#it irks me when people blame bruce for jason's death

[jonmyblaze]

Uncle dent :au

And (The quest for mother )

Location: Arkham asylum

Cell block number '22--222-22

Harvey dent sat in his cell. Flipping his coin idlely waiting as the clock to tick by.

(Face: liberty)

(chance Scratched)

( face )

Scratched

Face

Liberty and Justice (face)

Or greed and chance (scratched )

It was pointless to him, he couldn't find the will to escap

"Harvey dent you have a visitor." A small speaker in his room notified him in a monotone slight east gothamite voice.

It wasn't like a harvey had anything better to do, so he went to the front of his cell.

Two police guards proceeded to take him to the visitor center. As were there job.

Harvey as he was perp walked he Wondered .

who the hell would be visiting him at this hour.

"At least Wayne had his visits on normal hours.' Harvey dent thought to himself

"But we already played chess that week! ' Big Bad Harve countered.

'So it has to be someone else. But whom?'

Harvey approached the visitation window

Harvey dent looked at the kid on the other side of the visitors window.

He looked vaguely familiar. he's seen that face before , a boy he watched grown up under his gang

"Well wat doya want kid" Harvey's gothamite accent sung through his voice.

He was Gotham's deputy the people's elected district attorney. He had to sound like them

"Information, as much as you got"the kid responds

Harvey balked

"Aren't you a little young to be propositioning super villains for information?" He questioned rhetorically,

"I'm as old as the lawyers allow for visitation alone"

"You barely looked like you can jack a car! let alone convince a guard that we are family.

"Hey I got off the streets with my jacking skills" he defended himself,

Well bully for you kid! your parents must have been proud at your jacking skills."

Harvey chuckled with a bit of childish humor he asked" and Sense you brought it up which hand do you jack best, with lefty or.-"

"Can it dent" the boy cut off the mobster before he could finish his crass punchline. "all I want is information, nothing more "

I think a kid as old as you should know the prison rules by now. snitches and stitches and all"

The boy looked into the partition. huffed a laugh

"No not anything of the mob, this is I something that's rather more mundane that I need to ask"

Harvey cocked his unscarred eyebrow.

"what information would a young man like you come all the way out to Arkham asylum in order to ask me known mob boss Two-Face"

The kid placed a small book in the small open section of the divide..

It was a photo album. The Cover looked slightly burned and dirty but for the most part it was genuine. Two-face idly flip through the pages annoyed that this is what this strange visitor wanted

mostly baby pictures and likely pictures of young man in front of him.

"You were asking about a photo album? "Two-faced asked

"Flip five in from the front. ,"

It was there that he saw the photo.

.

Recognizing the photo

Huh

It held three people in the image. One former goon named Willis todd, his young son and Harvey dent himself.

Harvey remembered that day, Catherine (was that her name) had taken the photo. A smiling young woman. Willis's fiance if he remembered correctly.

Such a shame that Willis died in a gang encounter between his and cobblepots goons.

"You recognize that man?"

"Course I do it's it's good Old Willie Todd. Best gun runner and international arm dealer I had."

" Yeah and my old man too" the boy said blunyly

"No way" Harvey denied at first then he whispered

"Son of a bitch" he said in amazement!

There he was Jason Peter Todd, son of Willis and Catherine, the current adopted son of Bruce Wayne.

(this is a slight au of death in the family, Harvey and Jason has a better relationship then Canon.)

Harvey haven't seen the boy in person in ages

" Yes shit that baby there is me. "

" Well You grew up kid, congratulations"Two-Face said matter of factly, leaning forwards he asked jovially like a cranky cool Uncle. "got a car yet?"

" Nah, I'm only 15, do know how to hotwire one though."

"AH They keep getting younger" Harvey smiled ironically .

" Now what did you come all the way here. Besides reminiscing about old Times"

I'm trying to to find my mother"

" Pretty sure Catherine died of a drug overdose from the papers I read." Two-Face didn't often read obituaries but that was one of the more sad ones he read.

" It was cancer, she died of the pain meds she was given to help relieve the pain from the cancer."

"Sorry kid but if that's the case your ma's Dead and gone, what about trini and Joe? What happened to them "

Harvey remembered that lengthy custody battle with Willis, being unable to afford to take care of the boy and thus having to put him up for foster care temporarily. He was lucky that that boys measly acrobatic Aunt and Uncle to take him in as a way to keep him from experiencing the worst of the foster system .

This in turn forced Willis to take the more dangerous jobs that Two-Face had. And earned him much respect. Dent never got to hear the end to that story.

