dig deep. Look. I guaran-fucking-tee you that child has a maximum of two biological siblings. Their parents probably also have a maximum of two biological siblings, or more likely, no siblings. I also will tell you now, I’d bet on my fucking grave, that a vast majority of what little family they can lay claim to, is dead, in prison, estranged, currently a criminal, a missing person or some mix of all of the above. The only reason Gotham’s nonexistent immigration, terrifying mortality rate, and steady population would make sense is if almost every single person had a huge family. And yet they just don’t. Pick any random person, and they have a small family, most of whom they have no contact with for some reason or another. It makes no sense for the statistics or even just realistically for this to be always the case, but every goddamned person in Gotham is always so isolated. This literally should not physically be possible.”

“Other things that whilst less physically, realistically, scientifically impossible just....should not be the case: why is there so much crime, and poverty, and abandoned buildings? Bruce Wayne is not corrupt! I’ve fucking checked, thoroughly, trust me I didn’t believe it either. but no, we are very lucky, we have a literal billionaire pouring out almost all his fucking money into various charities, into the community, into funding for various structures we need. He, and everyone working for him, are doing good work, that in literally any goddamn city except this one, would basically eradicate most of our issues, including the very broad issues of poverty, starvation, and most crime. And yet, for some reason....Couple of specific examples, off the top of my head. Cops in Gotham are pretty fucking well-paid, and there are regular inspections by higher-ups who’ve been confirmed to be clean, so why on earth are there still so many cops who work for gangs? Why are there so many kids on the streets? Like again, back to the population issue, literally where do all these children come from, but also, Bruce Wayne has set up multiple things for children to go to, which are - unlike a lot of other places in Gotham - not just gonna get you handed over to gangs. And yet, so many kids on the street. I’ve talked to them, they know Wayne Foundation places are safe, most of the kids I’ve talked to have actually intended on going there, and yet, so many kids still on the streets everyday.”

“And goons! How and why do rogues and gangs get so many goons? Where do these people come from and why? I keep a close eye on crime in Gotham, it’s my literal job, I’m very good at it - never see any rogues pressuring people to work for them. gangs, yes, rogues, no. But what rational person decides - well, decided, he’s dead now, rest in pieces fucker - to work for the Joker, who frequently kills his henchmen for absolutely no sane reason? Who chooses to work for Two-Face, when your life suddenly literally depends on the 50/50 chances of a coin toss? How do people even start working for rogues, how do they find each other? It makes no sense.”

-    -   -   -   -

“Okay,” Red Hood said suddenly, and several people startled to attention, then winced, “if you tuned me out, time to tune back in because I’m about to get to the actual answer to your question.”

“Turns out the reason for most of the stuff in Gotham that makes no sense is simply ‘it’s cursed to hell and back’.  The previously mentioned constant chemical warfare, the influence of Lazarus Pits as well as whatever the hell Slaughter Swamp is, evil tomb, evil hyper sigil, and various other bullshit all combines into one incredibly fucked up, unified curse over the whole of Gotham. That’s why all the philanthropy shit doesn’t work nearly as well as it should do, why all the really really weird villains we have, and why the population rates make no fucking sense.”

“Magical experts were actually called in to take a look at this shit. Like, a lot of them. We wanted to be very sure.”

“Learnt a few things. One - literally nobody can get rid of this curse. Gotham is apparently just fucking like this, and always will be. Two - aforementioned stuff about what it is causing. Three - it also apparently has some very odd effects on rumours, or what rumours are willing to believe, or something similar. Which is why pretty much everyone in Gotham knows I’m strongly against anything that harms children, any form of rape, any trafficking, and a few other things, yet this large fucking trafficking ring were all so very willing to believe me when I claimed to be one of them. It’s kind of trippy if you’re not used to it. Useful for undercover work, don’t get me wrong, but makes no rational fucking sense, it’s hilarious. Four - it centres on Crime Alley.”

Red Hood’s voice lowered a little, and he got very fucking intense as the blank face of the helmet stared them down before he kept speaking.

“Crime Alley gets the brunt of it. No matter what anyone does, it’s always a dump, it’s always full of crime and the worst kind of criminals, it’s never fucking safe, warm or light, and there’s always so so so many street rats with too little food and sex workers struggling to avoid shitty johns. And for some reason, the real fun point of this being the centre of Gotham’s curse? Vigilantes make less than no difference. Cops make less than no difference. You can’t counter the crime in Crime Alley of all places, the only option to make a difference is..”

He leaned back in his chair, gestured with one hand.

“...Take it over. You can’t stop it, can’t counter it, but if you fucking run it, you can control it at least somewhat.”

He started counting off, not with fingers but tapping loudly against his opposite palm.

“Don’t hurt kids. Don’t sell kids, don’t sell drugs to kids, don’t use kids as runners. No trafficking. No protection rackets on my own turf, don’t be fucking stupid. I see any instance of rape or abuse, I will intervene. I regularly check in with the sex workers, they will tell me if anyone treats them like shit, I will intervene. They ask for help, I give it. They don’t owe me shit. I ensure the kids have at least some access to food, and claim a few warehouses or random abandoned buildings for their use. They are fucking protected. They don’t owe me shit either, though both groups often volunteer information, which is always helpful. No form of slavery or prisoners. You wanna deal drugs on my turf? Fine, don’t cut it with anything dangerous, especially don’t cut it with anything from the rogues, don’t give it to anyone who doesn’t actually want it, and I get a cut. You wanna fight? Sure, don’t get anyone else caught in the crossfire, and if you’re operating some fighting ring it better all be people that are there willingly - as much as that can be the case - not prisoners being forced to fight or animal fights. Gambling? Fine, I get a cut. Smuggling? I get a cut. Also, if you touch Kryptonite, I take it and destroy your entire operation, ditto if you handle anything a tad too poisonous like, say, alien weaponry or shit designed to level at superhumans. Don’t bring in outsiders, don’t bring in or use poisoning. Money laundering? You’ll never guess what.”

“Don’t try and invade or take over my turf, or I’ll fuck you up and take some of yours as compensation. You wanna operate in my turf, you get permission and I get a cut of profits.”

“Theft gets a free pass, it’s pretty much always ‘I am trying to stay alive, help’ but if you hold up a store or get too violent I’ll intervene.”

“When I started running the fucking show, crime rates dropped like hell, even including my own various cases of breaking and entering, murder, et cetera et cetera.” Red Hood waved a hand dismissively. “Yeah, I’m a crime lord, but considering the fucking curse we can’t get rid of, this is the best option with the lowest possible casualty rate, crime rate, death rate. The vigilantes don’t like a lot of the crime I do allow, and really don’t like that I you know, use lethal force when fucking necessary, but given the givens I’m about as much of a genuine villain as I am an unconventional vigilante in deep cover.”

“We have an agreement. I don’t tend to leave Gotham, definitely don’t without a heads up to the bats. The Bats don’t enter my turf without permission. Unless necessary for a cover, we don’t harm each other. I get to cover all organised crime cases by default, and am obligated to hand a lot of other things, including most rogue encounters even if on my own turf, to the Bats. I get plausible deniability in my operations and won’t be stopped from using what means I deem necessary to take, say, a trafficking ring, down, but have to report in whenever I’m undercover for a case like that just to confirm that I’m alive, I haven’t been compromised, nor have I suddenly turned dark-side rather than mere extremely questionable vigilante.”

“That’s why I report to Batman.”

“Now can I start my actual fucking report? I’ve got to be back upstairs in half an hour to pretend I don’t think treating people like merchandise is horrific and I need time to mentally brace myself for the shitty comments people are gonna be making again.”