The Many Deaths of Jason Todd
is an Batman fic by Zoeleo, found on Archive of our Own.
When Jason is the victim yet again of the Joker's personal war with Batman, the batfamily begins to tear apart at the seams. Tim spearheads a risky mission to recover their fallen brother in an effort to hold them together. The last thing he expects to find on the other side of a mortuary door is a very much alive Jason Todd. But Jason's resurrection raises more questions than answers and Tim finds himself at odds with the rest of the family as he tries to uncover the truth of the second Robin's apparent immortality.
Tropes you can find in the story:
- Anti-Hero / Anti-Villain: Jason. He's still a criminal overlord who controls the underworld of Gotham, but he forbids drugs being dealed to kids and will kill and beat up abusive pimps. Jason also muses that Oracle might agree with him, considering that she could do a lot more to oppose him with the vast resources she controls. Even after starting his recovery, he still intents to continues his crusade against crime.
- Armor-Piercing Question: When trying to convince Dick that Batman's Jerkass attitude was simply him trying to protect them, Dick asks him what he would do if he was the one in charge. It results in Tim having an epiphany and deciding to steal Jason's body from the morgue.
- Awful Truth: Jason bled out and died from the batarang that Bruce threw at his throat during the events of Under the Hood. The reveal of this act emotionally destroys Bruce and shatters the trust that Dick and Tim had in him.
- Batman killed people during his early days as a vigilante, before cementing his code. Jason reveals these facts to Dick and Tim at the worst possible time to shatter their faith in Bruce.
- Back from the Dead: Tim finds Jason alive in the mortuary.
- Big, Screwed-Up Family: The Batfamily in a nutshell. Jason is The Resenter who hates that Bruce failed to avenge him and seeminly replaced him without a care, Dick has a very rose-tinted view of their relationship and Bruce is The Stoic.
- Break Them by Talking: When Bruce and Dick refuse to let a wheelchair-bound Jason leave the manor, he mercilessly calls out Bruce's Jerkass behavior towards him and how Dick was a Big Brother Bully when Jason was Robin.
- Broken Pedestal: Jason is this, considering his Pay Evil unto Evil tendencies and his attempted murders of Bruce and Tim.
- Canon Welding: The fic fuses elements from the Batman comics and the Under the Red Hood movie.
- Crucified Hero Shot: Joker gives a dark parody of this trope when he kills Jason by having him crucified to a wall and then imapaled with a crowbar.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Chapter 3 reveals how Jason died and was horrific. He Jason was beaten up, partially dismembered and then Impaled with Extreme Prejudice. To add insult to injury, the Joker leaves an USB containing a video where he mocks Batman and photos of his brutal murder of Jason.
- Flat "What": Dick's response to Tim's proposal of stealing Jason's body from the morgue.
- Get Out!: Jason gives an angry one to Tim (along with a Breaking Speech) after Bruce fires Jason from Wayne Enterprises.
- Heroic Build: Jason, which Tim notices when helping Dick howling him into the van after rescuing him from the morgue.
- History Repeats: Jason is tortured and killed by the Joker after being betrayed by a woman he tried to save. And then he comes back from the dead.
- Hollywood Law: Subverted, as the author made research on autopsy. This is causes a great friction in the Batfamily as, because Jason's death was deemed a homicide, he has to be identified for it to be released for a funeral. Yeah...
- Homoerotic Subtext: Invoked Trope. The Joker really likes Batman's attention and hates Jason and the rest of the Batfamily for being a Spotlight-Stealing Squad.
- Subverted with Tim and Jay. See below.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: How the Joker kills Jason.
- Loved by All: The people of Crime Alley seemed to have mourned for the Red Hood, considering that when Tim drives through the alley where Jason was murdered, lots of flowers are there.
- Luke, I Am Your Father: Will, the uber driver that Jason and Tim use often is actually Jason's father.
- Mayfly–December Romance: Tim fears his relationship with Jason will become this, which is why he decides to research about the Lazarus Pits.
- The Masquerade Will Kill Your Dating Life: Stephanie faces this big time when she starts dating Jeremy, who is a cop. Because of all the injuries and scars she accomulated over the years as a vigilante, she refuses to have sex further than friction and oral. Played with in that their relationship is not impaired by it, as Jeremy loves her.
- Men Can't Keep House: When Tim brings a wheelchair bound Jason to his house in New York, he claims it looks like a college dorm.
- Nice to the Waiter: Bruce drilled this sort of thinking into his adopted children.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: When Tim informs Bruce that Jason was hurt he notices that Bruce is acting weird and asks him what is wrong. His answer is basically Papa Wolf which does shock Tim considering that Jason tried to kill them both in the past.
- Pretty in Mink: The fic begins with Jason watching Tim and Bruce go to a gala party at a museum patronaged by the Martha Foundation.
- Really 700 Years Old: Willis Todd has been alive since at the time of the Crusades.
- Reformed, but Not Tamed: Jason, who makes it clear that he retains his Pay Evil unto Evil tendencies.
- Resurrective Immortality: Jason. He got this power from his father.
- Rule of Symbolism: Invoked by Joker when he jokes that Jason should rise on the third day. The narration implies that he rises on Christmas Day.
- Secret Identity: When the hospital wants to know Jason's identity, as per law, Batman pretends he and his family had nothing to do with Red Hood. This doesn't go well with the rest of the Robins.
- Servile Snarker: Alfred Pennyworth, though in the fic he uses it sporadically.
- Sherlock Scan: Tim uses this to analyse Jason's place of death and the result is not pretty.
- Slash Fic: The main pairing is Tim/Jason.
- Smarter Than You Look: Jason, which Dick tearfully explains to Tim telling him how he would read anything he could get his hand on and had a subscription to National Geographic.
- Thou Shall Not Kill: A big point of contention between Jason and the rest of the Batfamily. Made worse by the fact that Bruce refused to kill the Joker at the end of the first fanfic even though it's revealed that Bruce killed dozens of criminals in his early years in the vigilante career.
- Where the Hell Is Springfield?: Gotham City is located somewhere in New Jersey, and the Kane Memorial Bridges connects directly to the New York state.
- Working-Class Hero: Jason Todd, even when he was Robin as he couldn't fit in the high society of Gotham. This doesn't mean he was dumb though.