"unfortunately, they fell to their death when I was nine"

“Huh... Went out like the graysons. " Harvey commented nonchalantly.

Harvey, before the acid, had seen the flying Grayson's last performance.

He remembered the gasps of the crowd, the look of horror as they fell, the sickening sound of their landing. The cries of traumatized civilians

He distinctly recalled Bruce's expression of sympathy looking at the newly made orphan of the Grayson family.

And he recalled The pride on Bruce's face when he revealed that he adopted the kid to save him from the Foster system.

He may not have gotten the boys official custody in merely a wardship at the time but there was still so much pride in his face so much help in a brighter future.

" is that why Wayne took you in?" Harvey asked. He he may have missed a few things during one of his breakout and was way behind the papers..

Jason todd looked confused

“No, why would you say that “

"You lost your parents because of a acrobatic accident, you know what they say '

once is incidental

"twice is a pattern"

"Bleh I haven't met Bruce until after I was at 10 and already an orphan twice over."

"Really ?.So how did you catch Wayne's eye? "

"Wait You mean he hasn't told you? I thought you two were friends.

Nope, all he said that he found you and took sympathy in yout plight. Are you implying there's more to that story?

Definitely"

" So tell it kid”

And tell it Jason did. And it was the funniest shit Harvey ever heard.

��See, remember how I said I got off the streets thanks to my car jacking skills.

" No way, what did you do?" Dent asked, like a schoolgirl wanting more gossip. Which was as par for the course in police work, they were just as bad when it came to gossip.

‘I jacked the tires of one of his muscle cars when he was visiting Crime Alley.. “

“You jacked his muscle car?” he asked in almost amazement. Bruce love those things it was one of the few things that showed that he was a fucking multi-billionaire with hobbies.

“Yep took the tires and everything, nearly got away with it too."

Harvey burst out laughing, nearly worse than the clown. It was a low baritone laugh but it seemed to echo throughout the room

Harvey didn't care it was fucking hysterical.

SOME PUNK ASS KID STOLE the tires of his best friend's multi-million dollar muscle car and the man decided to adopt the kid

It was funny, objectively funny

It took Harvey a few moments to calm down. Other inmates looked at him with sympathy.thinking he might have got Joker gassed.

“Sorry sorry that's the funniest thing I've heard all week”

“That's what Bruce said too. I think that's kind of why he adopted me.”

“He took you in immediately?”

"He tried the system first the place he sent me was a child to the criminal pipeline system that Batman broke up. Bruce decided if the system ain't going to work for him then he'll do it himself. And that's how I got to stay at Wayne Manor."

“Well aren't you the quintessential orphan Anne, “

“Yep, I even got the Daddy Warbucks too.”

“Haha haha real funny now I only have one thing to ask, why was my boy Wayne in crime Alley in the first place..”

“If I remember correctly it was the 26th of june at 10:27 pm. One the alley right Behind an old theater in crime Alley. I was a petty kid who didn't know any better. Said it was his first time having that happen. “

Harvey sobered up

No wonder why Bruce saw so much in the boy, Wayne found the kid on the anniversary of his parents' death.

It was funny, on one of the most crime ridden parts of this hell hole of a city, the famous multi-millionaire who rarely got into trouble with crime, on on the anniversary of one of his most tragic days .saw some young orphan kid jacking his tires as something deeply sympathetic. And funny

whereas most people his status would have loved to see the kid behind bars for mildly inconveniencing them.

Unlike most, Bruce chose empathy and Mercy instead of petty vengeance.. (he was much better than Harvey ever was.)

Harvey had decided long ago his friend was a saint but this took the cake.

On the anniversary of Wayne's death of all days. It was tragic yet funny.

—----

Jason Todd was lying

Only partially.

Bruce as Batman had found him on a normal day. It was weeks before the anniversary of the elder Wayne's death. But he wasn't lying about anything else. He jacked the tires off the batmobile Batman found funny and took a liking to Jason enough to later try and adopt him. This was a story they told the press.

It can coincided with the anniversary of the Wayne's death, and told the story of a young kid being adopted into gothamite royalty purely out of the sympathy of his big childish heart

As Bruce's media manager had told Jason. It's good to sell a story but it's even better if the populace wants to believe that story. little details being fudged are fine so long as the greater narrative is intact.

Ultimately it was harmless of a lie nobody noticed but still it was a lie nonetheless to be noted

—------

" So both sets of your parents are dead but you said you were looking for your mother? What's wrong with living with bruce.

I think I should clarify .

I meant.. my biological mother. The one who gave birth to me,'. not, the ones who raised me.

