Crying, my little one, footsore and weary?

by llamallamaduck

Summary:

Death’s claim on Jason Peter Todd was a complicated, unpredictable thing. Whatever the reason may be, he is here, now; placed here by the same thing that revived him in his coffin, all those years ago. Picking himself up and carving a space for himself in a world that hasn’t planned for him is just what you do.

Or

Jason Todd dies and wakes up in a strange, new Gotham, populated by strange, new iterations of his family. It’s far from the worst thing that could have happened.

Notes:

A/N

Another WIP because of course it is. Blame Tumblr for putting the idea of Oscar Isaac as Harvey Dent and how ridiculously adorable Battinson would be as Jason Todd’s parent.

I plan it to be around 50k, tragically

Chapter 1

Jason’s death is all sorts of poetic. Not anticlimactic as such; it was plenty exciting. It was just—

 

In the rare moments he couldn’t strangle all introspection, Jason knew he was living on borrowed time. People don’t wake up in coffins just because. Something dragged him back; something used up a lot of energy and effort to piece his corpse together, heal all the copious trauma pre and post-mortem and breathe life back into the result. You don’t do that just because. If he were a better man, he wouldn’t have begrudged it. He made it past his third decade, didn’t he? He lived longer past his death than he had before it, right? Wrong. Jason could begrudge God the rainbow. It’s one of his best skills. He sure as fuck could resent owing a debt he didn’t ask for and wouldn’t have accepted. So.

 

So, anyways, Jason dies taking a hit for Damian, which makes the whole thing as kind as he could have hoped for. Talia and Bruce saved him and asked for nothing in return. Now, he could spit in the face of whatever force dragged him back, and save the person they love best. A person who, shitty manners aside, was an extraordinarily gentle child who grew up into an extraordinarily gentle man. Circumstances permitting.

 

He even gets to say goodbye, sort of. The magical spear thing stabbed him clean through the stomach, rupturing the femoral artery and embedding so deep into the ground beneath, Damian has to cut it at the tip or leave him impaled.

 

“No,” he says, putting up a hand. “Shut up. I know. This is it. Call for b’ckup, do what you need to do, but I’m n’t spending my nin’ty seconds afraid, ‘kay?”

 

And he agrees. He alerts Kon who will do his best to find a medic and fly them over, but—Well. They both know what’s what. The League teaches you how to smell death in a Goddamn second, and Gotham doesn’t let that particular skill dull. He turns on the video transmission in his lenses and lets the rest of the Batclan spend his last moments together, as is their right.

 

“So,” he says, “this sucks.” Sixty left. “Don’t beat y’rself up, ‘kay? Th’s is good. I can’t think of a better way t’ go.”

 

Dami speaks words he can’t understand, blood-loss being what it is, but he understands gentle palms and hot tears and kisses in his hair.

 

“Is go—od. Th—ank y—ou. ’M ha—ppy.”

 

---

 

When he wakes up, naked in a graveyard he doesn’t recognise, in a world that resembles his in only the loosest approximation of the word, the initial terror is almost immediately written over by fury.

 

Figures.

 

---

 

He is definitely in Gotham and the year is definitely 2019, so.

 

So—What? Because he sure as fuck recognises very little. The architecture is—Well, it looks like what he imagines Gotham would if the earthquake hadn’t wiped out a large chunk of it. Some of the gorgeous, run-down old buildings he loved when he was a kid still stand, but the skyline is barely recognisable. Gargoyles are extinct anywhere south of the Sprang, the buildings are smushed together in a way he distantly remembers could’ve been the case when he was a baby; back before the metas started smashing city blocks every other week. Downtown shows signs of damage, but it’s—tame is the only way to phase it.  Two-Face did worse when he was messing around. Hell, Ivy did worse. Most of all, however, where Wayne Tower had been, sleek, modern and forbidding, now towers a Gothic skyscraper that’s a hundred and fifty meters tall if it is an inch.

 

Jason knows, then and there, that things are only going to get loopier from here.

