C'était quand la dernière fois que tu as passé une bonne nuit? Un endroit où tu t'es vraiment sentie rechargée quand tu as finalement rampé du paradis de ton matelas? Jason Todd ne pouvait pas se rappeler la dernière fois qu'il dormait, encore moins qu'il dormait bien. Une vie impliquant le néon spandex et la possibilité de se geler dans un bloc de carbonite avait tendance à causer des nuits sans sommeil. Sans parler de Wayne Manor, c'était trop calme. Bruce a beaucoup fait pour assurer sa vie privée. Batman a peut-être interdit à ses petits oiseaux de patrouiller, mais il n'a jamais parlé de dormir. Bien sûr, Jason profitait du luxe de l'eau courante et d'une salle de bain personnelle, on ne pouvait pas devenir Robin sans la gestion presque surhumaine de leur horlogerie interne, mais il était remarquablement absent de la réception de mariage.
Au lieu de cela, il se trouva en train de regarder le rassemblement se dérouler en dessous de lui à partir d'un petit salon au deuxième étage du manoir, portant exactement le même ensemble de vêtements que la nuit précédente et arpentant efficacement chaque accompagnateur. Honnêtement, un mariage public demandait des ennuis, et Jason était plus préoccupé par son extrême manque d'armes à feu que par la façon dont il cherchait l'événement social de Gotham du siècle. Damian lui avait donné un regard particulièrement venimeux quand il était debout et se préparer, mais le baiser, Jason était assez vieux pour prendre ses propres décisions vestimentaires, ou plutôt, assez défiant pour dire à Bruce de le coller. Lucius s'était même arrêté pour essayer de le réveiller, mais il savait mieux que de le traîner dehors. De cette façon, Jason pourrait être comme s'il n'était pas plus têtu que son mentor.
De plus, le sommeil privé d'ex-crime seigneur n'avait aucune vraie raison d'être là de toute façon. Le temps l'avait passé. Il pouvait le voir en les regardant. La façon dont Stephanie a antagonisé Damian ou laissé ses yeux s'attarder sur un Tim Drake. Cassandra a fait la même chose à son remplacement immédiat. Il n'a jamais eu ça. Dick était trop occupé à Blüdhaven pour le déranger, Barbara était trop occupée à le juger pour ne pas être Dick Grayson. Le reste ne le connaissait même pas. Quatre ans dans le sol et quatre ans loin de Gotham. La famille avait grandi, et il a été laissé comme un aberrant.
Avant de le savoir, un Lucius Fox avait apparemment convoqué le riff-raff à l'intérieur pour la cérémonie. Jason s'est dit que s'il avait des obligations, ce serait le moment, alors il s'est retourné et a fait son chemin vers le son général des voix et des violons.
!( "Jason Todd")
**Name:** Jason Peter "Jay" Todd
**Alias:** The Red Hood, Formerly the second Robin
**Age:** 24
**Occupation:** Unemployed
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**Skills & Abilities:**
- A naturally gifted athlete trained by the likes of Batman, Ducra, and the League of Shadows in a wide array of skills ranging from martial arts to acrobatics and espionage.
- Retains a vast amount of knowledge regarding Gotham's underworld and even the Black Market from his childhood and first stint as the Red Hood. As can be expected, he also has a fearful reputation lingering over him.
- Spends his spare time building and repairing certain vehicles. Everyone needs a hobby.
- Though not on the level of Bruce or Tim, Jason possesses a fairly analytical and perceptive mind that elevates him above certain members of the Batfamily when paired with his personal experience in the less pretty side of Gotham.
- Though he's recently begun turning away from firearms, Jason is still a crack shot with his pistol, and is a little too knowledgeable with explosives and military hardware. He also claims to be the best knife fighter in the Batcave.
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**Equipment:**
- A variety of knives, guns, tear gas, and other military grade knickknacks usually kept in his almost innumerable jackets.
- A customized Ducati Diavel specced to recreate Jason's R-Cycle.
- Jason's helmet is effectively toxin proof and allows him to breathe underwater, coming with its own explosive defense system and numerous vision settings. You know, average Batman upgrades.
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**Personality & History:**
_Straight outta Gotham_
Born to Catherine Haywood and Willis Todd, Jason never knew his father, who not only abandoned his new family but was in and out of Blackgate before Jason ever learned how to walk. Childhood in Crime Alley is rough, rougher yet when you don't have a father figure. Young Jason resorted to petty theft and fell in with a number of street gangs in order to survive, which imbued him with a certain level of grit and toughness not found in the other members of the Batfamily. Well, at least until Bruce started accepting assassins. And Stephanie Brown.
Growing up with a drug addict for a mother was hard, but Jason tended to stay away from home as often as possible, leaving Catherine to her devices while Jason built his reputation as the local street menace. Before long, Catherine fell into a deep bout of depression, and when Jason returned home from one of Gotham's secondary schools, he found his mother's body strewn out across the bathroom floor. Notifying the authorities, Jason sat there for a good twenty minutes before an ambulance arrived. Interviewed and shuffled off to the nearest orphanage by the police, Jason would escape only weeks later.