As much as I like Bruce, I just can't help but wish to have some closure. I want to know where I came from. it feels wrong without at least knowing a little bit about her.

This is all I ask. It's why I came here.

Do you know anywhere where l can go to get that info." Two-face contemplated the request for a few seconds before relenting

" You know what? sure. I'll help." There was a brigh light in the boys eyes.. there was hope

Harvey had to temper that." keep in mind, kid that these details could be outdated, they are a few years old after all."

" Please. I'll take anything at this point" Jason looked happy. He cherished Catherine,he loved his foster parents/uncle and Aunt Joe and Trina Todd(before they ultimately demise) he genuinely enjoyed Bruce as his father figure and he respected his bio dad Willis Todd. He just wanted closure, that was all.

Harvey would give him the details to one of the more secure bases. Jason would visit once again and with Harvey's help succeeded in narrowing down the three ladies until he came across the final one, Sheila Haywood. currently in Ethiopia.

--------Weeks later-----

Jason Todd would go alone to Ethiopia unknowing the tragedy that would occur

--------in death in the family telethon-----

Call now Gotham will the bird Boy live or will he fry!

HAHA-HAHA-HAHA-HAHA!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Harvey watched the television screen in the horror everything clicked into place. Jason Todd was the second Robin. A boy that he accidentally sent to his death. The clown viciously beat Jason Todd on one of his sick deprived telethons.

Where would Joker be hiding he couldn't be in Gotham Sheila wasn't any where near Gotham

."Unless the clown and jay never were in Gotham in the first place." Big bad harv suggested.

Joker's Gambit ultimately implied he was in Gotham but last he heard of Jason he was heading for Ethiopia to find Sheila.

He even saw that bitch Sheila taking a cigarette break! while Jason was being beaten and broken

Harvey try to call and hope that the vote would end up with a boy living. He Tried to call Bruce but the line ended up dead.

Batman was too busy hunting for Jason. He doesn't know the truth Jason isn't even in Gotham he's in Ethiopia

Harvey wanted to shoot the damn TV but he couldn't, his eyes were addicted to the screen hoping that Jason would live.

(Bruce Wayne had just confirmed that the bird that was being a beaten was a runaway Jason Todd, who dressed up in the robin outfit

at that moment it was very easy for Harvey to put together Bruce Wayne was Batman but to the crowd and inmates in Arkham

Bruce was just Batmans sugar daddy. And the punk kid from the streets was a sympathetic story to some in Arkham. Especially to Harvey himself.)

Harvey prays that Bruce would end clown this time.. for if not he would do it himself.

Harvey would watch in horror as the clock struck zero.

The vote said he should have lived. But the vote counter just kept going, even after the clock struck Zero.

----------

Joker had given Batman one final chance to save his bird tying up both Sheila and leaving Jason broken

He set the counter to explode

And yet somehow the boy struggled but escaped. Only for a locked door to keep them in the way.

------live from Ethiopia--------

Harvey watched as the screen faded to Black vowing he would kill that clown once it breaks for free

[unavenged-robin]

“I can’t breathe” + Damian Wayne

I know nobody believes me anymore, but this was supposed to be a very brief ficlet. Anyway. I thrown in Jason as a bonus because I miss writing about the two of them bonding in life or death situations. Enjoy.

Contrary to popular belief (that he liked to reinforce himself every chance he got), Jason didn’t hate having Damian tagging along with him for patrol. He actually found it kinda funny, mostly because the kid was so serious and liked to fight hard and without too much chattering just like his father, and it amused him to no end to watch the confusion and the fear on the faces of the random thugs they happened to be fighting when they got the living shit beaten out of them by a kid that barely came up to their chests. It was endearing.

“I found the burned warehouse”, Robin’s voice announced through the comm, and Jason checked his coordinates.

“Coming”, he answered, after a moment. “ETA three minutes.”

There were a few seconds of white noise on the other line, and then Damian spoke again: “There are people trapped in the basement. And considering the damage made by the fire, the structure is likely to collapse on itself sooner rather than later.”

“Robin”, Jason warned, shooting his grapple at the nearest building. “I said I’m coming.”

This.

This was the only thing he really didn’t like about patrolling with the youngest of their clan (other than Damian being a brat, of course). The sense of responsibility that came with it. Even with Damian being the furthest thing from a defenseless kid, there was still the undeniable evidence that he was, in fact, a kid. That made Jason not only the adult in charge, but also the one that was going to be blamed if anything went wrong - which, considering Damian, was a very likely probability.

“There’s only one way to access the basement, and it’s too small for you anyway”, Damian duly argued, and Jason swore under his breath and started running even if he knew it was a lost cause already.

