Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Craig Tucker describes himself as a simple man.

His ‘tale of woe’ is as unique as bananas are. That is to say, in Gotham, pretty much the same as anyone in the lower-class economy – the only difference being the few spots and curves that define his life.

Whatever, like many others, Craig never finished school, so maybe his analogies ain’t the best.

Point is, he’s simple.

He’s got a daughter, seven, her name being Gracie. Pretty, he thinks, having named her after the mother’s middle name. And a niece from his dead brother, Hannah, turning sixteen in April. He’s doing his best as a single dad of two with nuthin’ going for him to keep the both of them in school, and, both of them, are the light of his dingy, smog-ridden life.

He’s also recently come under employment of the Red Hood.

There’s that Banana spot that differs him from the bunch.

Craig, as a general rule, does his best to avoid working for the big names. The twenty-nine-year-old man may be a thug, but he’s a thug with morals. He’s not touching Penguin or Two Face or Black Mask, and anytime he sees a clown he books it the other way. So, it had been with extreme anxiety that when Red Hood had apparently busted in, killed, and beheaded his boss, he followed his crew’s actions of merging into Red Hood’s growing group of ‘Goons’. He couldn’t risk leaving his daughter an orphan without anyone caring for her if he disagreed, see.

And shit, Red Hood became a Big Name.

But…the Crime lord is…different, to most others.

No selling drugs to children, for instance? A rule Craig will gladly get behind. No harming, even protecting sometimes, the working girls? His baby mama, Melissa, would have been proud and smiling.

‘Sides, all that nasty beheading business eventually ran its course.

And, now Craig might be gettin’ ahead’a himself here, but Red Hood eventually became…a cool guy to work with.

Good pay, better working conditions, actual moralistic actions towards people in his situation that doesn’t make him wanna drink himself drunk with guilt, fuck- Craig even gets Healthcare.

Red Hood very quickly earns the cheap mug declaring ‘Best Boss In The World’.

And so what if the man (who has to be younger than Craig at this point for all those damned Hamilton musical references) has a vendetta against Batman and his Birds?

Get in line, pal.

(Though Craig really has to take a step back and re-evaluate the situation after some very obsessive rants and a bit too malicious attacks get ordered against the most recent Robin (Who’s maybe running around as Red Robin now? Dunno, things get confusing when all you’re paid to do is try hit ‘em fuckers) because, c’mon, it’s obvious the vigilante is a teenager and Craig hates hurting kids dammit)

(Thankfully, once again, that more intense side of the Boss tapers down after a few months)

So, all in all, if Craig Tucker, the simple man, had to fill in a survey about his workplace conditions and colleagues, he’d give it a solid 4.5 out of 5. Minus .5 because of the sheer amount of mutterings the guy does about the Batclan as whole.

His favourite thing though?

The drinking after a successful night.

Because sometimes, if the man is willing and the moon is full, Red Hood himself will come down to bar and take a swig.

Craig has already downed a few beers before Boss came lumbering through the door – Gracie is at a sleepover so fuck it I’m gonna enjoy myself.

“Heyyy, the man of the hour~!”

Red Hood sweeps a hand in the air, as if to say Yes! Here I am! And unclips his helmet with a few whirrs and whoosh. That streak of white hair and red domino mask that Craig’s still unused to seeing greets him with a smirk.

“Nah, please, you lot did your part!”

Craig raises his glass at the acknowledgement, tucked away in one of the booths with his mate, Rodney. Another thing he appreciates about the big boss – he actually applauds their work.

The Hood stalks over to the bartender, the woman already waiting for him with a pint, and slaps a wad of cash that likely pays enough for their entire group and a nice tip.

See? Swell guy.

Craig turns to Rodney when the commotion settles down, interested to hear the rest of the story. The bar is animated, a cheery ambience, filled only with The Crew. It’s a Thursday night, after all, their night, and the Boss’d made a point to get chummy with the most visited establishments.

“Man,” Rodney groans, slamming his glass onto the table, beer dripping from his moustache from how he’d chugged it, “I need’ta hit the can before I piss myself.”

Laughing, Craig pushes him out the booth.

“Get outta here with those details!” Rodney grumbles, waving him off, and staggering to bathroom. “And wash yer hands!” He calls after his mate.

A body slides into the opposing booth seat and the chink of a glass against wood is heard.

“Excellent advice there, Tucker.”

Craig freezes. Like, he can physically feel his body just halt. Breathing? Non-existent. Heartbeat? Stopped entirely. Brain? Brain.exe not responding. Because, even without a modulator, he can recognize that drawl of Alley and that touch of Bristol from anywhere.

Slowly, his eyes inch to the man in front of him.

Thee Red Hood tilts his head, a crooked smirk tugging at the man’s (boy’s. That’s a boy, isn’t it? Shit, he’s younger up close) mouth the longer Craig gapes, like a fish, he’s sure.

He knows my name.

“May I sit?”

He, finally, finds his words.

“’Course, boss. Go ahead,” Craig croaks, nodding uselessly.

Red Hood seems to find him amusing, at least.

When Rodney comes back, fresh beer in hand, he’s mid flicking the soapy water that’s proof of his developing hygiene when he too, stops dead when he sees that their boss has chosen to sit in their booth.

Man can’t even leave, his shit’s right here, too obvious.

Hesitantly, Craig’s freckled friend lowers himself into his seat and, after sending a wide eyed look to Craig, he jerks a nod to their Crime lord.

“Bo-Boss.”

Red Hood flicks a wave.

“Right, um.” He downs half his drink and turns to Craig with a desperate look screaming Oh God please start talking I can’t-

“How’d you say your new missus was going then, Rods?”

A light appears in his friend’s eye and Craig has to bite back a groan. Geez, why did he have to pick this topic, of all ones? Animatedly, Rodney starts gesturing, sickeningly dopey smile stretching across his features.

“Oh she’s just lovely, Tuck, da perfect woman. You know them tricks the working ‘uns have? She can do all of them and cook! Cook, Craig! And, she likes the name I picked for ma dog, so obviously she’s the one!”

Whistling, Craig swallows his drink, settling back into the spongey back of the booth seat, relaxing when it appears that the Red Hood is content with simply sipping at his own beer and watching his crew.

“Well anyone who can appreciate the name Gertrude in this day and age must be a keeper.”

“Exactly!”

Beer eventually turns into whiskey which eventually turns into shots, and someone turns the football on, and Craig is happy. He’s actually happy. He’s content with his life, no matter the hardships that continue to stay, and he’s watching how Rodney sits on the bar, the bartending lassie watching with amusement in her eyes, and begins to opera sing the song of whatever football team’s playing.

The clock on the wall ticks and ticks until the hands begin to breach into the early morning.

It must be the light atmosphere of the air, how everyone’s laughin’, or maybe just the booze, but Craig’s eyes fall on the red helmet resting on the table.  Bright red and menacing; his symbol of Hope.

“Hey Boss,” Craig slurs out, capturing the others attention, he hiccups and before he can think better, he asks the question that’d been burning in the back of his mind since his…employment.

“Were you the one to pick that name as an *hic* aye-lee-ass? And why this one?”

Red Hood’s eyes lock onto him, or at least, Craig assumes so, because it’s only the whites of his mask that he can look at. The man tenses. Leathered shoulders hike up almost imperceptibly – of course, Craig has a teenage charge, a girl one, and so he can read the brewing tension and attitude that clearly says I don’t want to talk about this. Fuck off.

But, as he always seems to do, Red Hood surprises him.

Maybe the other had too much to drink also.

“I used to have another name, before,” his boss, who really looks so young now, in this moment, starts. Scarred up hands swirl the contents, the dregs, of his beverage, and finally that intimidating gaze of the domino leaves him. Drops down to something Craig can’t see.

“A long time ago. But that person is dead now.” The grip on the glass tightens and an ugly, ugly scowl mars Red Hood’s face. “I get to choose for myself now,” he bites out, “they can’t take that from me.”

Craig watches, his previously joyful mood dissipating. His gaze tracks the way his boss’s spare hand clenches and unclenches, and suddenly the crowded bar sounds muted. Like the world only consists of Craig Tucker and the Red Hood.

“I won’t let them,” Red Hood finishes darkly.

“Huh,” is all he can say.

It takes a second for the words to really hit him, but when it does, Craig understands it all. Hannah has talked to him about this before, multiple times. She’d sat him down, explained everything, and Craig had been fascinated at how the world changed and allowed such…expression of oneself to come about.

There’s not even one thought put into his actions before he’s doing them.

Craig leans over and pats his boss’s wrist, as far as he can get, and the crime lord starts. Like he’d gotten so lost in himself that he’d forgotten Craig was there. Craig doesn’t mind, he just tries to, as he sways, a bit too tipsy for the severity of this moment, convey as much as he can that I’ve got your back dude.

"I one hundred percent support you, Boss. You are who you are because that’s just who you are.”

Craig nods genuinely, deeply, to show how much he really means that. This changes nothing for him except there’s just another tick on how Red Hood might just be one of the best boss’s he’s ever had. Hannah would love to hear this.

“I, uh,” his boss seems lost for words but that’s okay. Craig understands. He’s an empath.

“Shh, Shh. I’m proud of youuuu...” Thud!

Out cold, Craig’s form slumps over and the coolness of the wood against his cheek greets him kindly. A string of drool seeps from his mouth, running off his scruff, and a quiet little snore sounds from him.

Red Hood blinks. He stares.

He uses a finger to prod against his goon. Nothing.

What an odd bloke, he thinks before downing his drink and getting up for another.

Fucking Condiment King. Fucking Ketchup.

Fucking Mustard, Craig quietly seethes. They have a change room in their building that technically serves as their base, and he’s never been more grateful for the showers.

He scowls down onto the tiles, watching red mixing with that putrid yellow of mustard. The water does a fine enough job of washing that away, but the stench. Oh, the stench. Craig sends a quick prayer to God that he won’t have to come home and get bullied by his girls from getting one upped by the Condiment King.

He’s not the only one upset and grumbling, and the showers are full of half-naked, tatted men cursing about whatever condiment they got vivaciously attacked by.

Mechanically, he tugs off his shirt, for he hadn’t wasted any time before hopping in, and rings it out. He watches with a morbid kind of fixation as yellow-y orange drips down and sludges onto the floor. What the fuck is his life.

“Say, Boss. Why do you never take off your shirt in front of us?”

Craigs eyes snap open and dart around until he finds the idiot who asked that question- he’s not the only one, and suddenly the chamber is quiet.

Fucking Steve.

Red Hood doesn’t show any visible discomfort, but he doesn’t look pleased with the question.

Half of the ‘goons’ hold their breath, and Craig finds himself to be one of them. It, it doesn’t look like their boss is going to answer the question, which is fine, it was a stupid fucken question, and Craig, out of respect and awkwardness, averts his eyes.

Then, Red Hood speaks. Rough and blunt. Craig’s attention is rapt.

“I have a…a really fucked up scar on my chest.” Almost unconsciously, his hand goes to his chest and grasps the soaking wet undershirt he had indeed not taken off. “It. I don’t like showin’ it to others…”

Of course, Craig knows why. He’s on the same wavelength as Red Hood, you see. He knows. Hannah explained everything in depth before she brought her friend over, a blonde girl with too wide a jaw. Too wide shoulders.

“Don’t sweat boss, we don’t care,” he calls out and, ignoring the looks he gets.

“We only care about you for you, after all,” Craig finishes proudly.

He sees some faces dawn with realisation, and he sends meaningful looks and eyebrow wiggles to those that don’t get it. Eventually, out of the twelve of them there, sans the boss, they’ve all been brought onto that same wavelength.

They get it too.

“Yeah Boss, you’re still the shit,” Rodney jokes.

A round of agreements from the others.

Red Hood just makes a confused sound, a little choked if he had to guess, and Craig has to hold back from cooing.

Aw, shucks, Boss thought we wouldn’t accept him. But can’t he see that he’s a better man than most of us put together?

A plan begins to form, and Craig smiles down as he starts to wash himself with soap.

He's gotta talk to Hannah.

It’s in pure Gotham fashion that, before Craig can even have a sit down, bloody Scarecrow decides it’s a wonderful day to attack not just the Batman and his Birds- but everyone.

Sara screaming bloody murder was the first sign that something was wrong.

Her turning her gun onto them, is the other.

Craig is comfortable enough to admit that, Sara, had balls. Tough as shit, never complains and just does the work. She’s still not as strong as him or the others, but she knows it, and it’s clear she works harder than anyone to keep up.

So, to see the blood drop from her dark-skinned face?

To have to dodge the stray bullets from the usually calm gunwoman?

Yeah, something is wrong.

“Close up ranks!” Barks Red Hood. “Don’t let her escape, she might hurt herself! Or other people, and get that gun off her!”

Nodding, Craig and John, as the biggest blokes there, run to the mouth of the alley they were working out of and ready themselves.

They needn’t have worried though, because Mitchell managed to whack the back of her head with a metal pipe and kicks the gun along the grimy pavement. The woman crumples to the ground. Shaking, sobbing even when unconscious. Her nails relax from digging into her throat though, so Craig’ll take that as a win.

The goons watch as their boss kneels down and checks her pulse.

“’ts too fast,” mutters Red Hood, standing up to look at her jerking form. “And that looks a hell of a lot like Fear Gas.”

A muttering breaks out and Craig shares an uneasy look with John.

Nobody likes Fear Gas.

“But... nobody’s here to Gas her,” Craig calls out, confused and wary. His eyes flick to every crevice of the alley way, they’d already done a thorough check to ensure that it’d be safe enough to work in, so he looks up to the rooftops.

