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the red hood, it was a surprise to realize, was more than a crime lord.
a crime lord he was, with his rage and his rising kill count and his bag of severed heads; but he was more than a wraith made of blood and death. more than just another of the costumed crazies that tried to be king for a day before disappearing to arkham and never coming out.
the hood took care of his people, the ones that struggled to make their home in the gritty, cutthroat districts that were too dark, too painful, too real for even the batman. he protected the working girls and the street children and all those with that same fire in their eyes and steel in their bones. whispers spread, as insidious as vines creeping below the surface, of lecherous men with their kneecaps blown out or abusers with their necks snapped or drug dealers with holes in their forehead.
but there were other whispers, too. things like he walked me home last night or he saved my daughter or he paid to keep my food cart running. and they began to trust him, an unspoken agreement, a silent promise: he will come. if you need him, the red hood will come.
blind faith was not native to the bowery. faith at all was a foreign creature. they did it anyway. this man who seemed to be followed by death like a shadow, who came in a whirlwind of brash threats and gunshots that rang in the air, like a force of nature, won the trust of the people who couldn’t trust.
that’s how it all started.
what happened next was only a natural progression.
the red hood found himself stumbling away from a fight with a bullet in his hip and blood soaking his clothes. he had spent the better part of the fight balanced on the knife’s edge between victory and defeat, between safety and bleeding out in a cold alley with no one the wiser. he had come out on top, but narrowly. very narrowly.
the hood found himself slumped over on a rickety fire escape, breath coming ragged, hand clamped over the wound as blood pulsed over his fingers and dripped onto the metal. he just had to keep moving, he knew. five more blocks. five more blocks to a safe house with a first aid kit and a bed and safety.
still, he found himself leaning against the railing, legs refusing to work. he sank down, catching a groan between his teeth and swallowing it as his muscles burned. maybe... maybe he’d just sit for a moment.
maybe, in that moment, he realized that he could bleed out. maybe he wished- just for a moment- for a father who he had left long ago. or maybe he didn’t. who can know?
he unlatched his helmet with his free hand, ignoring the way that it shook, and raked one hand through his hair. distantly, he must have known that this was wrong. that sitting here was a death sentence. that this could be the end of a short but famed career.
it wasn’t.
the window slid open almost noiselessly, and teal eyes opened just a crack as someone joined the man- no, the boy- on the fire escape. fingers were rested gently against his hip, then an arm hauled over narrow shoulders. and despite his silent rescuer being nearly a foot shorter and fifty pounds lighter, it took no time at all before he was lying on a sagging, old couch.
his jacket was removed, tweezers doused in alcohol and gently probed into his side, painkillers offered and rejected, and then a needle was sliding through his skin, neat and efficient. his breath hissed through his teeth, quiet but clear in the silent apartment, and then he was still.
the thread was tied off, wound bandaged. the figure by his side rose, hesitated, and then took the blanket off the back of the couch, draping it over the red hood’s body before walking away.
when the young woman woke up the next morning, the hood was gone. a wad of cash sat neatly on the table, and the blanket was straightened and folded neatly. maybe that would have been the end of it.
but she had seen his face. he was, she realized now, very young- no more than twenty, surely. face tight with pain, scars tracing their way across his skin, but young. she thought of her nephew, his face that young but just as pained when they found his body, and some sort of decision settled in her ribs before she realized she’d made one.
that’s how it began.
because after that, the whispers started again. this time, things like he’s so young, did you hear? or only just a boy, poor thing, or no older than my son.
after that, the red hood begins to have a watchful eye or two tracing his path across the city, just in case. after that, if he slumps over on a fire escape, the home’s occupant almost always comes out to meet him, first aid kit or glass of water in hand. after that, his tips are turned away with a scoff and a gentle smile.
after that, he finds a whole district of people like the teenager who stepped out to meet the shadow that trailed the red hood, eyes burning and fists clenched, and stared down the bat for him.
and another unspoken agreement spreads, another silent promise: take care of him. take care of the red hood, of the boy with rage and softness in equal measures. he takes care of us, so we take care of him.
no such care had been offered to the bat, now or in the years before. the residents of the bowrey might have known, or might have thought, or might have just felt that the hood was one of theirs.
because the difference between the batman and the red hood is not, in the end, whether or not they will kill, nor whether or not they use guns, nor where they protect. no, in the end, the difference is this:
the batman, for all that he was born and raised in gotham, for all of his trauma shaped like bodies in an alleyway and gunshots and a string of pearls glinting with blood, is above them. he falls from the sky like some kind of dark angel, shrouded in shadows like it’s the only place he’s ever belonged, fighting to protect them, to stop the creation of more little boys with parents lying dead in an alleyway. he is the guardian of the city.
but the red hood? the hood is the city. the red hood is the grime in the alleys, is the smog that blankets the sky. he is the hope that creeps up despite all attempts to squash it, like dandelions sprouting from the sidewalks. he is the people, too; he is the children to whom fighting comes as naturally as breathing, the families scraping out a life in the alleys determined to crush them, the particular brand of gotham-born paranoia that is blocking windows and shirking fire safety in favor of security but also allows for silent help offered, no words spoken but just another part of the currency of favors. he is crime alley, in a way the bat could never imagine.
batman may be gotham’s protector. bruce wayne may be her prince. but the red hood is gotham’s son.
the promise extends both ways. safety. the red hood takes care of them, but they take care of him. gotham’s people look after their guardian. he is theirs. he is them.
the red hood is a crime lord, yes. but he is more than that, to the people of crime alley. he is their hope.