“I’m almost there, and if I don’t find you above ground I’m going to sell you to the circus”, he growled anyway, hoping that the jab would irritate the kid enough to make him stay put for the handful of seconds he needed to reach him.

“…Damian?”

“I hear children crying”, and Jason could hear the frown in the kid’s voice. “According to your intel, it should’ve been one of the Penguin’s abandoned storehouse, so why there are crying children in the basement?”

The way Damian stressed out the words to imply Jason’s incompetence irked him enough to make him snap. “I don’t fucking know, Robin. Just wait for me.”

White noise again.

It took him two minutes and fifteen seconds to get to the place and find out that Damian - of course - hadn’t even considered the idea of waiting for him. Jason swore again, and punched the comm as soon as he landed on the ground.

“Where the hell are you?”, he asked. “And how do I get there to kick your ass?”

“There is a vent opening on the back of the building, near the railing”, Damian answered. “Shush.”

“Shush?”, Jason repeated, momentarily more surprised than pissed off at the idea of the kid shushing him.

“We’re going to get you out of there, okay?”, Damian’s voice continued in a quiet, almost soft voice, and Jason realized he wasn’t talking to him at all. He found the opening quickly enough: a small manhole attached to some kind of rusty conduct. Probably an old vent, like Damian said. Jason could barely slip both his arms in there, so he waited and continued to listen to Damian speaking to the kids. It was new to him, and kinda weird, to hear Damian trying to comfort someone. How he tried to sound reassuring with big words and enough self-confidence to fill a man twice his size. It made Jason smile.

“Hood? Can you see me?”

Jason looked down the vent and yes, he could see Damian eight feet below the ground, looking up at him with a four, maybe five years old little girl clinging to his neck.

“That’s cute”, Jason teased. “We should tell Batdad that you need a little sister. I don’t think it’d take too much work to persuade him and Catmom to make you one.”

“Shut up”, Damian growled and yes, this time he was talking to Jason. “And take her.”

Jason laughed and reached down for the kid while Damian lifted her as much as he could. It took some adjustment, but in the end he was able to hoist the little girl up into his lap.

“Hey”, he smiled at her. “Gimme a moment and we’ll go get you some ice cream, yeah?”

She was covered in dirt and looked like hell, but she still smiled back at him easily and with too much trust.

“Hood, there are five other kids down here and the walls are about to crumble down”, Robin hissed. “Maybe you could get a move?”

“No ice cream for you”, Jason answered. “And you get a move, Robin. Since you got yourself in there in the first place”, he reminded him.

Damian grumbled something intentionally unintelligible and went to collect another kid. They worked fast and managed to get four other children out (six little girl, Jason beared in mind, feeling his blood boil. Six little girl, no older than five, held into a basement of an abandoned warehouse. Once they were done here he would take Damian home, and then he was going to have a chat with Cobblepot. A very long, hard, violent chat) but the last one took one look up the vent, saw Jason’s Red Hood helmet peering down, and started to cry so suddenly and so hysterically to actually make Damian, who was holding her, jump in surprise.

“What the hell?”, Damian bellowed in response, a little too loud and a little too angry for the already scared little girl to bear, and the following scramble between the two kids would’ve been amusing to Jason, if not for the fact that the crying and the swearing were both covered up by a louder, deeper grumble coming from the basement itself.

Before they could do anything there was a snap, then an eruption of dust that forced Jason to withdraw for a moment.

“Shit”, he and Damian said at the same time.

“Get up here, Robin. Now”, Jason urged, looking down the vent again, but the kids had already disappeared from his sight, swallowed by a cloud of dust. He could only hear coughing and more crying.

“Not enough space for both of us”, Damian yelled up at him, and then, softly, at the girl: “You need to calm down. There’s no need to be scared. He’s going to help you.”

But the girl was even more terrified now. She was blinded and suffocated and alone with two strangers. Her sobbing was heart wrenching and Jason could tell that Damian was starting to panic too.

“Shit”, Jason repeated, then he took off his helmet and tried to conjure up his best child-friendly smile, despite the urge to yell and kick something. If something were to happen to Damian, Dick and Bruce would kill him together, and then Alfred would hide his corpse by feeding it off to Titus and Batcow and whatever other pet the kid had hoarded in the meanwhile. Jason was sure of that.

“Hey, hey, hey”, he called out, trying to catch the girl’s attention once the dust cleared up a bit. He could still see only a little more than shadows, and he doubted the kids could see him any better than he could see them, but he tried anyway: “Look, I took the helmet off. See? Not a bad face, uh?”