A figure ducks away from the roof’s ledge.

“There!”

Red Hood had already seen the same, so when the others crane their necks to where Craig was pointing, the man had already begun to scale the building.

It leaves the alley full of goons quiet.

Tense.

Sara’s body twitches and she whimpers quietly.

Conscious of the way everybody’s eyes follow his movements, Craig hesitantly makes his way over to Sara. She looks so young, one of the first ‘Wave of Women’ as Rodney likes to call it, to join the Red Hood gang. She couldn’t be more than nineteen. A real rookie.

He pulls off his jacket and wraps it around her as best he can.

They wait for their boss’s return.

And then a body drops from the sky and- cue the high-pitched shrieks from a few of these groan grizzled men.

Red Hood drops down.

He’s a sniveling thing, the man Hood has captured. Fallen onto his ass and already trying scrabble away, though Craig sees no point as a wall of goons would be the only thing to greet him.

Still, Craig has room for pity, and so it’s a mixture of sympathy and disgust that he watches the man swivel his head around for an exit, eyes darting around wildly like a cornered, wounded animal.

Red Hood’s boot pins the man’s foot onto the ground. The lanky thing tugs, but it’s useless and he knows that, so the unknown gives up.

“What’s your name.”

It ain't a question.

There’s only an answering whimper. His boss groans exasperatedlt, rolling his neck to crack it, and draws out his gun.

This gun has silver accents, so Craig knows it’s filled with rubber bullets, but this fella don't.

Red Hood clicks the safety off.

“Okay! Okay!” The man holds his hands up shaking. “My name’s Austin! Austin Creeves!”

“And, what in the ever lovin’ fuck,” Boss hisses, “are you doing goin’ around and bombing my men with Fear Gas? Huh? Answer me!”

The barrel of the gun presses against the sweaty forehead of the shaking man, Austin.

“I-I have to,” Creeves wails. His hands are up, as if that’d protect him. “He’ll use it on me if I don’t! I’m sorry, I didn’t, *Hic* know it was you Mr Red Hood Sir! I wouldn’t have, I wouldn’t have-“

“Yes you would have,” contradicts Boss, the man’s modulator warping his voice just so that it sounds demonic enough to send a shiver down your spine. Or is that just Craig? Nah, ‘Creeves’ looks like he’s aboutta piss himself.

Red Hood crouches down. He drags his gun softly down the sniveling man’s face until it rests underneath his chin. The gun tilts his head up to look directly into Hood’s mask.

“But that’s okay, you hear me? I get it, under pressure and all that, right?”

Creeves, unsure if the sudden change of tone is faux or not, hesitantly nods.

“Because you know why?” The crime lord whispers. Creeves jerks but his foot is still pinned.

“You’re going ta tell me every damn detail you can remember, like why I’m a target, why my men are a target, and what kind of Gas that was because I know it ain’t the standard shit and I know you aren’t interested in these drugs we got here,” he gestures to crates full of the goods they’d been packing and counting, waiting for their transport to show up.

“Because if you don’t,” the Crime lord threatens lowly, reaching over to grab the man’s collar and drawing him in, “I’m going to break your kneecaps. Ya get me?”

Craig sighs quietly when the outsider shakes his head erratically. Why doesn’t he just get that this is the best option for him? Just makin’ it harder fer himself he is.

Red Hood tsks, shaking his head like he really hates to do this.

He pulls out the small crowbar strapped to his thigh.

“No no WAIT!”

The red crowbar halts in the air.

Creeves is trembling like a leaf and when he gulps it sounds painful, but he finally stutters out an intelligible string of words.

“Sca-Scarecrow, he’s, he’s trying to,” he swallows heavily, eyes rimming red, “tarnish your rep, uh yours specifically ‘cause you-you’re getting too much fear from even Scarecrow’s own goons. None wants’ta gas kids for his exper-experiments.”

“He’s not happy with yer,” Austin finishes, miserable, screwing his eyes up, readying himself for a blow that doesn’t come.

No one says a word. They just watch Red Hood’s still figure.

…

“Get out of here,” Red Hood grunts.

As soon as Creeves is free from being pinned, and the gun is back into its holster, the pathetic man is onto his feet and edging towards Craig and John – the goons blocking the exit.

Craig lets him go, but only after looking for the slight nod of approval from the boss.

He glares at Creeves as he passes.

Bloody coward.

Red Hood claps, startling everyone.

“Come on people! Let’s go lets go! We’ve got drugs to pack in, lets hit it!”

A van, grey with faux plumbing service stickers painted on the side, pulls up at the mouth, just in time for the driver, Fred, to see Creeves run like a bat outta Hell.

“What was that all about,” questions Fred, bewildered, as he takes in the scene.

“Ya don’t wanna know,” sighs Craig.

They get to work loading the van up with drugs.

“I hope you have a good day at work Daddy!”

Craig falters in drinking his evening coffee. Trying not to choke at the too hot coffee going the wrong way down his throat, he manages a smile to his daughter.

“Thanks Gracie, you be good for Miss Carmen, hear me? I don’t want no calls of your horse hoovin’.”

The seven year old giggles and swings Hannah’s hand. Hannah absentmindedly pats the messy curls of brown before tugging her to the door.

“See you, Uncle Craig!” The girl calls out as she leaves.

A thought strikes Craig and he hurries to get up, cursing as he spills some of his drink.

“Now just because I’m trusting you to be good at Devin’s doesn’t mean I’m trusting him! I expect updates! Hourly!”

“Yeah yeah!”

The door swings shut, leaving him alone in their shoddy apartment.

Heaving a great sigh, Craig sits down back onto his chair. He uses his shirt to best clean up the spill before deeming it a loss cause and rubbing a hand down his face. He glances at the clock.

Fifteen minutes until he needs to get going.

I hope you have a good day at work Daddy!

Craig groans and abandons his cuppa in the sink, grabbing his jacket.

He loves his daughter, truly, the light of his life Gracie is. But why did she have to jinx him? It’s already bad enough to be called into work three hours early, scrabble to find places his children can stay at, supervised, for reasons no one wanted to tell him on the phone, but for it to now be jinxed?

Fuck him to Hell.

With the adrenaline pumping in his blood, not even the calming sounds of fires, shouting, and the icy winds pushing against windows and rubbish can calm him down. He makes it to work quickly, hackles raised and eyes peeled.

He spots Rodney with a group around the table, playing poker.

“Oi, Rod!”

When his freckled mate spots him, Craig can see the stress melt from his shoulders and his eyes warm up. Rodney gets up to dap him.

“Man, thank God you’re here dude. We- We’ve just, we can’t take it anymore.”

Furrowing his brows, he looks over Rodney, closer this time. There’s a black eyes bruising on top of his regular black eye, a split lip right next to his lip piercing, like someone’s nail had snagged it or sumthin’, and he stood with a funny hunch.

The boys watching him don’t seem any better, neither does Gloria – who’s sporting a spectacular bald spot atop her head of bleached hair.

Jesus Christ.

“What,” he swallows, “what the heck happened here?”

“The Boss,” Rodney says fervently. Craig tenses. “He’s, damn, he’s been dosed.”

“…dosed?”

A bloke behind his friend, Craig has no idea who he is, must be a new hire, nods deeply.

“You know that fucker from the other night? Got Hood with his, well, hood off and, Iunno, caught him unawares. Did that new gas bomb thing.”

Blood drains from Craig’s face, and he turns to Rodney for confirmation. His friend’s look says it all.

“The new Fear Gas going around, that boss was specifically targeted for that makes people even more bloody scared and violent? That Fear Gas?”

A round of nods and winces.

Craig grimaces.

“And I got called in early. For that I spose?”

“You just hafta sit with him,” Rodney promises sympathetically, “I know you got called in early, but, trust, all the, uh, violent urges and hallucinations have mostly stopped. He’s mainly just sad now,” he mutters to himself.

“So I gotta babysit a freshly traumatized, sad-kicked-puppy version of the Boss?”

“Yup. Sorry bud.”

Craig Tucker, usually, would never blame his sweet little daughter for anything.

But what can he say? She bloody jinxed him.

“Boooossss?”

Craig creaks the door open, half expecting the worse when he peers in. It’s quiet. Much too quiet. He doesn’t like it. Slowly, he shuts the door behind him and the click tells him that now he’s truly in here.

He feels like a live animal brought in to be eaten by the zoo’s lion.

“I’ve brought tea? Jasmine with lemon?”

Nothing.

“Boooooossss?”

“Give it here then. Then get out.”

Turning to where the muffled voice had come from, he almost sags when he sees his boss collapsed onto their moth-eaten couch. The break room was not the appropriate resting place, especially to be shaking off the effects of Fear Gas, any type, but it also is closed off and the easiest to get rid of any and all weapons. Still, Craig would hate to be in his boss’s position.

“’Fraid I can’t, Hood.” Craig rebuts this apologetically, but he sits in the arm chair across from the other man. He sets down the tea on the coffee table. “Goon’s orders.”

Red Hood doesn’t roll over, so all that Craig’s talking to is a head of black hair. He watches the highly feared and deadly crime lord stubbornly face into the couch, breathing in what Craig knows to be musty air of cigarettes and moths and something else.

Yeesh, the boss is just like his teenager at home.

“I’ve got a whole shift watching you, boss, we mays well be friends during this.”

An audible groan is heard before Hood wriggles over and slowly, really slowly, damn, sits up. He gabs the cup of Jasmine tea and cradles it to his chest, breathing in the warmth.

Craig tries to hide a smile.

Then he takes a closer look at the kid’s face (because that is a kid. Child. Teenager. Twenty-one, likely, which, technically is an adult except to a father, it’s really not) and the smile slides away on its own.

Bruises, grazes, bitten and bloodied lips. Tear tracks mixing with dirt that had swelled through the domino mask.

A flash of pure, unfiltered hatred spikes through Craig’s mind before he smooths his expression.

Scarecrow is going to get it.

 The silence doesn’t…Craig wouldn’t say it grows comfortable. He’s a little too paranoid that even this wet rat version of his boss might go crazy and snap his leg or something, because if he’s being honest- the boss gets these little fits of rage here and there that can be unpredictable, and he’s coming down from a violence and hallucination inducing gas bomb.

But, after a while, Craig can sink against the armchair and pull out a magazine.

Red Hood just sips his tea and stares out to things that are probably there to him, but just not visible to Craig. That’s fine, whatever a guy’s gotta do, he’s gotta do.

A whispered “God,” breaks the silence, and Craig pauses. Flitting his eyes over, he takes in the way the Boss has moved and lets his neck hang over the couch as he stares up at the ceiling. It doesn’t look like he said anything?

Craig lets it go and returns to his Gothette.

“I wish my family…” Red Hood’s breath hitches. He locks up, shaking his head as if to derail that train of thought.

Now, logically, Craig knows that with every Fear toxin, the loosening of tongue is a common after-affect. Your mind gets so drained from the strain and pressure, and the body’s been screaming for so damn long that there’s almost no filter going on.

It would be bad. He shouldn’t take advantage of this. He’s not. Won't. Really, Craig would never.

“Why not try reaching out to them?” He asks anyway, trying his best to sound as nonchalant as he totally doesn’t feel.

It’s like he’s hyper aware, like his arm hair raises and gooseflesh appear on his skin, and so he doesn’t take his eyes off his Boss’s still form.

Minutes pass by, and he exhales quietly, a little disappointed despite himself.

But, tongues get really loose after being gassed.

Red Hood stumbles over some syllables, getting Craig’s attention so fast his neck crinks, but he doesn’t care.

The teaspoon taps against the cheap china teacup, and Hood doesn’t look at him.

“They would never accept me, as I am,” whispers Red Hood softly, the words sound like a mantra he’s repeated to himself over and over and over again. “They wouldn’t.” He swallows roughly.

Craig listens.

“They wouldn’t agree with my ‘life choices’,” the man bunny ears, scoffing a self-deprecating laugh. He loses his humour and sobers up pretty quickly, though.

“Besides, they don’t miss me,” he says gruffly, “they miss the person I used to be.”

He, Craig, he couldn’t imagine being like that. His two girls mean the world to him, he could never stop loving them, either of them, no matter what they might do when they’re older. He- how can someone not even try to be with their son? Or, their child. If Hannah got snatched away by her maternal side now, he honestly might be powerless to stop them. And so if he got the chance to be with her again? Even when she’s older, even when she hits the rest of her milestones, even when she dates other people and changes and grows as a person…

He'd still love her.

With Gracie…nothing would change the way he cares for his little girl.

(Even if she became-uh, Grace...Gracen. Graco....Gracky?)

“I wasn’t even a man when I last saw them as ‘myself’,” Red Hood mutters so lowly Craig almost misses it. "Just a young, stupid kid."

And, there it is. The proof. The confirmation Craig and the others had needed. It made sense. It made so much sense that it made him sick. Hannah has a friend. The one with too wide a jaw, too wide a pair of shoulders. Too deep a voice. She’s a lovely girl, Craig believes, Craig knows.

Even if her parents don’t care to see that.

“Damn Boss,” he says for lack of words, “that sucks.”

Quiet snoring answers him. Craig looks up from where he’d been staring at the carpet as he plots his revenge for his boss’s unknown family members and sees that the Red Hood is out cold.

He smiles. Softly.

I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, you’re more of a man than most of us, Boss.

Even, no, especially since you’re trans.

"Are you sure, though?"

"Positive. Literally what other meaning is there to 'wasn’t even a man when I last saw them'?"

"..."

"Good point."

"I know!"

"So what are we gonna do then?"

"Well, I've been chatting to my niece, you know the one that-"

"Dear God we know! Tucker, you never shut up about them!"

