#the replacement thing?? WHEN THAT WASN'T WHAT JASON WAS TRULY MAD ABOUT????? FUCK YOU

[erinwantstowrite]

oh boy i sure do love waking up sick after sleeping through my alarm but you know what it's gonna be a good day- what? what are you saying to me right now... no... NO... JASON CALLED TIM "REPLACEMENT" IN CANON??? THEY SAID JASON TODD SLEEPS AROUND???? KILL ME KILL ME KILL ME KILL ME KILL ME-

[kittythelitter]

It's 1am and I have a flight tomorrow morning but I'm having Jason Todd & Harley Quinn and batfam thoughts.

AU where Jason had been kidnapped by the Joker at least once before the time he dies and it's when Harley and Joker are on again and Harley is left "keeping an eye on the prisoner" and immediately becomes enamored by this smart little asshole with a strong Gotham accent and enough joy and rage in equal proportions to convince her she can do better than joker so she lets jason go as a breakup "gift" for joker.

and from then on Harley tends to be there when the more dangerous rogues are there steering them away from her precious little nephew Robin.

Unfortunately she can't be everywhere all the time and Joker doesn't really care about Harley but he cares that everyone knows he was dumped because a little birdie told his girlfriend she could do better. So when he finally gets a hold of Jason without Harley or any of the rogues she got in the breakup to protect him he uses Harley's nicknames for Jason as he uses his mom to get to him, beats him within an inch of his life and blows him up.

But here's the thing, Joker always underestimated Harley. And then he killed her favorite little bird, her nephew. And she's so fucking mad. And she's so fucking done with Joker's bullshit. So while they're both locked up in Arkham, she makes big eyes and he "graciously takes her back" and she gracefully stabs him in the back and then hits him over the head with a chair until he's well and truly dead and she's dragged to a cell sobbing as makeup and tears streak her face and his blood and brain matter streak her hands and arms. And she's so sad and angry and she doesn't know if she regrets it.

Jason is still angry, he was still replaced, he still believes that murder is the answer to the questions Bruce won't ask, but he was avenged. Someone loved him, and themself, enough to finally put that fucking clown in the fucking ground.

So when he comes back to Gotham as the Red Hood his first order of business is to break Harley out of Arkham and sob into his auntie Harley's hug so grateful and loved and relieved and proud of her cause he always said she should stand up to that fucking clown and look at what she did! She totally did stand up to him! And she's so happy because someone is there finally giving her the reassurance she was looking for that she did the right thing.

And the Red Hood is still angry at Bruce and the world still tints a furious green, but he's got his aunt to pull it red and black or pink and blue or gaudy gold and pink or whatever Harley's colors are at that point. Someone loved him enough to take out his murderer. And someone loved her enough to encourage her to stand up for herself against that fucking bastard ex of hers.

So they cause chaos to piss off the bats together while Red Hood cleans up crime alley with the blood of terrible men, and keeps his auntie Harley just out of the bats reach using his inside knowledge of their operations and Harley is the only one who knows that Jason was Robin is the Red Hood.

Until one day she has a heart to heart with Batman while they're both captured by some Joker sympathiser and she's like don't worry honey Red come along and kill his ass and we'll be out of here lickety split. And Bruce gets all righteous.

Harley puts on her Dr Quinnzel hat and talks to Brucie "you don't mind if I call you Brucie right? No one holding us will be alive long enough to hear or share your secret identity" "how the hell do you know my name" "a little birdie told me, though he wasn't so little at the time, anyway-" and tells him about how for her and Red, because the way they've lived and the traumas they've faced, any solution that is impermanent will eventually let them fall back into the cycle of abuse and so the best way for them to protect each other is to do something permanent to show the other that they can break the cycle and be safe and yeah it's not something the bats approve of but even when they're doing good they're still villains, anti-heros at best, and they can't healthily abide by the same rules as the bats.

Anyway somehow in all this weird psychobabble murder apologism that might actually make sense? Kinda? To Bruce, Harley lets something slip cause she's just a little too indignant on Jason's behalf towards Bruce and Bruce learns that the Red Hood is not as he had suspected Harley and Jokers kid, but rather his own dead son, and that in the laws by which his son is thinking and living Harley, a villain, a former ally of Jason's murderer loved him more than Bruce ever could. And Bruce can't deal with that. Meanwhile a reluctant Nightwing, Robin, and Red Hood team up is happening and Jason keeps trying to shake these annoying boy scouts so he can save Harley but he doesn't wanna actually have to deal with Bruce so he's not gonna actually make them leave.

Anyway. It ends with Harley being part of a more chaotic offshoot of the bats that's kind of Birds of Prey and Outlaws and murder and pranks. And Jason does come back to the family pretty quickly because the joker is dead so like. Harley will always be his favorite for killing him, but the big barrier between Jason and his family (the joker) isn't there.

TL;DR Harley and Jason bond before he dies so when the joker kills him Harley kills the joker and it ends up being what both of them need in order to move on from the trauma he caused them. Also they're family now and Jason is family with the bats again eventually so the bat family has a chaotic villain psychiatrist aunt.