 

---

 

Crime Alley is a thing; sort of. He wouldn’t say it’s better or worse just—Weird. The air is thick with tension but it smacks of anger more than the resigned despair that Jason had left. It’s poorer, for sure. The city looks poorer but the people look richer, in a way. There are certainly fewer girls working the streets and homeless children scurrying around. Most notably, there’s less outright violence happening in the streets. That, for Crime Alley, is a telling statement.

 

That said, Jason’s been around for a while, and Crime Alley has been his turf for thirty-eight years now. He knows how to find an abandoned flat and pass out for twelve hours. The following day, he knows how to sniff out an appropriately dumbfuck gang to beat up and rob blind. First, get safe. Second, get intel. Third, get allies.

 

Safe is relative, but he liberates enough cash and rudimentary weapons from the poor excuse of a dealer’s ring that he’s set on the necessities. The attic space he’s squatting in hasn’t seen any tenants in at least a decade, so he’s set for space. Security-wise, nobody knows he’s alive so that’s not a big worry. So, intel is next on the list.

 

---

 

He can’t identify the heavy cocktail of emotion that twists his belly when he strolls into Gotham Library—unrecognisable, but not unpleasantly so—and stakes out a quiet nook. Bruce Wayne exists, and Batman exists, but—

 

He swallows, heart rabbiting in his chest. Bruce is a baby; younger than Jason. He’s younger than Tim. Moreover, Batman has only been around for a year and change and—

 

The gaunt young man’s picture captures his attention again. He doesn’t even look familiar, barring the crazy eyes. If his parents didn’t tragically die not five blocks from where Jason is sitting, he’d think this world’s Batman was someone completely different. Where is the playboy persona? The parties? The models? Where are extravagant shows of wealth and public donations? Hell, where is the Godforsaken Batcave?

 

What is this place? Why is Jason here? The Joker—still going by Jack White—is in Arkham, after a public but unremarkable trial for killing his parents and shooting up his high school. Selina is around, only she’s black and, possibly, a drug dealer, if the forums are to be believed. Alfred exists, but—

 

The Alfred search leads him into the Thomas Wayne search, which was apparently newly released by the Riddler—also a kid and a terrorist—which makes him shut the screen off for a moment and breathe quietly. Alright, so. Everything Jason knows is—Gone. Basically. The Wayne heir married the Arkham heiress. The branch of the Kane family that B should’ve come from died out in the nineteenth century. And Thomas Wayne was a politician, a possible mobster and—Fucking Arkham—

 

Jesus Christ, Jason is so out of his depth, here. He turns on the screen again and—

 

Flying Graysons are a thing, in that they’re alive. Decently successful figure-skating pair, but not successful enough to merit in-depth media coverage. Their Instagram page doesn’t say anything about children they may or may not have. Drakes, however, are both public, married, successful hedge fund managers with a young son, a twelve-year-old Timothy who is—A prodigy of some sort?  Chess and mathematics and—Okay. Again, apart from the name, there is next to no resemblance physically. If the League exists, he doesn’t find a word of it in any forums he clicks through which only leaves—

 

Because he’s a masochist, he clicks back to Bruce. He can’t help it—he’s a Robin. Kind of. Once you spend a formative part of your adolescence wearing garish colours and living in a bizzaro fantasy land, it sticks with you. B’s ever-expanding flock of Robins were known to be a feral bunch.

 

He tries to make sense of it, of Bruce’s hunched-in shoulders and rare, manic grins; of the fact that he lives in Wayne Tower because Thomas had donated the manor to Gotham City of all ridiculous things. Wayne Enterprises is a shadow of what it had been, too. Jason’s Bruce inherited a quarter of Gotham and acquired another quarter over his lifetime. His wealth was, quite literally, impossible to compute. This baby-Bruce was, yes, a millionaire, but nowhere near the scale of what Jason knows. What other people are.