"...because. Wha-they're the-"

"-light of my life."

...

"Fuck you guys."

"Get on with it, Craig. What can we do to show our support? He clearly isn't screaming it from the rooftops, is it really our place ta even say sumfink?"

"But how will he know that we love him?! *Ahem*, anyway, I'm thinking we could..."

Jason feels-well, that’s the problem. He can’t feel.

Sensation in his toes? Nope, can’t feel that. His hip when he banged it against the counter this morning? Nothing, nada. His tongue, oddly enough? Nothing. Which. That might actually be the norm, but it weirds him out the longer he thinks about it.

What he can feel, though, is literally everything he wished he couldn’t. Headache. Pulled shoulder. Bruised ribs. Somethin’ funky is going on with his knee and he doesn’t like it.

But, unfortunately, he’s got to put his big boy pants on. He has a criminal empire to run.

Jason feels dead inside when he stares at the numbers on the keypad. They seem to blur and jump around and yeouch- his eyes. Mind numbing. Never ending. Beep, beep, beep, beep. Why did he have to have such thorough security again? Curse past Jason and bat-inflicted paranoia.

He tries to type his code, he really does, but then he gets the realisation that no, he hasn’t been making steady progress of the fourteen numbers he requires, he’s just been typing 1…2…3…4…5…6…all over the keypad.

Not his proudest moment, Jason will admit.

Finally, fucking finally, Jason gets it and, straight after the door clicks locked – he pulls of his helmet and drags a hand down his face. The visors had been messing with his head, and if he has to listen to his own mechanical breathing for one more minute, he’ll finish Joker’s job and off himself.

But first.

Food.

“Where the fuck is everybody,” he mutters, scanning around. There should be at least three smokers and two guys playing darts at all times in every room but no. Empty, quiet, lights off.

He pulls out his gun and keeps close to the walls.

I swear to God, if I came to work on the one day I didn’t have to, I’m scrapping this and restarting.

Muffled whispering pricks his ears and he cautiously continues to the kitchen. No one should be in, it’s- well it’s not impossible but after that whole ‘Fear-Gas-Incident-We-Don’t-Talk-About’ thing that happened when he got caught unawares, security improved to a level that there should not be that many whispers. It’s his goons, right?

Has to be.

Jason tugs down his glove and presses the back of his wrist to the doorknob. No heat.

Slowly, so very quietly that he’s suddenly very glad he got Jacinta to oil everything the other week, he turns the knob. There is no light and the whispers go quiet.

He can hear his blood pumping in his ears.

Jason flicks the lights on, back to the wall and gun pointing outwards in case of attack, only to be met with-

“SURPRISE!”

It takes a second and a lot of rapid blinking for him to take in the scene in front of him, and yet he still has no clue what he’s seeing.

Craig Tucker, one of Jason’s lot he actually gets along well with, is at the front of all of his followers, clearly the ringleader of this whole thing. How can Jason tell? You ask this?

Because the crazy man has the proudest smile he’s ever seen and is the only one decked out in Blue, Pink and White with the bold words-

Red Hood’s Greatest Supporters!

The rest of his goon’s wave tiny Trans flags with two men in the back pop confetti cannons of-you guessed it, Blue, Pink, and White confetti that flutters down on all of them.

Speechless, Jason’s eyes lowers down to the table and somehow his jaw drops even further.

A giant ass cake that, he kids you not, has Red icing (Capitalized because crap that's a lot of icing) scribbling out a truly terrible pun in chicken scratch:

Why did the trans man avoid eating salads? Because he used to be a herbefore!

Craig starts spewing all this stuff that Jason only half hears, but he can see the rest of the gang nod empathetically. We support you boss. Or, This changes nothing. You’ve got more balls than all of us.

Jason just wants to know what the fuck is going on.

Fumbling, he digs around his jacket’s pocket and pulls out his phone. He checks the date. He checks it twice.

March, 31^st.

And after opening his little calendar, because surely this must be a belated April-Fools kinda thing that got into fashion while he was dead, he reads the little words stating what holiday to celebrate.

International Transgender Day of Visibility

“What the fuck,” Jason chokes out. And, he swears, it’s the adrenaline crash or the stress that’d built up over the past few weeks, or maybe it’s just the residue of that damned Fear Gas, but he- shit, he starts tearing up. He doesn’t mean to, really, but when they start they don’t stop because he’s just been so tired and he thought he’d have to fight or that all these idiots were dead or, or-

“Aw boss don’t cry!”

“Yeah, we got’chu man!”

Then the next thing he knows, when he’s trying to get back his composure and retain some of his dignity, he’s swarmed by his henchmen. Craig, who’s just as big of a giant as Jason is, in height and bulk, leads the ambush and crushes him the most in the group hug.

What, the, fuck.

(His domino mask is not damp! It isn’t! And, and that pun sucks! And just, holy shit, Jason is so confused but at least there’s cake?)

(He ends up getting his crew to gift those trans flags and badges and banners and what-nots to shelters, doing his best to explain to both his goons and the people running the shelters that no, he is not and never has been trans-

But they just assume he’s trying to share the love. That he’s shy and overwhelmed by their support.)

(Weirdos, he thinks fondly)

But then the Bats get wind of it, and suddenly it isn’t a funny little misunderstanding anymore.

Chapter Text

Craig Tucker is not…he’s not perfect.

Often, he’ll be the first to tell you that – especially since most of those who know him wouldn’t agree. But he knows, he knows, alright?

Out of school by sixteen and straight into the life of gangs. Even in school he was never the academic, so he gets hired as the muscle. As the common thug. A ‘Goon’. You tell him where to go, who to beat up, he’ll go there and he’ll beat them up.

He was good at what he did, and he felt no remorse.

Then, when he’s around…twenty-two, he thinks, he meets this working gal named Melissa.

She’s a fine one, real pretty- even above Gotham standards. Light chocolate skin, big dark eyes, curly hair that defys gravity. He’s instantly attracted. A few…paid meet ups later, and he realises she has the personality of a firecracker too, with humour that gets him laughin’ till his belly hurts.

Craig Tucker quickly falls in love with Melissa Scott – and she does too.

Then he’s employed by Black Mask and, well, he doesn’t want to get her messed up in any of his shit. He spends one more night with her, a wonderful night, back at his place with smoke hanging in the air, kisses, and laughs, before he convinces himself to stay away.

He doesn’t see Melissa Scott for another year.

They’re both different when he wanders back, tail between his legs.

But see, whereas his change lies largely in the added scarring, both physically and mentally, new tattoos, the extra bulk, and a deeper appreciation for booze – she changes with a baby on her hip and trembling fingers. Migraines. Vomiting. Sweating until she’s turned ashy, losing too much weight. Bloodied noses.

The love of his life, because that’s genuinely what she wa-is, for him, was sick with a child. His child.

Craig had left her, them, alone. Fucking abandoned them because of his own stupid decision.

Because he wanted a better access to drugs.

• Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is the most common type affecting adults' blood and bone marrow. If left untreated, acute myeloid leukemia progresses quickly.

Guess how many of her symptoms matched up?

Guess how much they could pay off for medical bills?

Melissa didn’t want to bother.

Black Mask…everyone used to work for Black Mask. So, obviously, there needs to be delegations, you can’t run an empire that big personally. Craig was one of the first ones to put his hand up to be shuffled off under one of Black Mask’s chosen.

Dangerous, constantly under watch, the Big Boss had his thumbs in every pie, but it was safer. Even by a little bit.

And so her and his daughter (Daughter, he has a daughter and she’s perfect), Gracie, become the sole reason for his keepin’ on going’s. His life revolved around them.

Melissa lasts until Gracie is two.

Lissa would have said it’s a miracle she lasted that long, that she enjoyed every moment of being able to kiss him and her daughter. That they were able to get photos, get married.

But Craig saw how much his wife was hurting. How many pills she took to even get out of bed.

He almost wishes she’d died sooner, just so he wouldn’t have to see her in so much pain.

Craig has to do…many, many cruel things to be able to pay for both him and Gracie. He, he will never be proud of what he did to rise to the ranks to get higher pay, but he knows that, if he somehow went back in time and had to relive it, he would do it again.

For his daughter.

And then for his niece, when his brother drops her off at his doorstep after years of never seeing each other. Craig hadn’t even known Jacob was alive, much less with a daughter of his own.

But he takes in Hannah anyway, because he was Craig’s brother, and she is his niece, and if nothing else – Craig has learnt the sheer importance of family.

Then Red Hood showed up when he’s...twenty-seven, shooting left and right, decapitating the worst of the worst, and suddenly Craig and his mate Rodney are being asked if they want to join this lunatic.

They did, because what choice did they have?

Never have they looked back since.

Now Red Hood is family. He welcomed them, all of them, and Craig will forever thank him for it. His family’s home life is finally resembling stable, they’re both in school, and Craig can finally afford to give them their flu and vaccine shots so they’re-they don’t get, can’t get as easily sick. Like Melissa Scott had.

And so, when Craig Tucker is in the wrong place at the right time, when he pieces together the depths that his Boss and the Batman relationship actually is, when he realises that Batman is the bastard for kicking out Red Hood for being trans-

Well, Craig will remind the man the sheer importance that is family.

Mark his words.

“What do you mean ‘We can’t find him’?!”

Lenny puts his hands up, irritated but willing to recognize the situation.

“That kid with the sword fucken attacked us! We couldn’t stay with Boss, we had to deal with him-”

“-So none of you could stay with him? None of you?!” Craig fires back. He knows he’s being unfair. Knows that if he’d been leading the squad instead of Lenny, it wouldn’t have made a difference. Still. He’s too worked up from the fight to be thinking clearly.

“What the fuck didja want us to do, Craig?! What could you have done that we couldn’t?”

Craig bites his lip and stays silent, exhaling through his nose. He drags a hand down his face, not even flinching at the sting of the cut on his cheek.

“…right. Right. Sorry, Len.”

Lenny shrugs. The other man relaxes slightly, and surveys the damage done. Craig joins him, frowning as he does.

No life-threatening injuries, not even any broken bones. Guns, sure, but that’s a staple with Vigilante fights. The newest Robin, though perhaps not new-new, usually isn’t one to hold back. Craig has heard the kid complain to Nightwing once that ‘If they get hit, they deserve to get hit’, which. Yeah. From an eight year old?

Yikes.

Point is, there hadn’t been much damage done tonight.

It’s suspicious.

And for the Boss to have been sequestered away?

That’s down right worrying.

“Let’s just,” Craig sighs, all fire doused, leaving him just tired. “Some of us will head back to base, see if he’ll get there on his own, and some of us will split up and try find him. Lord knows he’s just as likely to be bleeding in a dumpster as he is to have gone to one of his safehouses.”

Lenny nods seriously, and claps Craig on the back.

“You’re really getting a hang on that new promotion there, ain’t ya, Tuck? We’ll be calling you Sir one of the days.”

Snorting, Craig shrugs off the hand on his shoulder.  He’s a low level chain of command, literally nothing much since Boss usually manages to go on busts with them.

“Tch, get outta here with that crap.” He grins before a gunshot sounds in the distance and both men sober up.”

“Now let’s go.”

Swearing, Craig halls himself up over the roof ledge, the damn fire escape had only gone up halfway of the building and Craig did not climb all the way up here just to go back down.

He allows himself a minute to breathe, sprawled out on the slightly damp bricks of the random rooftop that gives him a decent visual vantage, before he rolls over and gets to his knees.

Craig brushes off dirt that had somehow gotten up here.

He pulls out his radio.

Crrk

“Anyone seen any sign of him?”

Crrk

“Not yet.”

“Sorry Tuck.”

“No-pe.”

Craig sighs, bridging his nose. He does his best not to growl. Really, this is one of the few things he hates about working for Red Hood – you never know if he’s dead or chilling. Really, he’ll have to call off the search soon, Boss is a big boy.

Crrk

“I’ve seen him, uh,” comes in from the radio.

Craig’s eyes snap open and he brings his tech up instantly.

“Where?”

Crrk

“Heading north, around Tony’s Kitchen? He’s not alone.”

The bats, then.

Craig’s eyes flit across the rooftops, glad he made the extra effort to climb up this building. Tony’s Kitchen…Tony’s Kitchen…that’s just, what? A block away? A block and  a half?

Crrk

“I’ll head over,” Craig states, already peering over the fire escape and looking around for other options. “The rest of you, go back to the base, continue your work as normal. I’ll just,” he swings a leg over.

“I’ll sus things out.”

Craig is…there’s two sides within him warring.

Loyalty, and Logic.

Because with his loyalty, he knows what he needs to do. Loyally, he wants to jump over this exhaust fan, the metal block on this nondescript roof, and run over with his guns blazing. Help distract the enemy and give his Boss a chance to escape. Darn himself and the consequences.

Logically, though, he knows he can’t do that. Logically, he knows he can’t darn the consequences and get sent back to jail – he has two girls back home. Logically, Craig knows that while he is strong, an excellent shot, he’s better suited for street fights. He’ll do more harm than good; the Red Hood wouldn’t even need his help.

Logic wins, but he still feels like a coward.

He watches the Red Hood and the Batman trade blows. Already the message that he’s spotted their Boss has been sent, and so all Craig can do is wait for this to be over, to watch from his little spot. His body itches.

Nightwing flips onto the building and, even two buildings away, Craig can hear the frustrated growl Red Hood practically shouts. The man’s attacks increase with fervour as he has to watch his own back from every angle.

And there goes any chance of Craig being able to step in.

This whole…interaction, seems to go on for hours, yet Craig checks his watch and it’s only been ten minutes. Neither side is letting up and internally, privately, he worries for his boss. Red Hood is deadly, he runs his criminal empire with a tight fist, and no one can say he isn’t dangerous.

