Hinder
is an Alternate Universe fic by Loxare, found on Archive of Our Own.
Right after emerging from the Lazarus Pit, Jason Todd decides to not pick Gotham as his playground for vigilante activities, settling in Bludhaven instead. Now, he's running around, shooting drug dealers, castrating pimps, helping kids with their homework...
...Wait, WHAT?
In which Red Hood somehow becomes the greatest hero ever to the entire city's under-18 population.
Tropes you can find in the story:
- Affectionate Nickname: Since Bizarro is mentally impaired, he tends to use these - leading Jason to become "Red Him" and Artemis "Red Her".
- Big Brother Instinct: Jason's is overdevelopped. Case in point, he basically became a Cool Big Bro to Bludhaven's entire kiddie population.
- Inverted with the kids themselves, who immediately jump to the Hood's help. Even when the opponent is Superman.
- Big, Screwed-Up Family: The Bats really are in fine form. Jason hates them all, Dick fully believes his young brother Came Back Wrong and ought to be dealt with, and Batman is so desperate to be logical and fair about it that he's just paralyzed in action. Really, Tim and Cass seem to be the more well-adjusted ones.
- Black-and-White Morality: Many of the "big shots" heroes apparently suffer from this. Batman and Nightwing are very much unable to reconcile Jason with Red Hood, and Superman's reason for assaulting the vigilante was summed up by "it's bad and mean to kill people, even criminals".
- Bodyguarding a Badass: After being assaulted by Superman, Red Hood is watched over by the kids he helped.
- Break Them by Talking: When Nightwing confronts him, Red Hood mercilessly confesses he refused to come back to Batman because he never felt he belonged there - and Dick was a bit of a Big Brother Bully - and commited every murder he's charged with. When he leaves the scene, Nightwing entered Heroic BSoD.
- Came Back Wrong: Batman and Nightwing think this of Jason, reasoning a member of the Batfamily couldn't willingly lower himself to kill. Dick even claims a psychopath replaced his brother.
- Crazy-Prepared: Jason may refuse to associate himself with the Bat, but training left its mark upon him.
- Didn't See That Coming: Superman came to Bludhaven in order to deal with the gun toting nutjob that had broken his boarders. He wasn't expecting a group of children to attack him in order to defend said nutjob. And he really wasn't expecting to find the long dead 2nd Robin under the nutjob's helmet.
- Dissonant Serenity: Red Hood casually using his phone to cheerfully discuss with kids while indulging in violent and messy street cleaning is a tiny bit jarring.
- Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: 100% averted with the story of Kelly's parents. His mother is verbally abusive to both him and his father and when she finally makes it physical she's restrained and has the cops called on her. It's played just as horrifyingly straight as it would be with reversed roles.
- Everyone Has Standards: What makes Jason an Anti-Hero is that while he may cross some moral lines, there are many that he will never cross.
- While he hates all criminals, he has a special place in his rage-filled heart for rapists.
- It's not clear if he's being serious with his threat to kill the next Bat he sees, but one way or the other he still has no intention of ever revealing their secret identities publicly.
- No matter what's going on around him, Jason will always drop whatever he's doing and help the second a child gets involved.
- His relationship with the rest of the Justice League is still shaky (though Wally is starting to come around), but he still treats Captain Marvel with respect and care, both because he's a kid and because he's just so damn nice that he can't say anything bad about him.
- Friend to All Children: Red Hood is feared and hated by every grown up in the story, with some rare exceptions. But you won't find a single kid who doesn't trust and respect him.
- Usually Superman is this, which is part of what throws him off when a group of kids start attacking him to defend Red Hood.
- A Hero to His Hometown: When he came to put a stop to Red Hood's violent activities, Superman certainly didn't expect to see Bludhaven's children protect the vigilante from him.
- Hero with Bad Publicity: After publically assaulting Red Hood, Superman was heavily criticized since a) Red Hood is a normal human who could have died under the Kryptonian's fists, b) everyone saw Red Hood is barely in his twenties when he lost his helmet and c) Superman was out of Metropolis so had no authority to intervene in Bludhaven.
- Hero Worship: Children in Bludhaven really, really admire Red Hood. So much some of them dress up as him for Halloween and some others go in the streets to form the "Red Kids", trying to emulate his crime-fighting ways.