In the meanwhile Damian was trying to rock the little girl - not an easy task, considering that he wasn’t that much bigger than her - talking again with his softer voice, sputtering out what sounded like every reassuring word he could think of.

There was another loud series of snaps and crackling of metal and old wood. The girls behind him were now whimpering because of the cold, and Jason started considering all the ways he could enlarge the hole enough to lower himself inside without making the situation worse, but it was impossible.

“You can trust him, I promise”, Damian was saying between coughs, voice tired and hushed and desperately urgent. “He’s my- he’s my big brother. He’s good. He’s a good person. He will buy you an ice cream.”

Jason tried to smile and held out his hand again. It took a few others soothing promises from both him and Damian before the little girl actually reached out to take it, and Jason sighed in relief when his fingers finally closed around the child’s tiny wrist. He smiled at her again while settling her down safely on the ground beside him, then he held his hand out into the vent one final time, ready to take Damian out of there and put an end to the whole night.

Except that Damian wasn’t looking up at him anymore. His head was lowered down between his shoulders, he was shaking with coughs and his hands were on the wall in front of him like he needed the support to not fall down.

“Robin?”, Jason called out in the same voice he used with the little girls. “Kid, come on. I need to take you out of there, you’ll rest in a moment, I promise.”

Damian shook his head, still not looking up at him. Jason felt the worry turning into a sharp pang of panic.

“Dam- Robin, come on. Just one little jump and we’re done, okay? I was lying on the ice cream, I’ll buy one for you too.”

Damian was shaking harder now.

“Can’t breath”, finally came the answer, and it was so choked Jason only heard it through the comm.

“Do you have your rebreather?”, he asked, but it was a stupid question, and he knew it. If the kid had a rebreather on him he would’ve used without any prompt from Jason.

“Okay. Okay. That’s fine. Look, I have mine right here, okay? You only have to take my hand, alright?”

Another fit of coughs.

“I can’t-”

“Robin”, Jason barked in his best imitation of the Batman’s voice, and he startled the kid enough to make him look up again. He offered him his hand for the second time, stretching his arm as far as he could into the vent, and repeated, gentler this time: “One little jump, kid. C’mon.”

He couldn’t see the kid’s face behind the thin cloud of dust that still hung between them, but he saw his body language changing and a moment later Damian straightened himself up in determination. In the space of time between two heartbeats, Damian took a choked breath, clenched his fists, then jumped. When their fingers touched, Jason was struck by the sicken certainty that he wasn’t going to be able to hold on, that Damian’s jump had been too short and he would’ve slipped away and fallen. But it was only a moment. Their hands closed into a monkey grip and the gauntlets offered enough friction to not let either of their holds slip away.

One instant later Jason had hauled Damian up into his arms, with just a little more force than necessary. But the kid collapsed against Jason’s chest, swallowing down big gulps of fresh air, and didn’t complain one bit.

“Easy now. Easy”, Jason instructed softly, one hand rubbing the kid’s back, the other cupping the back of his head. “In and out. In and out. Take little breaths or you’ll pass out.”

This time, Damian obeyed him. He slowed down his frantic attempts of taking in as much air as he could, and tried to imitate Jason’s breathing. He also shifted into the hold to cling to Jason’s neck and hide his face against his brother’s shoulder. Jason let him settle down, then rested his cheek on top of the boy’s head.

“Jeez Louise, kid”, he sighed. “Let’s not do that again, yeah?”

Damian didn’t answer, but his fingers tightened around the fabric of his jacket in what Jason decided to read as acquiescence. Keeping Damian close, he sat down on the ground and looked around for the girls. He found them cuddled together a few feet from them.

“We need to call the police and an ambulance”, he said, more to himself than to the kids in front of him, or to the one into his arms.

“Already done”, Damian mumbled anyway. “While I was waiting for you.”

“That must’ve been a very brief call, then”, Jason retorted, but not too harshly. He wasn’t in the mood for a lecture right now, not with Damian slumped down safely into his arms and six little girls looking at him with big, wet, scared eyes. “Your big brother, uh?”, he asked instead, unable to stop himself.

“I was suffocating”, Damian reminded him with a groan. “Also, legally I cannot be held responsible of what I say in a situation of danger.”

“That’s undercover cops, kiddo”, Jason laughed. “Dick is making you watch too many tv shows. You ready to get up and go home?”

He felt Damian shift again, his forehead now resting against the side of Jason’s neck. His breathing was still a little strained, but overall he finally sounded okay when he spoke again.

“First I want my ice cream.”