But…Batman and Nightwing are…Batman and Nightwing.

It’s like he blinks and suddenly they’ve all shifted closer. It actually makes him want to rub his eyes, because when the fuck did they get here? Craig knows better than any goon how quick a fight can change, so he gets over the surprise of them all cohesively deciding to shift one rooftop closer to him.

At least now he can actually hear what they’re saying.

Nightwing jumps away from a kick, and the fight lulls. Craig leans in closer.

“Hood,” Batman growls, “You need to stop this now. You’ve made your statement, we’ve heard your words, now stop.”

It takes Craig a second to see through the inherently angry-sounding statements for what they are. Begging. Batman is begging. Why, though?

Hood only readies his stance.

“Hood, please,” Batman pleads and it. It sounds so wrong, coming from the big bad Bat, but it’s all Craig can hear. “You’re my- You’re my son.”

Craig watches as those words seem to send his boss into a rage, but he can’t hear them anymore. Can’t take anything in, can’t do anything but stare with wide, glassy eyes. It’s like the whole city has gone quiet and all he can hear is his heart beating in his ears.

Son?

“Don’t bullshit me!” Red Hood roars, bringing Craig back into the moment.

He blinks, watching as Hood finally takes his gun (is this why he hadn’t drawn it earlier?), it’s got black accents, and he knows that those words had triggered his Boss into a rage. His hits become more unhinged, where there had been a grace to his fighting is now only desperate attempts to get a hit in.

Craig knows what an angry, hurting child looks like.

(Hannah hadn’t been pleased when her father had abandoned her, to say the least)

Nightwing flips around bullets. With their new proximity, Craig can also hear the insistent words almost shouted at his boss. His brother?

“Come home, Little Wing,” the man calls.

He’s begging too.

Red Hood lands a solid hit and Nightwing staggers away. Batman steadies him. That seems to make Red Hood even angrier, and so it takes Craig aback when the crime lord throws his head back and laughs.

It seems to unsettle the others as well.

“And could you accept me as I am? If I continue exactly how I am with my life choices? Could you love me?”

He brandishes the gun around wildly, then brandishes to himself. Love me like this?

His words coming out with a lilt that seems a bit too unsteady for this whole conversation to not mean something to the man- the boy. He’s pleading, Craig realises, wanting so innately for them to wave away what he’s done and to take him in anyway.

Craig knows he’s not missing the way Batman seems to follow the gun.

He knows Nightwing is looking at Red Hood like he’s lost someone.

Someone who is still. Right. There.

“I-…”

The last piece of respect Craig had for Batman dies as fast as Red Hood curls in himself.

…

Yeah, no, I’ve seen enough.

Craig leaves. Can’t bring himself to stay and watch, not when he can’t trust himself to stay hidden and quiet.

He hears the tale end of the conversation.

“I’m not the same, but I’m still me, Dad.”

Craig hardens inside.

It’s stupid. It’s reckless, and it’s hate-filled. It probably won’t even work, but Craig has said that for things far less important. Less meaningful to him.

He’s got a plan.

To ruin the Batman and those who associate with him.

It starts, with some whispers.

“What?” Bessy breathes out, eyes wide and disbelieving.

Craig nods empathetically.

“But, but he’s never done anything of the sort before!”

He fixes her with a knowing, sympathetic look. Idly, or he attempts to look idly, he straightens out the pile of books, runs his fingers along the spine.

“Bess, what do we actually know of this guy? Name, age, race? Is he a white man or is he one of them pale Asians? Is he actually human or just presenting as? What does his voice sound like if he doesn’t use a modulator? How did he begin fighting, why is he fighting in a furry costume in the first place? We don’t know,” he stresses.

“I suppose,” she says uneasily. Her finger taps erratically on the counter.

Craig shrugs a shoulder nonchalantly.

“Just, if you can, let the young’ns know to try and steer clear of the whole ‘Bat Clan’” he finger quotes. “Just in case, o’course,” he adds.

Bessy nods seriously. “Oh of course.”

A young, recently transitioned boy stares up at the fearsome Batman, and glares.

“Stay away from me you hater!”

The boy wacks him with the bumbag he had just returned to him and, the vigilante so caught unawares, stumbles back. His hand falters up to his jaw.

Batman is left blinking, bewildered, as the young teen runs from him – making sure to stomp on the mugger’s fingers as he escapes.

What the hell was that about?

“And he didn’t answer when he got asked if he could love a trans person.”

“Really?!”

“Well, that wasn’t his exact words, and I can’t tell you who he said that to – privacy reason ya get – but he wouldn’t answer! He wouldn’t!”

“Wow, I never would have expected that from him…”

“Mhm, yeah. Now, let the other girls know please? I just want them to feel as safe as they can, you know the gals I’m talken about. And, just to be safe since that Bludhaven fellow didn’t pitch in either, avoid the all of ‘em.”

“Oh of course.”

Rebecca stares up Red Robin, shaking her head and pursing her lips. She flips her ginger hair over her shoulder and crosses her arms. To her pleasure, the young vigilante looks mildly uncomfortable even as he doesn’t break their eye contact.

“I’m real disappointed in ya, Red. Not gunna lie, I thought ya were bettah.”

“Um,” he shifts, “okay?”

Rebbeca narrows her eyes. Red Robin clears his throat.

“Is there- is there anything I can do to…sorry, what exactly am I being accused of?”

“A person should be allowed to express themselves!” She hisses, shoving her finger into his face. “Let them be who they’re meant to be! It doesn’t hurt you, right? The world keeps on turnin’!”

Now the vigilante looks more than confused, he’s visibly getting irritated, but Rebecca doesn’t care. He drags a hand down his masked face and looks at her.

“Bec. I promise you, as long as someone is kind, I could care less with what they do with their lives. Where are you coming from saying I don’t?”

Adjusting the girls, pulling up her tube top, she fishes for her lip gloss in her handbag.

She doesn’t break her gaze from his as she applies the gloss.

“You got no problem with the Trans folk?”

Red Robin starts. His jaw drops and, feeling more relaxed at his confuddlement, Rebecca watches with relieved  amusement at his floundering.

“Wha-No! No, no, what? Where you did, where did you hear that! I’ve never, ever had a problem with trans people, I’m friends with a trans person!”

Rebecca raises an eyebrow.

“Just,” he sags, “where did you get that impression? Is someone saying something? You know you can’t trust everything someone says.”

“Just trust me that it’s from a reliable source, m’kay?”

“Well I don’t,” Red Robin stresses, hands coming up and moving to further express his point, “I don’t have a problem with trans people. Or any people on the gender spectrum or in the LGBTQ community. I swear.”

She judges him for a second.

“Alright,” she allows carefully, and watches as the tension melts from the kid’s shoulders, “but maybe you should check with who you’re hang’en with. A person’s their friends afta all. Here’s your info.”

The USB he had given her a week ago is shoved into his hands before he can say anything.

She leaves the alley with him fumbling behind her.

And then Craig moves onto some well-meaning pranks. Just to, you know, get them off their high horses.

The new Robin is the best to annoy, Craig has found. The child is significantly more uptight than any other person he knows, and Craig’s worked fer Black Mask!

Craig grins at the enraged howl he gets, making quick work of hiding behind a gargoyle.

“Red Robin! I know this was you, you pathetic coward! I will hunt you down and tear out your lungs from your oesophagus!”

Maybe the Condiment King does have a place in Gotham.

(Robin ends up having to end patrol early, smelling strongly like mustard and mayonnaise – covered in glitter of the iconic colours in question, and his incensed curses could be heard within a five-block radius)

“How does this even happen,” Spoiler wonders aloud.

She and Red Robin stare in silence.

The bafflement is real.

“I think…” Red Robin starts slowly, “we’ve all pissed off some very annoyed people.”

The Red Bird is a glorious thing. Sleek, a dark red, with more gadgets than what it should fit. He’s not usually a car person but this motorbike is his pride and joy, if Red Robin says so himself.

Or, the Red Bird was glorious.

Now it’s just…wet with paint.

Spoiler wipes a finger along the seat, a mixture of pink and blue and white sits as a glob that she flicks away.

“How easy do you reckon this will come out of our suits?”

Red Robin shoots her a look.

“What? You think we can hose this down with our water bottles? You got a water gun in that tool belt? We have no other way home and I cannot be bothered walking there.”

Her partner glares, taking out a pack of disinfectant wipes. Spoiler watches as he begins to furiously rub away at the partially wet paint.

“It could be worse colourings I suppose,” she muses.

“Can you help?!”

“Nah. I’ll stand here and look pretty.”

Spoiler giggles at the annoyed huff she gets.

“I just don’t understand the sudden hate we’re getting,” Red Robin grumbles, working the gunk off the glass windshear. “How have people gotten the idea that we’re transphobic? Batman has rescued dozens of trans people from jumping or getting jumped, he’s not- none of us have ever shown any hatred to any one of these people!”

Spoiler tilts her head.

“Except Robin, maybe.”

The other vigilante stops.

“But he wouldn’t do that on, like, purpose purpose. He doesn’t really care about that stuff, or understand it, and Dickwing’s given him enough lectures for him to know that he can’t jus-“

“That’s it!” Red Robin crows, whirling around to her.

“…what’s it?”

“The Demon must’ve pissed off a group or something! He’d have said something offensive, as he does, and bam! We’ve got a bounty on our heads!”

Spoiler blinks.

That…doesn’t not make sense.

“We’ve gotta tell B,” she sighs. She glances at their ride and grimaces.

“Right after we wash our painted Trans Flag asses.”

And obviously he’s got to involve his niece/daughter – she’s the one that educated him in the rights of trans people in the first place!

He just wasn’t expecting the judgement.

“Craig, are you sure that this is what Batman meant?”

He huffs, careful not to move his hand. Gracie is doing a very good job at painting his nails in shades of blue, pink, and white after all.

“Of course I am Hannah, what else could ‘Could you accept me as I am? If I continue exactly how I am with my life choices?’ possibly mean?”

Hannah shrugs, picking at the throw on rug. She’s looking at him with amused pity and he does not appreciate it.

“Well, he’s a crime lord son of one of the original heroes. There’s a lot to unpack there before you go onto transphobia.”

Craig fails to see the logic.

“But I know I’m right with this, Han, just let da kids at school know? Spread the word?”

The teenager squints at him with judgement before she sighs.

“Ugh, Fiiiiine.”

Cass and Steph both pause their eating, making direct eye contact at the same time.

"-and so like, even though you wouldn't think it, it makes sense, right?"

"That Nightwing is transphobic? Tch, I doubt it, did you see that man on Pride day? Not to mention he's clearly a little fruity."

"Look, no one's denying that, but you can be gay and transphobic at the same time. Look at Chad!"

"Oi!"

"And Batman?"

"Well, there's all these rumours flying around my neighbourhood..."

"Mhm, rumours."

The gaggle of school kids leaves the cafe but both girls are still reeling. Neither care that the sexuality of their older brother figure is so passionately debated with teenagers their age, no, they have more pressing concerns.

"What the fuck is going on?!" Stephanie hisses.

Cass shrugs and takes another bite of her burger.

But of course, Craig knows that just because the Batman and Nightwing are obviously transphobic, doesn’t mean he can just lump the entire group together.

So he starts handing out flyers.

“Oi! Signal!” Craig waves the yellow figure down.

Watching the brightest bat vigilante make his way over, jumping across the rooftops, he fights back a yawn. Usually, he’d be in bed by now. It’s a Saturday, the girls are off doing their thing and so he usually takes this time to sleep in – catch up on his sleep debt.

But this is important, he can sleep later.

“What’s up, concerned citizen?” Grins Signal, landing deftly in front of Craig.

Craig straightens up, puffing out his chest, and clears his throat.

He hands a flyer to the vigilante, “here, take this. We’re trying to spread the message, stop the hate and unacceptance. This a cause you’d be willing to back up?”

Signal takes it and looks it over. Craig sees the little upturns of his mouth and holds back a grin himself. Gotcha.

“You know, Batman has been in a real tiff since all of this started,” Signal finally says, looking back up at Craig, “you wouldn’t happen to know anything about this whole ‘campaign’, now would you Craig?”

They’re both holding flyers signed Craig. T.

Craig shrugs noncommittedly and matches the tone.

“No, not really. I just know a guy, that’s all.”

“Hm, right.”

Patiently, Craig waits as Signal takes a closer look, mouthing the slogan Craig had so creatively created – Don’t get bitter, just get better.

“You know Batman and Nightwing aren’t actually transphobic, right?”

Craig has a feeling that, if he could see the other’s eyebrows, they’d be raised in silent judgement. And, look. Signal is…popular with the goons, so he’ll let that slide. Mainly because they don’t actually have to deal with him as most work at night, but also because he’s publicly black. Which Craig sorta gets? But he’s white, so…yeah.

He just knows that those in the POC community feel a helluva lot more comfortable with this yellow glowstick then the cops of the day.

 “Well, sure,” he gruffly says, “you’d say that because you’re on the same team as him. But Sig, you don’t gotta stand with his beliefs-

“No like he’s actually not- bitter,” the vigilante waves the flyer around a little. “Like, swear on my life dude, trust.”

Craig puts his hands up, universally surrendering.

Poor champ, so disillusioned.

“Look, all I’m saying is, there were some witnesses to the bad Bat himself rejecting a trans person asking for help and love, that’s all I know.”

Liar. The batman is secretly my boss’s father who is actually trans but won’t say aloud because he thinks no one willbeafriadoraccepthimanymorebutCraighasgothisback-

“Just, here,” Craig dumps the pile of flyers into Signal’s chest, the teenager’s (Why is there so many teen vigilantes? He’s having words with Batman) hands reacting instinctively to catch them.