 

On the other hand—This Batman works with the police. He is filmed walking in and out of crime scenes, easy as anything. Maybe—No. Even if he tried, Jason can’t imagine his, paranoid Bruce ever forming a formalised relationship with GPD. If the police worked a case, Batman stayed out of it and vice versa. With that said, this GPD was far from the toothless pointless it was in Jason’s world. They became a bit better after B retired and Dami took over, but—

 

Long and short of it is that capes just weren’t a thing, here. Jason’s Gotham was more or less run by capes and villains, with normal people split into mobsters and civilians, and their laws more or less reflected that. After No Man’s Land, the Gotham area was recognised as a sovereign principality, with only nominal ties to the United States. Here—

 

Well, maybe they’ll get there? Maybe—

 

His heart skips and he dives back in—Okay. So there’s no Superman, either. Some more clicking and—No Wonder Woman and Green Lantern and Flash. No Killer Croc, Ivy, or Clayface. No mutants. No metas.

 

Christ. Jason breathes quietly for a moment. A world with no metas. No Lazarus. No League. No resurrecting Jokers and—

 

He drags a shallow but long line down his arms with a pocket knife and sighs out a long sigh of relief when the familiar presence lights up in the back of his mind. Alright, so the All-Blades were there, kicking back in whatever place they waited until Jason was ready to call. Good to know. Still.

 

His stomach rolls a little. He can’t—Super-villains were a scourge but Super-heroes—He can’t imagine a world so devoid of wonder. Is that why this place feels so angry? Do they know, on some level, they’ve been robbed of all the beauty? No Joker venom was one thing, but Jason wouldn’t make that trade. Not if that means never getting to watch Supes racing with the Flash, or Kori flaming through the sky. No Garry prancing around like a bizarre bright green bear. No Constantine with his lights and showmanship. Just—People. Humans.

 

How very depressing.

---

 

For once in his life, Jason realises he doesn’t have a plan. What now? His family doesn’t exist. He doesn’t know the players, and he can’t even go to B. His Bruce lived in a world with magic, and even he would lock him up until three independent telepaths confirmed his story. Right now, he can’t even offer any information only he would know. He is—

 

He blinks. He checked on three Batkids as best he could, but—

 

---

 

The next several weeks settle something restless and frightened lurking in his heart. Yeah, he’s in a different world, alone and confused, but the turf is, in essence, the same. Uptown Gotham is in his blood, he knows it even if the streets are a little different. Most of all, now that he’s walked it up and down, scaled the roofs, met the gargoyles and soaked in the beat and pulse, he knows he can do this.

 

Thing is, with ages being what they are, he has no idea if baby Jason is even born, much less where. Hollywood may not have fucked Wills, and if she did, she may not have given him the kid. Willis may not have been, at the time, sucking the lifeblood out of seventeen-year-old Catherine Johnson. If she’s lucky, Catherine Johnson never met the dickbag.

 

Hollywood is the first place to look, and it doesn’t go anywhere, at least for now. A more extensive search might, but a cursory sweep through Gotham’s medical schools is a dud.  Wills is the next logical stop. He doesn’t even have a solid plan on what he should do if baby Jason isn’t born yet. Well, that’s not right. He’ll eliminate that asshole and contend with Jason Todd never being born, especially if it will save Catherine from that tragedy of a life.

 

In his world, Willis ran for Two-Face. Right now, Harvey Dent is an up-and-coming assistant DA, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and a flavour of pretty that made Jason’s head spin. He makes a note to try decently hard the kid doesn’t snap. You don’t waste those lips and that floppy hair. Point is, baby-lawyer Dent, so that’s the first lead, done. First and easiest. Alright.

 

June goes by in a flash. Since Jason is going to be staying here for at least a little bit, he might as well not completely half-ass it. If his slapdash investigation doesn’t go anywhere—which is looking increasingly likely—he will need to step up the game and start looking-looking. Which means funds and a more or less stable legal identity. Moreover, if he succeeds, he needs a comfortable place to stash Catherine—with a potential baby—if history had repeated itself. Contacts, money, identity. Easy-peasy.