- Tim Drake is ecstatic to learn Jason actually lives and can't wait to meet him in the flesh. Which bodes ill since Jason really doesn't want to see a Bat and threatened to kill the next one who will try to talk with him.
- Jerkass Has a Point: He's almost always a dick about it, but Jason has a fair amount of good points:
- Killing people is bad, we get it. Batman is still forced to note Bludhaven's crime rate very much decreased after Red Hood's apparition on the cape scene - a criminal can't repeat offenses when dead, after all.
- Jason also points out that children feel safer with the definite assurance that no, the bad man isn't coming back to hurt them or their loved ones.
- Jason is often exasperated at the Justice League's reacting to him as though he's either going to try to kill them or expose their identities. He usually counters by saying that if he wanted to do either of those things, he would've done it already.
- Dick gets his Nostalgia Filter ripped off his eyes when he sees Jason again, who calmly explains to him all the ways that Dick bullied him before he died, so all his talk of how much he "missed his little brother" is complete garbage.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: For all his murders and belief in violence really being the answer, Red Hood is ultimately trying to help people, not only to protect them.
- Keystone Army: One of the drug lords Jason targets is notorious for not trusting any of his underlings, leaving all of the running of the business to him and him alone. That means that when he's inevitably taken out, his entire enterprise collapses overnight.
- Kind Hearted Simpleton: Bizarro mangles his grammar and his viewpoint is painfully limited by his extreme youth - he was created one month ago - but his niceness is worthy of his Kryptonian template.
- Loophole Abuse: When Stephanie decides to visit Jason and make friends with him, she points Red Hood threatened to kill Batman, Nightwing and Robin, but never said anything about Spoiler - her current vigilante persona.
- Mirror Character: Jason is more Bruce's son than he feels comfortable admitting - he decided the best way to protect his hometown was to become a Terror Hero, has quite a few issues with sanity, is a big softie when you're not on his shit list and tends to pick up strays. The problem is, he cranks all this up.
- Morality Chain: Cassandra muses Jason needs people who will gently steer him away from unecessary murder and violence - just like Batman himself.
- Nostalgia Filter: Dick felt so bad for not being a good brother to Jason after the younger boy died, it kinda rosified his vision of his successor. He suffers a rude awakening when he finally meets Red Hood.
- Mirror Character: Jason is more Bruce's son than he feels comfortable admitting - he decided the best way to protect his hometown was to become a Terror Hero, has quite a few issues with sanity, is a big softie when you're not on his shit list and tends to pick up strays. The problem is, he cranks all this up.
- Oh, Crap!: The Justice League slightly freaked out after Red Hood's identity came to light, since he was a former member and as such had access to their identities and other important stuff. Background mentions are made of protocols to be applied to him if he's caught and imprisoned to stop him from spilling the beans.
- Parents as People: Even after learning Jason was a murderer, Bruce still loves him and wants him to come home, but has no idea about how to do this. And his only plans for afterwards is "watching Jason 24/7 and heavily monitor his activities to ensure he's not going to relapse".
- The Pollyanna: When she learnt Jason was alive and active in Bludhaven, Cassandra was utterly giddy at the idea of having another big brother and getting to spend time with him. Unfortunately, Jason still has a chip on his shoulder about the Bats...
- The Power of Friendship: Red Hood is so beloved amongst children they form a mob to protect him from Superman - which is more useful and efficient you would think, since Superman Wouldn't Hurt a Child.
- Secret-Keeper: Bludhaven's kids managed to piece together the second Robin and Red Hood, but swore to never tell a soul - he is a hero, his backstory is supposed to be kept quiet after all.
- Shamed by a Mob: Poor Superman was utterly floored when a bunch of kiddies yelled at him for being mean to their big bro Red Hood.
- Small Steps Hero: When interacting with kids, Jason is this - he can help them with their immediate problem, but he lacks resources or time to do more. It's still more than enough for them.
- Spotting the Thread: Artemis realizes a story Red Hood told about him saving Superman from Mongul actually featured the second Robin, which lets her guess his Secret Identity.
- Superman Stays Out of Gotham: Actually averted — Red Hood ventured to Metropolis to fulfill a kid's request, which put him on Superman's blacklist and led the Big Blue Boy Scout to come in Bludhaven.
- Wretched Hive: Bludhaven is such in a sorry state, Red Hood can kill every villain he finds and not worry about lacking prey for a decade.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Jason is left speechless everytime he's given proof people actually care about him.