“Spread the word, preach love, make sure your boss gets one, stick it in the batmobile or some shit- Don’t get bitter, just get better!”

Craig jumps off the roof and lands in a dumpster.

Signal’s confused scream of ‘Wait no!’ gives him a pep in his step.

Black Bat slowly takes the offered plastic flag, her little trans flag badge shining brightly against the street light.

“Cheers, BB,” Craig nods seriously.

Black Bat nods back.

(He gets the feeling that the woman doesn’t actually fully understand what’s happening, but he’ll take his supporters where he can get them)

(Black Bat understands what’s happening and knows fully well that she could explain that, could clear up this nonsense. She’s got enough of a trustworthy reputation for this lovely man to believe her- but she doesn’t. This is too fun)

And then, for some unknown reason, things finish up.

“Can I help you?”

Craig startles, nearly dropping the books in his hands when he whirls around.

The red-headed librarian smiles up at him from her wheelchair.

“Fuck, you scared the shit outta me lady!”

He tries to calm his racing heart but the woman, and he peers at her nametag, Barabara Gordon, only smirks in amusement. She raises a sharp, red eyebrow.

“Are you looking for something in particular?” She asks kindly. “I’ve just noticed that you’ve spent a while staring at this single bookshelf.

Craig flushes at the ears. Shifting all his book to be held against his side, he uses his free hand scratch his neck sheepishly.

“Uh,” he coughs, “yeah, yeah I suppose I could, um, use some help. Is there any recent books about getting’ a high school diploma when you’re a dropout? I just, I promised my eldest daughter I’d try finish high school with her.”

 Barbara softens.

“That sounds great,” she smiles, pushing up her glasses, “but you would have more luck with finding the programs online. Can I get you some of the textbook recommendations for studying for the GED?”

Craig has no idea what a GED is, but she looks smart. Must know her stuff.

“Sure, thanks.”

Fifteen minutes later, Craig towers over the library reception desk and awkwardly waits for Barbara to start processing his books.

“There’s an awful lot of Transgender books you’ve got here, Craig,” Barbara notes as she starts scanning ‘How to support your trans child’. She says it kindly though, Craig notices, and so his shoulders sag with tension release.

He shrugs.

“Yeah, well I’ve bin educating people lately, so I figured it’d be ‘propriate to learn da shit ma’self.”

Craig misses the way Barbara’s eyes flash.

“Oh?” She says, drawing his attention back to her. “Who have you been educating?”

He sniffs. “Just, y’know, the locals and the like.”

Barbara hums, looking a bit too interested now he actually looks closer.

“You know, I haven’t been able to get around like I used to,” she gestures to her legs, here wheelchair, “but I’ve heard some little…rumours. Has our local vigilantes been, well, in need of educating?”

Craig narrows his eyes at her and she stares back innocently.

His gaze drops back to his stack of books, the pride ‘all are welcome’ sticker on the notice board a few feet away. This whole library is the more middle class of Gotham, so if he says a few things…to a simple librarian…it won’t really affect him and work, right?

He leans forward and she does as well.

“I work for the Red Hood,” he whispers, scanning her face. There is no fear, no disgust, just acceptance, and so he continues. “And, recently, two weeks ago, I discovered that Red Hood is Batman’s son.”

Barbara twitches, faltering slightly before smoothing over. “Oh?”

Craig nods quickly, breathing deeply.

“And so you know how there’s been this feud between the two since Hood arrived?”

“Because Red Hood came and immediately went on a murder spree?”

“Hm, nuh, stop!” He shoves a finger in her face. “That’s only what they want you to think!”

Barbara stares at him. She blinks slowly.

“You’re losing me. What other reason would there be?”

Craig knows that Hannah told him he should never out somebody, but he had to make someone understand, and now that he’s finally able to explain his discovery to someone other than his mates, he can’t stop.

“Because,” he stresses, crouching down so he’s her height, “the Red Hood is a transgender male and Batman can’t accept that. Everything makes sense! No, look, look,” he protests at her flabbergasted look, “here the evidence.”

“He won’t take his shirt off because he has a ‘really fucked up scar’ on his chest,” he finger counts, “he literally told me that he ‘used to have another name, before… but that person is dead now’. He’s talking about his deadname!”

Barbara has a really…complicated look on her face. Pain, sadness, longing. Perhaps she knows someone like his Boss, Craig’s not sure. But he powers on anyway.

“And when he got does with a fear toxin he started callin’ for his-,” he stops abruptly. He realises then, perhaps too late, that he really shouldn’t be saying this. It’s not his secret to tell, this is public, how could he go and say this behind his boss’s back?

He starts to stand up but Barbara’s hand shoots to his wrist, stopping him.

“Please, continue,” her eyes almost beg, “I promise I won’t tell anyone.”

He stares at her, ponderin’ before slowly, he crouches back down. When he speaks, he’s lost the enthusiasm one would have after cracking a conspiracy theory, but he whispers just as fervently.

“He was wishing for his family,” he says lowly, “wishing they could still love him even as the man he’d become, then I overhear the Batman calling him son? Miss Gordan, there’s no other explanation.”

Barbara’s eyes have fallen to her hand in her laps, picking at her nails, tapping each finger against her thumbpad. She doesn’t say a word, not for a minute. Craig understands, it’s one thing to be nosy about the ‘hot goss’ but it’s another to actually comprehend what it would be like.

“That sounds,” she clears her throat, “they’ve got a strained relationship, then. Maybe, maybe Batman’s trying to make it better, finally.” Craig doesn’t say anything.

Her expression washes aways, she takes a calming breath.

She looks up, brows furrowed, as is remembering something.

“Did he-did he confirm that he’s trans? Female to Male, you said?  How are you so sure?”

“I threw him a gender party and he cried,” Craig intones seriously.

“…oh.”

Barbara finishes scanning his books in silence.

When Craig leaves, oblivious to the turmoil and confusion he’s just created, Barbara wheels into her offices. She pulls up a contact on her phone and, impatiently, she taps her nails against her arm rests.

The line clicks.

“Bruce? Bruce, yeah yeah, shh. Look, we’ve got to talk.”

It’s a cold night in Gotham. Nothing out of the ordinary, but it’s not appreciated either.

The lighter scrapes and ignites – a warm glow he can’t feel wavers in front of his eyes. This time, the wind doesn’t blow it out and it stays, burns brightly. He can feel it warming the metal and warming his skin.

It’s with shaky hands that he lifts the cigarette to the lighter, and it’s because of those shaky hands that it takes so long for the cigarette to light. But it does and the lighter goes out. A faint stream of smoke begins to rise and the tip begins to glow.

He brings it to his lips.

He breathes in, filling his lungs with smoke he can control, and he breathes out.

Jason’s lidded eyes open.

A quiet, almost unnoticeable thud sound behind him. He doesn’t startle. He just sighs.

He brings the fag back to his lips.

“Jason.”

“Names, old man.”

Batman doesn’t say anything and Jason exhales heavily, rolling his eyes.

“If you want to fight, let’s get it over with.”

Neither move.

“…I don’t want to fight.” Batman says finally. “I’m tired of it.”

Jason can hear footsteps coming near him, but he doesn’t break his gaze of the city. Smog ridden, towers of lights, various honkings of the traffic. Beautiful. Home.

“Yeah, me too.”

The intimidating figure of Batman quietly sits down next to his estranged son, only a stone gargoyle between them, and hesitates. But he knows he need to ask-

“I won’t be able to change, Bruce. Not really,” Jason breaks in, voice rough. “I need you to know that. Too much- too much shit has happened for me to go back to the kid you knew, we both know that.”

Batman hums.

“That’s. Okay.” He says finally. “I’m not the same either.”

“And I won’t stop being Red Hood either,” Jason mutters firmly. “It’s, you might not be able to see it old man, but the city needs Red Hood as much as she needs Batman.”

He waits for the rebuttal. The disagreeing, the preaching of morals, the list of sins that Jason has done ruined his soul with. It doesn’t come.

“Jason, are you transgender?”

The man in question chokes, his cigarette slipping through his fingers and falling down the building. He grabs hold of the ledge and swings around so he can stare at Batman incredulously.

“What? What the fuc-no! Is, did, it was Craig wasn’t it?! He got into your heads that stupid fatherly bastard. I told him, I bloody told him!”

Batman tilts his head, uncharacteristically uncertain.

“So…you aren’t Trans-”

“NO!”

Chapter Text

Bruce Wayne is forty-five, and he doesn’t understand people.

He doesn’t understand their emotions, doesn’t understand what’s so bad about this but then that is fine- he doesn’t get it. He’s not sure he ever will despite many, many, many people’s efforts.

Because, fundamentally, he is a simple person with a complex mind, and this does not always benefit him.

Take his motivations – help, protect, save – and then add a mind that processes more than it can handle, then throw in an onslaught of trauma that just… never gets worked through, and add a sprinkle of Alfred’s stubbornness. Everything becomes warped and twisted.

He’s got wounds and they’re not healing and he’s bleeding over the people he loves and-

This is where Batman comes in. A band-aid, a mask of indifference to control his emotions. Because, as Batman, he can make a change. Bruce Wayne is an orphan who just so happened to have a safety net of gold and green to fall onto.

But Batman is born, and Batman is real, and suddenly Batman can – help, protect, and save.

At least, that’s what usually happens.

That’s what is meant to happen.

‘And I thought... I thought I'd be the last person you'd ever let him hurt.’

It’s been approximately two years since the Red Hood arrived at Gotham, taking crime into his own hands that is, he’ll so very reluctantly admit, effective in method even if morally corrupt. Two years since the altercation between Red Hood and Red Robin in Titan’s Tower, and two years since Bruce has gotten confirmation that his son is alive.

He doesn’t understand that either.

Since then, the interactions haven’t always been pleasant, but Bru-Batman has begun to notice a trend. A steady decline in the dead bodies birthed by the Crime Lord. A rising pattern of team-ups between Red Hood and a Bird (Never a Bat though).

It’s given him hope that maybe, just maybe, he can get his son back.

For real.

And then…three weeks ago- Batman hears whispers.

Batman always keeps an ear to the ground in Gotham, he has to if he wants any advantage against the criminals he fights to put away. But his ears will always prick just that much more when Gotham whispers about his vigilantes.

But the rumours are so silly that, at first, Bruce simply dismisses them.

‘At first’ being the key word here.

For him, it all starts with a run of the mill mugging.

There was a man, likely trying to get money for his family but going about it the completely wrong way, attempting to mug a teenager.

Now, never will Batman say that he does this for the praise. Never. However… he’s sort of come to expect, after past experiences, that people feel grateful towards him. He’s either just saved their life or saved their friend or saved their possessions. So yes, to some extent, he expects at least a thank you.

“Stay away from me you hater!”

…

What?

As his eldest son would say, Exsqueeze me?

It did not escape his notice that the teenager he’d saved is male, but not at birth. That didn’t matter to him, but does that mean, taking all limited context, that this child thought he was- a hater?

Bruce brushes it off.

Lots of people dislike Batman.

Bruce didn’t even count that circumstance for a while, so far back in his mind of odd things that happened to him, that he ignored it and almost forgot.

Then Tim comes home from patrol, confused and bothered.

“Red Robin, report.”

Tim, his cowl off but still in uniform, runs a hand through his hair and shakes his head minutely.

“I don’t, I don’t even know, B. I went to Rebecca for details of this splurge of drugs people are taking, but it, she. I don’t- she accused me of ‘havin’ a problem with the Trans folk’.”

He quotes this exaggeratedly, staring at him as if to say ‘can you effing believe this?!’

Microscopically, Bruce rears his head back a little.

What? Tim is- Red Robin has made it clear that he will protect anyone of any background, especially those in his own queer community. He says as much to Tim and the boy snaps his fingers.

“Right?!”

His son swallows and starts taking off parts of his uniform, his gloves, his belt, his shoes.

“But then, she also said something that was…weird. Even for Becca. She said ‘maybe you should check with who you’re hang’en with. A person’s their friends afta all.’ What the flip?”

Burce opens his mouth and-

“You need to stop using such dated and, quite frankly, cringe lingo, Drake. It’s unbecoming of you, though I expected nothing less.”

Bruce lets out a sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose without thought – a reflex at this point when dealing with his children.

“Damian, what have I said about unnecessarily insulting your siblings?”

Damian is unrepentant. Simply waves the man off as he walks down the steps from the manor – as though he is reaching nursing home age already. Without any particular reason, both Bruce and Tim develop a twitch in their right eye. For no reason. Coincidental entirely.

“Who even taught him the word ‘cringe’,” Tim mutters petulantly.

Dick, Bruce sighs internally. Or Stephanie, he concedes.

Externally, he sends Damian one last disapproving look before returning to Tim.

“You’ve cleared this up?”

Tim scoffs. “Tch, of course. What’s more worrying though is that this misinformed attitude seems to be targeted at the entirety of us, not just Red Robin. You haven’t come across any instances similar to this, right?”

Bruce remembers the feeling of getting hit by a bumbag from a child shorter than his pecs.

“Stay away from me you hater!”

“Hn,” he says instead, focusing back onto the Bat-computer and plugging in the USB of information, “not recently, no.”

(Bruce is a big, fat, liar.)

But then patrol nights happen and reports start stacking up.