 

---

 

This Gotham doesn’t have clearly marked territory, which is damn useful. The three big gangs—Falcone, Maroni and Black Mask—are spread out over Midtown and Downtown, but Uptown is more or less its own thing. So, when Jason starts picking off smaller gangs while wearing a streamlined but memorable red helmet, he probably isn’t stepping on any dangerous toes. It’s a practical approach, he’s pretty sure. He’s making a name for himself, that’s one. He’s making friends with the working girls and local drifters, that’s two. He’s getting a solid amount of cash, that’s three and, four, he’s clearing up the metaphorical drains of Gotham’s gutters. Not bad, in terms of multitasking. 

 

On the identity side of things, he knows the game well enough. The tech might be unfamiliar and the players unknown, but Jason has been a vigilante for two-thirds of his life. He’s made identities in countries where he didn’t speak the language. The easiest route, since he isn’t in a terminal rush, is to find a dead guy. With Gotham’s death rates being what they are, he has hundreds of men in the appropriate age range called Peters to choose from. First, he cuts out anyone not living in Uptown; that shortens the list by a fourth, what with the most violent deaths happening here. Anyone with a living family goes next, then he sorts the remaining ones by how much of a loner they had been.

 

Connor James Peters, age forty-one, is his final choice. Considering he lived his whole life in Uptown Gotham, the shmuck managed to live a remarkably unremarkable life. The son of a single mother, got emancipated when she died when he was sixteen. He became a translator, court certified, and barely left the house, doing most of his work remotely. Had a diagnosis to justify it, too. Crippling anxiety, depression, agoraphobia—You name it, frankly. Yes, a thoroughly unremarkable life that ended with a stray bullet between his eyes, from some strung-out asshole who held up a pharmacy.

 

The hacking part is a bit more troublesome because Jason doesn’t have time to do it properly, as in, himself. He can code bits and pieces, but the tech is different, here. He’ll need months just to get up to speed. It’s better to outsource it.

 

The fee is manageable. Twenty grand to hack into the government databases and change all the photos and fingerprints of Connor Peters. He’d be more worried about involving another human in this, but bouncing from identity to identity is pretty commonplace. Moreover, what would a random Chinese kid from Xi’an blackmail an American nameless man for? He doesn’t plan on making a name for himself, especially not as Connor Peters for fuck’s sake.

 

From there it’s smooth sailing. He flashes the shitty fake ID—the sort you order on the dark web for thirty bucks plus shipping—and pitches his voice to suggest he’s working up to a hissy fit, and Petunia, the counter lady, immediately loses what will to live she had, and issues him a copy of his birth certificate. With the certificate, he marches into the DMV and gets a new driver’s license, then into DOS New Jersey for a passport card.

 

It’s all a bit tedious, but the upside is that, when he finally gets back, he goes online, finds a fresh young lawyer called Zaila Asghar, and dumps his ludicrous story on her. He spent a year meditating in a cabin in the woods to treat his agoraphobia, and he found he was declared dead in the meantime, that his stuff was missing and his apartment sold. He doesn’t want to make a fuss, he explains, scowling in a way that should be familiar to any Uptowner, but he needs the papers, at least.

And that’s that, as far as identity is concerned. Zaila will go in his stead, just in case someone there had a good head for faces, and Jason has his hands free to earn some cash.

 

Similarly, his night job feels as familiar as breathing. He’s had to establish himself quietly but quickly so many times, it’s genuinely ridiculous. The only difference now is that he’s not looking to build a gang, and he’s not killing anyone he can’t dispose of perfectly. He doesn’t need that kind of attention right now. Jason isn’t looking to become a Bat or even Bat-adjacent. No, the plan is to figure out how many of his family are alive, how many are in dire straits and what, if anything, should be done about it.

---

 

Zaila files a lawsuit against the state that the harried attorney representing the state immediately settles for what is probably a paltry sum but suits Jason just fine. All she needed was the court ruling that Jason is in the right, here. With that in hand, she gets him all the crucial documents for living a legal life.

 

“The rest will take some time,” she says, frowning. “I already filed another lawsuit concerning your bank accounts and a compensatory apartment to be issued by the State, but—”

 

Jason shakes his head a little, beyond endeared at this show of lawyerly viciousness. “It’s fine. I have everything I need. I have a place I’m renting. Don’t even stress.”

