Chapter Text
Gotham was a beautiful city with her rain casting a glistening night as it distracted from the way her veins overflowing with never-ending crime and blood soaked streets. She was home to the worst of the worst, the damned and the ugly nature of humanity that hid in her corners and dark shadows. But she was also welcoming to all for no matter what walk of life you came from, she had a place for everyone somewhere in her depths.
It's the reason that Jason could never truly leave Gotham, why he kept returning even though the city had broken him down time and time again. It was home, in all its ugly glory. The streets had shaped him as much as they had broken him, the rooftops full of memories of lighter times and brighter days as they were of bruises and blood he’d shed.
He’d only been back a week, lying low as he surveyed the Alley more than the rest of the city to see what all had changed. He needed to figure out how much effort he’d need to put into taking the reins of his territory once more.
Crime Alley was a cesspool of vermin and he had spent several months to completely take control last time. The Alley was split between three small gangs, each unorganized, violent and without a care for what went through the streets. He was expecting that, knowing his leaving would cause the influx of those he drove out last time to come flooding back in. What he wasn’t expecting was to see so many new kids in masks running around by themselves.
He’d picked up on their names, at least their vigilante names, from listening in on them. They were undertrained, unaware of their surroundings and sloppy.
It pissed Jason off.
What the hell was Bruce doing?
He could accept that Bruce couldn’t save him. (He never blamed his death on Bruce but he’d never believe him and that was apparent since he had last told him) Could accept that he was replaced, that there would always be more kids to fill the shoes of Robin and he was powerless to stop it from reoccurring no matter how much he hated to see another kid made into a soldier. But he thought that maybe his death had meant something.
That maybe Bruce would take an extra second and at least make sure the next kid wearing a mask was properly trained. That they were watched more closely so there’d be no more headstones belonging to children that were made into child soldiers to be remembered as a warning and not as the kid they were.
The new Robin, he knew about. Not Tim Drake but of Damain. (Jason wondered if he was using Al Ghul or if it was just Wayne now). Jason had spent years with the kid and he knew that Damian would be fine with his training but he doubted that Bruce had accepted him. Jason knew first hand how that scorn had felt and he worried for Damian. (It was the real reason he had returned, once he had seen that there was a new Robin that used a katana. Jason had spent little time making a plan of action and instead returned to the city with a loss of what to do once he was back.)
He knew Damain was trained well enough to take over the Robin mantle, no matter how much he had hated that the kid was wearing those colours. (It was always an ongoing argument he had with Talia enough times that he knew there was no changing her mind on her plans with him. He couldn’t stand by and watch her hand him off to Bruce, something inevitable that he knew he couldn’t change no matter how much he had begged her, so he’d left before that happened. She had refused to allow him to take Damian with him and they’d parted on tense terms.)
But these new kids?
While sure, they could fight and hold their own through pure determination, none of them were properly trained like he was. They’d take hits and often only finish their fights through luck that the criminals they cornered were mostly low level thugs. Hell, they looked like they barely even knew how to use the tools that they did have.
Jason had only been gone from Gotham for two years.
Yet he seen as each of the kids patrolled alone in the rotten underbelly that was Crime Alley, all of them with so little special awareness that they didn’t notice him observing them. The armatures in expensive suits seemed to be the ones patrolling the area, sticking close to it and barely straying too far into Gotham unless if there was a bigger situation going down.
That was going to be a problem, if they were going to be hanging around while he put his plans of taking back the Alley into action.
Great, just another one of Bruce’s problems for Jason to deal with while rebuilding his gang.
Three more weeks had passed since Jason returned. He’d started making whispers about Red Hood returning by showing up at different deals and locations and only sticking around long enough for the gangs in the area to catch sight of him.
Unfortunately, that meant that Bruce had to have been starting to hear about it as well. Not that he really cared if he ran into the man again, Jason knew there was no way for the two of them to see eye to eye. Bruce would always see him as irredeemable as Jason would always see Bruce as someone who had failed to avenge him.
He was more worried if Bruce would bring Robin with him, because Damian would be able to tell it was him immediately. While it would be nice to see his little brother again, Jason knew that their reunion would only bring more attention to him and he didn’t need that until he had his position firm enough that he could recover from a confrontation with Bruce.
Thankfully Jason was skilled at avoiding Bruce, he’d ran the Alley for almost half a year before he put his last interaction with him into motion last time. Bruce and the others working alongside him all followed rotating schedules that didn’t really change all that much from when he was last in the city.
He had more than enough time to gather notes on all the sidekicks that jumped around the city and honestly, Jason had to wonder if Bruce had learnt absolutely nothing from the last time he was there.
Signal patrolled during the day, starting near the Narrows and working his way through until reaching the border of the Alley, then going through the busier streets of Gotham until 8pm. From there, he’d make his way back to the Narrows before disappearing. Jason was surprised to see a meta, (Bruce finally pulled his head out of his ass about his opinions on metas, huh?) though it looked like the kid wasn’t sure how to use his powers properly yet. He relied more on pure brawling than his powers, only using them to hide himself or to catch an opponent off guard. (Jason had no idea what his powers were, he was only guessing from his observations.)
Bluebird and Spoiler would take over the night shift, often going down to the docks before jumping across the rooftops of the Alley. They’d then travel to wherever Oracle pointed them, often deeper into Gotham’s downtown area.
Out of the two of them, Bluebird appeared less than Spoiler. She also seemed to stick close to the Narrows and leaned heavy on using tools in her arsenal to make up for her lack of fighting skills. She was smart in that regard, although he had seen her bite off more than she could chew quite a few times and if it wasn’t for her use of tools, she’d been eaten alive. She concerned him.
Spoiler was brash, but she was also the one who appeared to be the most trained. She clung to the shadows and often made a loud appearance, catching the criminals off guard as she took them on. She was quick on her feet, trash talking her opponents to use their anger and rage against them as they grew sloppy to giver her time to counter them.
While she was good at turning the tables in her favor, if she ever ran into someone who wouldn’t rise to the bait, she’d be in trouble. Spoiler was the most trained but her inexperience was obvious to anyone who’d study her move set. She survived this long because most of the more dangerous villains went after Batman, Nightwing or even Red Robin(Replacement really hung onto the Robin identity) but that didn’t mean someone more experienced in fighting vigilantes wouldn’t show up one day.
It was beyond irresponsible.
Jason took note of their routines, deciding that the new masks didn't really post a threat but more of a nuisance. He’d figure out how to deal with them later, for now he was busy with his own business.
It wasn’t hard to find out what had happened to all the men who worked under him before. They had scattered; some going to the new gangs that had popped up in his absence, some fleeing to other groups, a few succumbing to the streets and his most loyal henchmen lying low. When the whispered of Red Hood returning had begun, Jason didn’t have to do much and could sit back while everything fell into place.