Damian gets his karma and comes to the Cave with multicoloured mustard stains and glitter in every single crevice of his body. When Dick tries to take a photo, the young man slips and falls, leaving an unfortunate splat on the ground that takes much too long to clean up-

(Tim eventually reveals the photo he’d taken, having lurked around to hide an

 injury, and Bruce pays him with a new skateboard and a lecture on safety to get it)

Then Spoiler and Red Robin get their bikes vandalized. Similar to how Damian was attacked but much more clear with the message of why. Stephanie has, of course, embraced it and used the excess to draw war paint on her cheeks.

(The girl had wanted to keep the bike how it was but Tim has already been suffering enough with this new…movement, what with Damian also paying him back for the photo he’d found out about, and so Bruce fought her off with a stick)

Duke’s room in the manor isn’t as lived in as the others – he only comes by when he feels like it after all, but as his sort-of not-father-but-more-than-coworkers, Bruce likes to take it upon himself to be the one to help Duke with his homework.

He notices a poster. He notices the corner has been teared off for a reason he cannot discern. He especially notices the bold words of ‘Don’t Get Bitter, Just Get Better’ emblazoned in blue, pink, and white. Colours he’s been getting much too familiar with lately.

(And he still doesn’t understand why. Why all these allegations? Who began this rumour mill to begin with? Again, why? When has Batman, any one of them, ever presented as transphobic?

Who did they piss off? And who pissed them off?)

…

(It was Damian, wasn’t it.)

When his daughter comes slinking into breakfast, all Bruce can do is sigh. Hold the bridge of his nose. Breathe in and then out. In, Out, In-

“I like your pin, sweetheart,” he smiles tersely.

Cass grins back. Happy and with a too knowing glint in her eye.

(She bloody well knows what’s going on, doesn’t she? When’s her next Hong Kong trip again?)

(Jokes, Jokes)

Kate, as Batwoman, poses in front of the Graffiti and grins proudly.

She tries to get the right angle.

“What are you doing?”

Batwoman startles, straightening up and whirling around.

Harper Row, as BlueBird, stares at her; unimpressed.

There’s a brief silence before Batwoman offers her phone.

“Take a quick pic?”

A minute passes and suddenly Batwoman is posing in front of Fuck The Batman!

She does a peace sign.

It goes viral on twitter.

“Master Bruce, I do not believe that staring at the screen for the past, oh, weekend, has done anything for you.”

“Alfred-”

“Are you any closer to finding the lost soul who started this?”

“…”

“Exactly. Come, Master Dick has arrived and I’m sure your son will want to do anything but this.”

“*Sigh* I know. Thank you, Alfred.”

“Of course sir, now, let’s get out of this Cave.”

They go back to the cave.

It’s a struggle that he’s not entirely proud of to hold back the smug smirk that threatens to pull his lips when Alfred stares at Dick in disappointment and resignation. His eldest, having greeted the family members in the manor, dumped his bags in his room, goes straight down to the computer in the cave, practically dragging Bruce as he does, to try and figure out this mysterious Trans Activist.

It’s a struggle that is technically lost because he’s pretty sure that he leered too hard at the butler.

The elder man harrumphs and stalks away with the British poise that perfectly conveys just how ticked off he is.

“So…any other instances then? Can we at least narrow down where the movements are centred around?”

Using the mouse, Bruce clicks onto another file and pages full of pictures of buildings, street signs, notice boards, and posters fill the screen.

“So far, regarding any interactions with us – it’s been limited. That doesn’t mean that they haven’t been moving though, in fact, they seem to be gaining traction and have roped others into ‘decorating’ the streets.”

Another page.

“It’s mainly the lower end of the city, Crime Alley especially but look, even the docks have evidence of Transgender Regalia. It’s…confusing.”

Dick furrows his brows, eyes darting and analysing each picture.

“…No offence, but, how would a resident of Crime Alley even be able to afford all this merch? They’d need a serious paying job.”

“Exactly.”

They work like this for the next hour and a half. Bruce compares the artistic style of the graffiti murals (of which there is at least three) and looks into the surrounding stores that sell spray paint as Dick surfs the internet, focusing on the Gotham civil rights social media area.

It’s a relief to have his eldest back, though perhaps he wouldn’t say that in so many words. Even just working a case together is nostalgic, like the early days, and he will always enjoy his son’s presence.

Especially since he can use Dick’s enthusiasm as an excuse to understand this…defamation.

As they nearly breach the two-hour mark, Alfred comes down with refreshments and a light dinner, pointedly setting it on Dick’s side instead of the middle. Just to be petty.

Never let it be said that Alfred is a saint without judgement.

Dick leans back and chews slowly, eyes scanning the dark cave above them – thinking. Bruce glances at him before focusing on his own meal of cheese and ham toasties with tomato soup.

They eat quietly together, the screen of the bat computers highlighting them and the trills

of the bats above filling in the easy silence.

Until Dick decides to break it.

“Do we actually know if the person you apparently ‘hate crimed’ is trans? Or, heck, even knows and supports this movement?”

That…doesn’t make sense. It- no.

“Why wouldn’t they be?” Bruce asks, furrowing his brows as he tries to follow the logic.

Dick shrugs, using a spoon to scrape the last bits of soup from the bowl.

“Well, I dunno, wouldn’t someone who’d supposedly got rejected by thee Batman for being trans, something no one has ever claimed before with the evidence against it, want to spread the message? Get some clout, make a YouTube video? It would rile up the media, that’s for sure. Maybe gain them some extra money. But,” he shrugs again.

“It just, it almost seems like all of this is done on someone’s behalf, y’know?”

…

Hn.

“Whatever,” Dicks sighs, waving his pseudo father off, “I suppose all we can really do now is just wait until this thing either clears up or another offence happens.”

He gets up, putting his plate and bowl back onto the tray.

“I’m going to head back up, Damian wants to show me Titus’ new trick, and Duke and Stephanie want me to play this new game with them since Tim’s at the Titans for this weekend.”

“See ya B.”

Bruce stays put, he already knows that if he leaves now and doesn’t make some kind of break through – his mind might as well stay in the cave.

With eyes beginning to hurt from the glare of the screens, he analyses what they’ve compiled. Takes in every photo and camera footage. Rereads the notes they’d written, trying to see if their vague hypotheses are valid or just a stretch.

… done on someone’s behalf.

He hadn’t considered that. He doesn’t really want to; it opens up a whole other area to investigate, but he knows he probably should.

In his solace, Bruce lets out a tired groan as he drags a heavy hand down his face until he’s cupping his jaw. He leans back, scrunches his eyes open and shut a few times, takes a deep breath, and then focuses once more.

Batman has other cases. Bruce Wayne has meetings to prepare for.

And yet, how can he do either when he’s getting accused of being transphobic?

He’s an ally, guys.

The alarm on his phones goes off twenty minutes later for dinner, proper family dinner, and so though he doesn’t want to, though he’s not particularly hungry, Bruce manages to heave himself out of his chair.

Bruce leaves the cave – defeated by an assailant of Blue, Pink, White, and Glitter.

And then, like an angel descending from heaven, Bruce gets a call.

The break he’s been looking for.

Barbara Gordan.

Bruce doesn’t believe in God, not really.

He’s seen too many things to believe in a being to be absolutely sure of one thing, one personification. Sure, his parents raised him Jewish, and he’ll go through the traditions when they come around, but that’s more out of respect for them than genuine belief. Bruce is the kind of person who needs to see something to believe something.

However, this does not mean he can’t understand why others believe in Him.

And that doesn’t mean he respects them any less.

So, though there’s only so much he can contribute to the Saint Mary Foundation besides provide money and logistic planning, he’s still very much interested in helping a food bank get off the ground in the name of Lord Jesus Christ.

It’s when he’s just finishing the finer details with the head of the project, Lee Marshall, does he get the call.

Shooting Lee a sheepish smile, they pause the conversation and Bruce tilts his phone up to see that- Barbara, it’s Barbara calling. She never calls him during the day.

He frowns before he remembers his company.

“I’m so sorry, Lee,” he looks up at the man and is grateful that the other doesn’t seem annoyed at the interruption, “but I should probably take this.”

Lee waves him off, shuffling some papers before getting up.

“No matter, Mr. Wayne-“ “Bruce, please,” “- we’ll take a ten minute break, hm?”

Bruce nods gratefully and waits until the other is out of his office before quickly answering; faint anxiety crawling through his veins as he does so.

“Barbara, what’s going on? Are you hurt?”

“Bruce?”

“Yes, is something-“

“Bruce, yeah yeah,” her voice sounds, rushed. “Shh. Look, we’ve got to talk.”

He swallows, clicks his pen.

“Okay. Go on.”

“So, I’m at work right now, and I think I’ve just solved your crisis?”

This gets Bruce to sit up straight, eyebrows raised in disbelief as he subtly checks the clock – is it too early to leave?

“Which one?”

“Which- Bruce! The one you’ve been wrecking yourself over the past few weeks?”

Closing his eyes, much more rela-less tense, he scratches his nose and sighs. That could mean anything, genuinely.

“Yes, but which one.”

“I- The trans one? The one where you’re getting slammed-”

“-Really?” He interrupts her, sharp and shocked.

It’s silent over the line and he winces.

“Sorry. Sorry, just, really? Tell me more.”

Her voice sounds annoyed, enough that he almost grins were he not so interested in the answer. He resists pressuring her to hurry up and just tell him.

“I’m trying to,” she stresses. “Shut up for a second and I’ll get there.”

They both wait a moment, waiting for the other to speak, before, finally, Barbara begins to explain.

“There was this gentleman, likely around thirty, who was looking around for books. I helped him-“

“What kind of books did he get?”

Sometimes, despite his age and experience that states otherwise, Bruce feels a little like a child. A child who can’t hold their tongue, too excited to wait the mere seconds it would take for their questions to be answered.

Or at least, that’s how Barbara somehow makes him feel.

“…As I was saying,” Bruce winces, “I was helping him find a book about getting your GED, he has a niece by the way - likely living with him – when I noticed that there was a surplus of books centred around Transgender support, biographies, and education books.”

Bruce is gripping his phone, hard.

“When asked, he told me that he was just helping educate some people.”

He swallows.

“And?”

“He’s a goon, Bruce. For Red Hood.”

She lets that hang, as though that was the most delicious clue or plot twist ever created. It, yes it was surprising, but where is the correlation? What does this information do for him besides send a pang of pain with the reminder of his wayward son?

Unless-

“No,” Bruce is aghast.

“Yes,” Barbara confirms fervently. “I didn’t believe it at first either, I still don’t entirely but-“

“Jason’s transphobic? I raised him better than that!”

The silence from the other end is sudden and heavy and full of disbelief. And judgement.

Lots, and lots, and lots of judgement.

Slowly, Bruce blinks. He turns over the statement in his mind, reminds himself of the context, the exact words she had used, and then collated all of this with the amount of sleep he’s had for the past week.

Perhaps…perhaps sleep is actually important.

Perhaps the ‘Best Detective’ mug in the cave really should go to Tim.

…

Only a disappointed sigh greets him when he puts his phone back to his ear.

“Barbara-?”

“I’m going to let this slide for you, purely because I know you’ve still been dealing with Scarecrow and his new concoction, however, please note that I am going to recover this conversation and that this will go straight into your blackmail folder.”

Yeah, he deserves that.

“The man’s name is Craig Tucker. He’s been under the Hood since the takedown of the cartel and is with a daughter and a niece – he’s sole guardianship over both. He is also,” she says sharply.

Bruce braces himself.

“One hundred and ten percent certain that the Red Hood is a transgender male who was rejected by his family. E.g, us. Or, more specifically, you. And he is not happy with your continual rejection.”

Barbara’s tone is accusing, but Bruce doesn’t care.

He doesn’t- He doesn’t. Bruce doesn’t understand.

…what?

No, no seriously, What?

“I- I don’t, I-“

“Bruce?”

“Mr. Wayne?”

He looks up sharply, eyes wide and mouth gaping. Lee is there, a worried look on his face. He’s hanging at the door, as if unsure on whether or not he should go in.

Bruce needs to pull himself together. He needs to use the years of dedication and training to school his face. He needs to compartmentalise until his mind is nothing but the task at hand. Bruce needs to, he needs to-

“Do we need to reschedule? That’s, Mr. Wayne, it’s really no problem.”

Yes.

Yes, that’s what he needs. He needs to leave.

“I, yes, thank you,” he stands up. Wiping his sweaty palms, Bruce leans over the desk and offers a handshake. He appreciates that Lee doesn’t look at him like he’s glass – just another man clearly going through something.

“I’ll have my assistant set up another date, does Tuesday work?”

“Of course.”

As soon as Mr. Marshall leaves his office, Bruce collapses back into his chair.

Wide eyes stare out to nothing, and like drums – his heart beats in his throat.

What, he doesn’t, when was this a thing? Is it recent? How could Bruce not know? Is this real? Is he real? Am I real? What are Jason’s pronouns? Is he still going by Jason? Or maybe Jacinta?

…is that why Jason ran away to his mother, because he thought Bruce wouldn’t accept him?

You would know if you let him back into your life, a voice whispers traitorously.

His blood stills.

“Barbara, are you still there?”

She is, and her voice sounds relieved when she speaks to him.

“Yes, Bruce. Is everything alright? Do you need-“

“What was this man’s name again?” He interrupts.

“…”

Bruce waits with patience borne from shock and a deep unfeeling emotion that spreads from his lungs to his throat to his mind. His phone feels, simultaneously, the heaviest thing in the world yet as though nothing’s there at all.

“I’ll send you the details.”

He hangs up.

It’s not hard to find a man who hands out posters with his name on it.

It’s not hard, but figuring out how to approach him is.

Barbara had done most of his work for him and sent him a file of Craig Tucker, a file in which Bruce pours over in the office within the direct manor (to send the message to his family that he can’t be disturbed unless necessary).