 

“It is my job to stress.” Her grip on her pen, for a moment, reminds him of how Dami or Talia would thumb their hilts. “But it will have to wait. Nobody cares about documents, but getting anything out of the Government is like pulling teeth. The bank will probably be easier.”

 

Ummm. Are they talking about the same thing, here? Bank will be easier?

 

“I have a court ruling here that says you were the victim of gross negligence and identity theft. They will honour that.”

 

Hah. “Sure,” he says amused. “If it happens, it happens. Now—”

 

---

 

The bubble of satisfaction about having a full legal presence with a good credit score bursts very efficiently when the three hundred and eleventh Catherine Johnson he looks up is, by all accounts, his alternate mom and she ODd nine months ago. He can’t even beat himself up for taking this long to look her up. He can just—

 

It’s weird. Here he is, twelve years older than her and the wave of grief is—difficult to process. He’s never even met the woman. He wouldn’t have even recognised her; she looks nothing like his mum. But here it is, right in her Facebook profile. She married Willis Todd the day she turned eighteen. The profile shows everything, from the bright if hamstrung girl she’d been, to the downward spiral once Willis happened. If anything, it went quicker than Jason’s Catherine; Willis found her when she was a bit older, back there. Here—

 

He clicks in and out of her other social media pages. They haven’t even taken down her X-rated content. Did he—Did Willis actually—Is he still getting money—

 

Deep breaths. He was always going to handle him. This way—Yeah. He’s grown out of his more deranged mental pitfalls but he’s tempted to make an exception for the asshole who ruined a young girl’s life and kept profiting from the porn he forced her to make after her death. Yeah. Yeah, an exception sounds like just the thing.

 

With that said, as much as Jason would like to hit pause, dilute his blood with booze and find a sweet young thing to bully him, he is kind of on a schedule, here. Catherine didn’t say a word about a baby, but she wouldn’t, not when most of her online presence was so connected to sex-work. She did post about her husband-slash-manager a lot. Willis fucking Todd.

 

He’s younger than he remembers him. Big, broad. People would call him handsome. Unlike Willis of before, this one is Latino, with brown eyes slightly downturned in the corners, giving his face a soulful look. Hell, if Jason didn’t know what he knew, he’d call him handsome. The sleazy tats and shitty sense of fashion only made him look disarming. What a fucking waste of a good body.

 

---

 

With a name and a description, tracking Willis down takes two days. With Two-Face not yet a thing—or ever, if Jason has anything to say about it—he’s fallen in with the Penguin. Oswald Oz Cobblepot, as he is known here. Not as big of a deal, yet, but rising. Falcone kicked it last year, and Penguin’s always been quick on his feet. Jason—

 

Well. Pots and kettles and all that. Back home, Penguin was as decent a mob boss as you could get, even if he did stumble into the occasional investment into a weapon of mass destruction. He had to be, before, being a baseline human surrounded by metas. This new Cobblepot was cut from the same cloth. A gangster through and through, but not a sadistic psychopath like Falcone or Sionis. All his girls and boys are of age, he doesn’t cut his smack much and most of his cash comes from gambling, information brokering and racket protection. Sure, that might change once he spreads his stubby little wings, but for now, he’s someone Jason can reason with.

 

Cool yeah, except—

 

He needs more intel. He doesn’t even know if there is a kid in the picture. He can’t—

 

He looks around his place. It’s a nice place, for a rental. Two bedrooms, one of which he turned into a makeshift training room. Nice kitchen. A balcony. He has a solid amount of cash saved. It’s not—It’s not impossible. Technically. His legal situation is all sorted out, too. No rap-sheet. He’s not a wanted criminal to his knowledge. He doesn’t have any dangerous enemies.

 

He exhales. You’re getting ahead of yourself, Todd. You don’t even know if there is a kid. Just—Sort your shit out, first.

 

---

 

“Hey, Zaila, can you look into getting me registered as a foster parent?”

 

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