Name: Craig Joseph Tucker

Age: 29

Height: 6’6

Weight: 229lbs

DOB: 14/5/1989

Residence: 27 Elizabeth, Park Row, Gotham, 1124

Direct Family Members: Robert Tucker (Father; Deceased), Leah Tucker (Mother; Deceased), Jacob Tucker (Brother; Estranged-Likely Deceased), Melissa Scott-Tucker (Wife; Deceased), Gracie Tucker (Daughter; Alive-Seven), Hannah Tucker (Niece; Alive-Seventeen)

Direct Responsibility: Grace Tucker (Daughter; Alive-Seven), Hannah Tucker (Niece; Alive-Eighteen)

Occupation: Labourer of Red Hood (Crime lord; Feels Abandoned)

Ignoring the pointed and completely unnecessary sidenote, Bruce turns his attention to the Mugshot of this man. Previously gone up for armed robbery, excessive force, assault, and drug use and transport – no charges ever stuck.

Whether that’s from the corruption of the GPD or an unhappy yet loyal boss bailing him out, Bruce can’t be sure.

Craig looks…different than Bruce had thought.

He looks…mean. Cruel, almost.

When he’d first heard of this trans activist, Bruce had thought he’d be seeing the stereotypical Gotham protestor. Strong, but with a good heart. When he’d heard that this ‘protestor’ was a goon, his imagination had shifted from Gotham Tough to Gotham Goon Tough in looks.

But no, Craig Joseph Tucker is- a monster of a man.

A scar cuts through thick eyebrows that frame dark brown eyes. A nose that’d clearly been broken multiple times before that never healed right. Caucasian in skin tone yet with a layer of dirt that makes him appear darker in different lights. He’s got stubble, and double piercings in both ears. Tattoos decorate his arms, back, and crawl up the man’s neck. The shaved head of dark hair likens him to a prisoner.

And his physique? He makes Batman look lean and that’s all Bruce will say on the matter.

Reports say he wears a chain with two wedding rings.

Point is, when Bruce looks at Craig Tucker he does not see ‘Strong, but with a good heart’. No, he sees ‘White Mike Tyson with a grudge’.

Quite frankly, Bruce has no idea what to make of the man. Don’t judge a book by its cover, but what about a criminal file? Working under the likes of Black Mask isn’t always a choice, Bruce knows this much, but, if his deduction is right, the things Craig Tucker has done…

But Batman has the belief that everyone deserves second chances and that, to an extent, no one is unredeemable.

So it’s not hard to find a man who hands out posters with his name on it.

But figuring out how to approach him is.

(Dick offers him the advice of just asking to Talk, as if it’ll be that easy.)

(…it wouldn’t be that easy, right?)

Bruce is right.

It’s really, really not that easy.

Batman dodges another swing. An enraged shout follows, it fills up the alley like it’s something physical and Batman does his best to not outwardly react. If he shows the thug, bigger and taller and angrier than him as he is, that he sees the man as a viable threat – it will only make the situation worse.

“Craig Tucker, I need to-“

“You fuckin’ hater! I don’t get people like you!”

A fist comes down but Batman manages to sidestep. The gap allows him to get in his own jab, yet he doesn’t take it. That’s not the point of this conversation. His son wanted him to converse so he’s trying to converse but damn it this man is not making it easy.

“Mr. Tucker-“

“You’re meant tah be a good guy, a hero! How can ya- people rely on you but then you turn ‘em away. Why? Because they’re- because he’s- ‘cause I’m- Shame on you!”

The man’s eyes are bright, blazing. He’s riled up, heaving, and spitting mad. His teeth bared. The air around them goes still for a moment. There’s space between them, and there’s a pause in their ‘fight’.

Batman allows Tucker to catch his breath. He does this partially to show him that Batman isn’t attacking, that Batman’s not going to hurt you, and please just listen to him.

But he also pauses to take the other in.

This Craig fellow…he seems genuinely incensed. Genuinely- genuinely angry not just at Batman, but on behalf of another. The Red Hood. Jason. His son. It’s odd, not because Bru-Batman believes that no one could ever care for Jason, but because why are you so upset when I haven’t even done anything for once?

Of course, perhaps this deluded man has some merit.

A broken clock strikes right twice a day.

(He’d noticed what Bruce could not, and there is some shame in that)

“Mr. Tucker,” he tries again, low voice softer than he’d usually go for a criminal, “please. I need to have a conversation with you, and I believe it’s in both of our interests for you to listen.”

Tucker exhales heavily through his pierced nose. His hands are still up, like a boxer, and his eyes haven’t stopped moving even when he’d been catching his breath.

For a moment, Batman thinks he’s gotten through to the man. He thinks, maybe, words have actually served him better than fists for once.

Batman takes a step forward and-

Tucker pulls out a gun and suddenly Bruce’s vision tunnels. His body goes stiff.

“I’ve shot worse men than you, Bats,” Tucker threatens stonily. Hard and unflinching, with flinty eyes. “I’m not afraid to do what I deem necessary. You had yer chance, you blew it, and sure,” the man shrugs a shoulder, “you have the chance to do some good but quite frankly,”

“You don’t seem like a man willing to admit he’s wrong.”

Deep down…he’s a good person. And, deep down…I’m not.

Subtly, Bruce falters but Batman covers him.

“You’re right.”  He grunts out.

Visibly, Tucker falters. Confusion flickers across his face before it’s wiped away with resentment. In the poorly lit alleyway, scars littered upon his skin shine a little brighter and it, metaphorically, cements the understanding that this man before Bruce has suffered as well.

Bruce Wayne is forty-five, and he doesn’t understand people.

But, he’s got to try. For Jason.

“You are right, Mr. Tucker, in that I have shame upon myself. You’re right in that I don’t like admitting I’m wrong, and you’re right in that I had a chance for a relationship with my son and I destroyed it.”

The gun between them lowers a little, but the safety is still off and it’s still pointing at Batman’s chest.

Gravelly, Batman lowers his voice.

“So, I am asking you- please. Help me with my son.”

Tucker stares at him, thick brows furrowed, and lips pressed in a hard line. Bruce wonders what the man is looking for when he scans Batman’s impressionless face. Honesty? He’s never been more so. Guilt? Both Batman and Bruce Wayne are guilty of more than people think.

When Bruce had first seen Craig Tucker, he had not thought the man to be kind. With his violent past dating back to school, the tattoos, and his alleged criminal record longer than Bruce’s foot, he had thought this man to be only aggression and nothing else.

But isn’t that what some people think when they look at Batman?

“You called him your Son,” Tucker accuses in wonder (?), halted and unsure.

Bruce feels like slapping himself but Batman only tenses. That’s right. Goddamn it. That’s right. Jacinta, not Jason. Maybe. Likely.

“Fine. Help me with my daughter.”

The words sound foreign but it’s a difference Bruce will get used to, he wants to get used to.

Somehow, it’s the wrong thing to say, and Bruce doesn’t get that because what did he do now? Be better with words, be better expressing himself, be a better father, and for what? For him to still screw it up even when he’s trying?

“I thought you said you wanted to change, do better.”

Sharp to the point, dangerous, like broken glass.

The gun goes back up, and points at Batman’s heart without hesitation.

Against his better judgement, Batman lets Bruce’s emotions break through.

“You believe that the Red Hood is transgender, correct?” He growls darkly, roughly, and even though Tucker is clearly getting angry again, the man nods. “Right, well, I believe that too. But let me make this clear, this is a new thing for me and I am trying.”

Tucker baulks.

“You mean you’ve never met a tranny or ya didn’t know your kid was trans?”

“How are you so invested in Transgender rights yet say a slur so comfortably?” Batman questions. His attitude is unnecessary but how dare this man call him out and yet be hypocritical too?

Tucker rears back like a cat, “Tranny’s a slur? Ah shit, Hannah might’a mentioned that.”

He seems upset with himself too.

They both stand there, bathing in the dingey darkness of their city, unsure of what to do yet so entirely aware of their own shortcomings. Two completely different lives, utterly separate, and yet they’re both just fathers trying to do their best.

Batman clears his throat and tries to get the conversation back on track.

“I was unaware that the Hood was trans,” he speaks softly. “I- I lost him when he was young and, well, we weren’t close when he came back.”

“Cause he was trans?”

The white lenses of the cowl squint incredulously.

“I- no. Because he was brutally killing people and would go after Robin continuously.”

This gets an understanding ‘Ahh’ from the man, surprisingly. The gun drops, allowing Batman to minutely relax his shoulders, and is tucked away expertly.

“Yeah okay, my oldest might have mentioned that as a, um,” he sniffs, scratches his chin, looking a little embarrassed despite himself, “a possible reason. But the trans thing was the cherry on top, right?”

Taking a hesitant step further, to which he gets no negative reaction, Batman shakes his head a little.

“...no. Like I said, I’d only realised that Red Hood was a Trans Woman once I caught wind of you.”

Both men stare at each other.

“You mean, ‘Trans Women’ as in you’re actually just unaware of the terms, right? Cos, see, Boss used to be a gal, and now he’s a lad. So he’s called a ‘Trans Male’ even if he had a vajayjay when ya knew ‘im.”

How…crude. Also, what?

 “Look,” the large man waves him off impatiently, “I’ve done the readin’. A crap ton of readin’. Trust me when I say I know what I’m talking about. But. Yeah. Boss, F To M. Ya get me?”

But even a man of such strong convictions is starting to look unsure of himself.

Batman is trying not to judge, but it’s hard.

“…No. I don’t ‘get you’. I’ve raised Hood for years before he left, I know he is-was, most definitely a male. Born, at least.”

It’d be pretty hard to miss, all things considered, and even more impressive to hide.

Tucker sucks in his lips as Batman waits expectantly.

“…”

“…”

“Ah, shit.”

“Excrete indeed.”

Craig screws his face.

“Yer weird, even for a transphobe. Wanna get a beer to talk about this mess?”

Let him make this clear, this was the complete opposite of what Bruce had intended when he’d set out tonight. But, and let’s also make this clear, he really needs a drink.

He nods and the man beams.

“Great! But you’re paying.”

Hannah sometimes makes the Tik Tok reference of ‘Well this wasn’t on my bingo list for 20XX’ whenever somethin’ odd or unexpected happens. In fact, she’s said this so many times this year with the whole Movement he’s kickstarted.

So, all things considered, let Craig say that finding the closest bar and having a beer with Thee Batman was not on his bingo list.

But, it could be worse he ‘sposes.

It gives him the chance to ‘Educate’ the man at least, and maybe fix the boss’s relationship.

But what is he meant ta do? How does one start this kinda conversation with one of Gotham’s most feared and revered vigilantes? Of which he, personally, has turned people against?

With completely ignoring the elephant in the room and getting to the meaty part.

“So,” he starts, slamming his pint onto the table. Batman doesn’t twitch but he does give Craig his full attention. “Wanna know how I realised yer kid was actually trans?”

Batman shifts.

“That would be a good start, yes.”

And so Craig begins, he’s told this story to so many people (though, not as in-depth as privacy is a thing) that he’s got a knack for it. Though, for the man who’s caused so much o’ this damage, he does his best ta be even more emotive about it.

His goal is to hurt Batman. He wants the other to recognise the pain he’s put his boss through, to understand how Hood feels—since obviously Craig is the only well-adjusted one of them all to do so.

Craig watches as, slowly, the vigilante becomes less of a Creature of the Night and more of a Man. Watches as Batman sinks heavily against the leather booth seats, grip his glass tighter and drinks more freely. He notices every little downturn of the man’s lips and hunch of the shoulders.

This has been enlightening, Craig realises after he finishes recounting everything.

Batman really is just a dad who’s trying his best.

Craig can relate.

“An’ so, obviously, I thought he was, well, a ‘he’, but apparently not?”

Batman shakes his head, a feat that kind of impresses Craig since he remembers (in the earlier days) when the mask thing wouldn’t let ‘im. The man had to kind of turn his whole body to look at something – twas amusing.

“I would know if Hood was a female at birth,” he growls resolutely. The man pauses and Craig holds onto every word.

“It does make sense, however, for the amount of denial he’s-sh-they’ve spouted,” Batman stumbles over which, crap- pronouns. Right. “For Hood to be a Trans woman. They don’t fit the stereotypical feminine build, it’s understandable that his-their masculine body would prevent full self-acceptance.”

“Good point, good point. Hold on a sec.”

Craig isn’t conscious of the way Batman tracks his every move while he checks all the pockets of his jacket. He did just hold a gun to the man only half an hour ago. But finally, his fingers close onto what he’d been looking for.

A notebook gets dropped onto the table, a plain leather book no larger than his palm, and Craig wets his thumb to parse through to the right page.

How To Support Your Transgender Boss; A Guide.

Craig slides the book over.

“Here, take a look. A list of all the times I’ve gotten a vibe of Trans-ness, how I’ve dealt with that, and other ideas and evidence. Plus the name of a pretty good website for merch, if ya interested,” he adds easily. “I’ve done most’a this stuff but if you give it a crack, ‘specially with ya new knowledge, I’m sure he’ll – shit – she’ll be feeling the love.”

And then he pulls a face, having just thought of something.

“Huh, never had a lady boss before. Go society.”

In the time it takes for Batman to thoroughly look through his notes, analyse and ask further questions (Batman had stopped at the page dedicated to when Hood got dosed with Scarecrow’s fear gas, and this time Craig doesn’t add any commentary. Just lets the man soak it in), he’s finished his beer, asked for another one, and begins to cradle a bag of chips.

He watches with eyes that see more than people think as the other closes the book and leans heavily against the booth seat. Watches as, after a moment, the man places his elbows on the table and drops his head into his hands.

“Yeah, it’s one thing to be aware of it and another to be aware of it, ain’t it?”

Batman shakes his head.

“No. I. How did I let it get this bad? Jason is, he’s my son, my child, and I- I abandoned him. Made him think the worst.”

Craig slides over the rest of his beer and the vigilante takes it without thought. Drinks it deeply.

Jason.

Jason.

It’s decided quickly that Batman doesn’t need to know the slip of his tongue. The man looks in no position to have even noticed it, and he doesn’t need another thing on his plate.

Yes, Craig takes this secret and tucks it away with the rest.

It’s not even worth as much as people think, not now. A deadname is dead, after all.

“Don’t worry, Papa Boss,” Craig chuckles heartily. He heaves himself up and taps the wood in front of the other. “I’ve got a plan to fix this mess.”

Batman looks at him, wearily.

“Should I be trusting your plans?”

“Am I not your best hope?”

“…”

“…?”

“Fine.”

“Hello Black Bat. Nightwing.”

Craig says this stiffly, with reservation. He hadn’t been expecting either of them, and he can’t say they’re exactly welcome. Well, Black Bat is cool, but…

Nightwing beams at him.

With a grimace and a nod, Craig acknowledges him before turning to Batman with a raised eyebrow.

“Batman. You’ve brought guests. How, quint.”

“Er- actually I think you mean ‘quaint’-“

“Erm, actually, I think you should shut yer trap,” Craig snarks back.

Black Bat giggles quietly even as Nightwing frowns, taken aback and a little offended. Whatever, Craig doesn’t really care, Nightwing caused just as much grief to his Boss as Batman did and hasn’t yet apologised. So, there. Pettiness justified.

“I thought you said this guy was nice, B.” Nightwing mutters.

“I apologise for them,” Batman steps in, ignoring his eldest. “They weren’t planned but they found out and insisted to come along. I hope it’s no trouble.”

…fine.

“You lot caught up’ta date?”

A serious look paints Nightwing’s face and the young man nods. Black Bat doesn’t say anything but her nod appears solemn.

“Good,” Craig appraises. “Well then, got the goods?”

“How many times have you asked people that?” Nightwing questions cheekily as he passes the grocery bag that’d been dangling by his side. Craig snatches it grumpily.

“Boy, not now-“

“I’m just saying, sounds practiced. Since, you know, you’re a criminal.”

The underlying tension beneath his tone is obvious.

Black Bat jabs her brother (?) in the ribs, but while he winces, he doesn’t take back what he said. And that’s fine. Craig doesn’t give a rats arse about manners but-

“Oh I’m sorry, we got a problem here? You too good for me or sumthin? Well let me remind ya, pretty bird, I’m the one that’s solved ya little issue with yer brother-slash-sister, so why don’tcha give me some respect-?”

Nightwing matches the step Craig’d taken, and tilts his head until they're close and in each other's bubble. He’s cocky, but there’s also something else under it. What’s Craig lookin’ at here? What emotion runs in this one’s veins?

“Respect? Tch, you’d like to see that wouldn’t you?”

“From you? Yeah, maybe I would. Be a right new change, good lesson to learn.”

“Aw, would you teach me then? Sir.”

“What am I witnessing here?”

Craig and Nightwing pull apart, remembering they had company. Nightwing takes an awkward step back and avoids eye contact. Craig clears his throat.

“Nothin’, nothin’. Alright, uh, let’s get started then. I’ve got my stuff so let’s just- yeah.”

They’ve met in an alleyway, just behind a pizza parlour, and it was because Craig thought it would be just Batman. Three’s a party or whatever the saying is, plus Craig makes a big party, so they probably need more space.

“Let’s head to the roof, ‘s probably cleaner there too.”

Batman wastes no time grappling the few stories and so Craig is left shaking his head in jealousy as he starts making his way up the fire escape. He does, however, catch the tail end of Nightwing and Black Bat’s quiet bickering.

“Craig is father-age. Too old for you.”

“Uh, not really, BB. Dude’s only four years older than me and he   is   a   Dilf.”

He gets too far up the stairs to hear anymore, and they use their grapple hook anyway. Though his ears burn red, he uses the brief time alone to collect himself.

Well this is...new. Maybe, hm, maybe he needs to talk to Hannah about his own...hm.

Craig is ready for action by the time he makes it to the roof.

“Right! Let’s get down to business!”

“To defeat the huns~”

“Nightwing!”

It’s glorious. Truly.

Craig is a genius; he always knew school was irrelevant.

Batman stareds at the balloon with what Craig knows must be miraculous wonder, awe at Craig’s genius, and a slight hint of shame that he hadn’t thought of this first.

It’s a Girl!

“Smart, right?”

Craig puffs his chest proudly. His chest that adorns his original t-shirt from his first rodeo of group support shucked over his undershirt (no he had not flexed his muscles for-). Red Hood’s Greatest Supporters.

“You certain?”

Despite Black Bat’s question, she too wears a merch shirt. The bright colours stand out against her suit but she wears it with grace and Craig is proud.

Batman is still staring at the floating pink balloon.

“Course, sweetie, I’ve got experience in these things. I know what works, and this will work.”

“…ambushing Hood with confetti canons, gaudy t-shirts, and a baby balloon you got from a servo?” Nightwing asks, gaze critically sweeping over everything neatly laid out. “All at once,” he continues to add, doubt unhidden, “with Batman at the front without any of us even talking to hi-them?”

“Yes, I just explained the plan birdie, you hard o’ hearing?”

A laugh breaks out of the vigilante and he shakes his head with a toothy grin spread across his face.

“No, no. Just making sure is all.”

Craig nods, dismissing it as he walks next to Batman. He pokes the armoured shoulder and looks down at him.

“Well? This’ll start in an hour so are you in or are you in?”

“I-“

Now, don’t judge him, he’s been meaning to talk to Craig- it’s just life’s gotten a bit hectic the past few weeks.

Jason owes it to the man, though, to set the record straight.

The phone rings and Jason tries to stay patient.

“Yello? Tucker here.”

“Craig,” Jason greets casually.

He ignores the sharp intake of breath from the other side, Craig’s just like that sometimes. Instead, he focuses on bustling around in his base’s communal kitchen. He wants tea, this is a tea situation. He’s spilling the tea, so. Yeah.

“Uh, hey Boss, what’s up? Need me to come in?”

Jason fills his mug with hot water, watching the tea bag stain and swirl.

“If ya wouldn’t mind, yeah. We gotta chat about something.”

There’s movement from the other end, shuffling and muffled voices. Violently, away from the phone’s microphone, Jason can hear Craig shush someone. And again. One more time.

“Oh my God don’t you ever shut up!?”

“Tucker?”

“Nothing! Sorry boss, not you,” his goon is quick to reassure. The man clears his throat just as Jason grabs a coaster. “So, where d’ya need me? Base or a hotspot or where?”

“Base is good. My office as soon as you can.”

“Got it. Be there in ten.”

Jason hangs up. With a calm he doesn’t entirely feel, he walks back to his office, careful not spill any tea. He needs it, to soothe his voice.w

He’s got a monologue to practice after all.

Craig had left the balloon, streamers, confetti, and T-shirts in the capable hands of Black Bat. He trusted her more than Batman and Nightwing to stick to the plan and do it correctly.

So it’s with moths in his stomach that he waits for Boss to let him in.

“Boss?” He tries again. “It’s Craig, ya still wanna see me?”

The muffled voice of Red Hood filters through the door and Craig takes the permission to enter.

Remember Craig, pronouns.

Red Hood sits in her chair, helmet off, drinking tea. With a flick of her fingers, she gestures for Craig to take a seat. He does so, the chair creaking under his weight, and he tries to look relaxed.

She can’t know, right? There’s no way.

“Boss?”

“I need to talk with you, Craig, and apologise.”

Craig blinks. This…isn’t what he expected. Apologise for what?

Hood leans back in her chair and answers the questions Craig knows must be written across his face as if done in Sharpie.

“It’s my fault, really,” Hood begins. “I should have spoken up sooner, been more direct- more open about it all. And that’s my bad, I let you run away with ideas. Let you rope in the others, here and on the streets.”

Is she- is this?

“But I need to set the record straight here, Craig.”

Craig leans forward, eager and revering. Yes, yes set it ‘straight’.

“I just, and please don’t be upset about this, but I need to tell you the truth that I’m-“

Tell me, tell me please. The truth will set you free.

“-not Trans.”

-not a man.

Wait, the fuck?

Craig stills. His body is filled with cement, lead, bricks upon bricks. He can’t move himself, doesn’t know how. Can’t- Can’t think, can’t blink, can’t breathe. It’s- He doesn’t- What- Why?

“No.”

Even with a domino mask covering half his face (and shit he really is a he, isn’t? What the fuck what the fuck what the fu-) Red Hood looks uncomfortable. The man (freaking men, ruining everything) skirts his gaze around, like a coward, before quickly grabbing at his tea to drink.

Some tea spills in his haste, upon the mahogany.

The tea has been spilled.

How symbolic.

How…how could he?

And then he remembers, and the last few inches his heart hasn’t sunk to has been flattened.

Oh, oh no.

Though this realisation has shocked him to his core, it’s nothing compared to the sudden remembering that he, shit, he has a parcel on the way.

 A parcel.

Full of Transgender flags, pins, bracelets, hairspray, and more shirts.

A parcel, full of the Care that Craig feels for his boss, that costs two hundred and fiteen dollars.

“I need to sit down,” Craig says faintly.

Vaguely, he notices the Hood cock his head, confused, but he doesn’t care. There’s no air, he’s seeing the light, he’s seeing Mellissa. Tell his kids he loves them. Tell Batman that he’s proud of the progress the man’s made but it’s all for nuthin’-

“But, but you are sitting down.”

The Red Hood’s voice is deep, manly. A man’s manish voice that’s manly.

All the signs, all the signs were there. How had he-? What does he-?

“Craig, uh, buddy? You’re not looking so hot there. Do you need some water? Some tea?”

His phone buzzes before he can even think to answer and so, slowly, robotically, numb and dead and gone to the world, Craig pulls it out of his pocket.

Slowly, robotically, numb and dead and gone to the world, Craig types in his password.

He reads the text.

Your parcel has arrived, thank you for shopping at Amazon.com!

…

Craig’s eyes roll to the back of his head before he can help it. Briefly, possibly, he thinks he might hear the Boss’s concerned yell from across him, but he can’t be sure.

I hope he did, I want him to suffer, Craig thinks hysterically to himself before-

Craig Tucker slumps forward, unconscious.

Red Hood hovers.

Holy Shit, I didn’t think he’d take it that badly.

Craig does not get the chance to tell the Batclan of this new development – he’s been given the week off, paid, of course. Along with his boss’s sincerest apologies. He’s got the time but not the mental capacity right now to call Batman and let him know, he’s too busy eating ice-cream at home as Hannah rubs his back and Grace paints his toenails to black.

Funeral black, as all of his dreams had died.

It’s fitting.

“What is he doing?” Nightwing hisses, binoculars digging into his mask. “He’s going off script!”

Black Bat just sits next to him, legs dangling off the roof. Underneath her mask, there’s a small smile playing at her lips. If she were like the anime characters Tim shows her, she’d have a bright sparkle in her eyes.

They both watch as Batman hesitates on the roof two buildings behind where Jason sits, having a smoke and brooding. They watch as the man briefly struggles with taking off the Red Hood’s Greatest Supporters shirt, and they watch as he leaves behind the bright pink It’s a Girl! balloon.

“This will be okay, too.” She says simply. Sure of it.

They can’t hear what’s being said, too far away, but Nightwing releases a breath when it appears neither are going to fight.

A few seconds pass, when it’s clear that nothing’s really going to happen, and Nightwing slowly looks at the confetti blasters.

Black Bat catches his eye.

They grin.

“Phase two of the plan then?”

“Of course.”

“Jason, are you trans?”

The man in question chokes, his cigarette slipping through his fingers and falling down the building. He grabs hold of the ledge and swings around so he can stare at Batman incredulously.

“What? What the fuc-no! Is, did, it was Craig wasn’t it?! He got into your heads that stupid fatherly bastard. I told him, I bloody told him!”

Batman tilts his head, uncharacteristically uncertain.

“So…you aren’t Trans-”

“NO!”

Nightwing and Black Bat burst out from behind them, pop off the confetti canons, each throw a Blue, Pink, and White shirt that seems far too familiar, and-

“SURPRISE MOTHERFUCKER!”

“Taste Rainbow!”

Bruce still had the notebook Craig Tucker had given him.

He gives it to Jason.

While the specific topic is no longer relevant, Jason keeps it anyway.

Jason keeps the book but he also keeps one of the t-shirts his most loyal goon had made him. Not only had they donated the rest of the man’s merch, but Jason had also repaid him for the cost of this whole- thing.

The book, of which he, with Craig’s permission, sends off to one of Bruce’s connections to be made into a genuine little handbook. It was…he’d like to say surprisingly, but it’s Craig so it’s really not – it was very thorough.

It warms his heart. Makes him feel loved.

And he keeps the photo, too. The one one his lackeys, probably Rodney as that man has some skills with technology, had taken from the security cameras. Of the party, where Jason is surrounded by his goons, surrounded by banners and streamers and that cake with the shitty pun.

Craig Tucker is at the front, a wide and blinding smile on his face, and the words on his chest warms Jason every time he sees it.

Red Hood’s Greatest Supporters.

(“Are you at least gay?! Some type’a queer?!”

“When I want to be, yeah.”

“…”

“…”

“Good enough.”)