_Boosting the Batmobile_
As expected, Jason fell back into a lifestyle of petty crime in order to feed himself, the only major difference being that he generally avoided the numerous street gangs of the area. Just why he chose to steal the tires off of Batman's personal mode of transportation is a thing of mystery, even to Jason himself, who shrugs it off as something he had to do when asked by others.
To his dismay, or rather, extreme luck, Batman would arrive before he'd finished on the third tire, catching the then fourteen year old red-handed with the tool used to do the job. Rather than reprimand him, Batman offered to give him a spin. One bad decision after another led to Jason's first time seeing the Batcave, and soon enough, he had donned the red and green tights and yellow cape to begin training as Robin, despite one Lucius Fox's dismay at Bruce's approval of such.
Thrust from the life of a street urchin into the halls of Wayne Manor, Jason took to his new role in gusto, seeing as he had no biological family he cared for, and before long was legally adopted by Bruce Wayne, though he's obviously stopped adding Wayne to the end of his name, for rather blatant reasons.
_A Death in The Family_
Jason, unlike those who have since donned the mantle, did not have a particularly long and dignified run as Robin, but rather a short and tumultuous six months of heated arguments with Bruce and trying to prove to himself that he deserved the costume just as much as his predecessor. Jason was particularly unforgiving to Gotham's street criminals than his contemporaries, partially due to his troubled past and partially due to his naturally aggressive demeanor.
The only particularly noteworthy event during his time as the Boy Wonder was when he foolishly chased a lead regarding a weapons shipment to an abandoned warehouse in the Bowery. Caught in a trap by the laughing man of Gotham, Jason was beaten nearly to death with a crowbar and trapped in the building with a large pile of explosives.
His last thought was one of regret when he heard Bruce pull up in the Batmobile.
_Resurrection_
Dead for almost four years, Jason's body was recovered by Talia and Ra's al Ghul for unknown purposes. Jason does not know just how long they maintained his corpse, but after they had dipped him in a Lazarus Pit everything came flooding back to him. Manipulated by the Demon's Head, Jason trained with the League of Shadows for a period of roughly three months before he managed to learn of the Joker's still being alive. Jason managed to escape the League's compound without being discovered by Talia or Ra's, though it was rather obvious to both just where he intended to go.
Jason maintains that he never intended to enact vengeance on Bruce; the man was still the closest thing he ever had to a father figure, but he needed to learn a lesson Jason himself had learned all those years ago on Gotham's streets. Crime can never truly be stopped, only controlled and regulated.
Integrating himself into Gotham's drug trade rather violently, the Red Hood quickly gained the Dark Knight's attention, and before long, Jason was leading his former mentor on a goose chase to one final showdown. Stuck in his old apartment in Crime Alley with Batman and The Joker, just above where he'd attempted to steal the tires of the Batmobile all those years ago, Jason presented Bruce an ultimatum: His life, or The Joker's.
Of course, Bruce being Bruce, managed to get the gun out of Jason's hand. Betrayed and feeling truly alone, Jason activated a timed bomb and made his escape from the area, never to be seen in Gotham again until years later.
_The Lost Days_
Following his encounter with Bruce and The Joker, Jason chose to travel the world, seeing as Gotham was no longer worth his time or his anger. The next three or so years would be something of an adventure for Batman's fallen son, who would end up spending time in a number of situations; From Freedom Fighting in Qurac, mercenary work in Vlatava, freelance vigilantism in Zandia and even a trip to Santa Prisca just to screw with one of Batman's foremost adversaries.
While on a trip in Bhutran, Jason was approached by Talia, and after making a right fool of himself by shooting at her, Jason was hauled off to an unknown mountain range in the northernmost region of the country and delivered unceremoniously to Ducra, otherwise known as the head of the All-Caste, an ancient order of Monks, or something. Though reluctant, Ducra agreed to train Jason and help him master his anger and sorrow. It was Jason's time in the Chamber of All, reliving all of his past memories and coming to terms with them, that he saw that his time spent trying to find a purpose in anywhere but Gotham was the exact opposite of what he needed to do.
Deciding the life of a monk wasn't for him, Jason left the All-Caste with a new sense of understanding. Ducra gave him a letter from Bruce informing him of his wedding to Catwoman. Though he'd already made up his mind, seeing that Bruce was willing to build bridges after everything Jason had done was a reassuring thought.
He packed his bags and made his way back home. Hopefully he won't be greeted with a Batarang when he arrives without so much as a phone call.
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### Character Impressions
_Bruce Wayne, Batman_: "It's taken me a long time to figure out just what the relationship between Bruce and his so called children is. Before, it felt like I hadn't even existed. Killed by the Joker, replaced by someone that perfectly fit the ideal that was Robin, and before that, forced to emulate Grayson in every possible way rather than being myself. I went into that apartment expecting to die. Instead, I went on a four year brooding trip to get my head straight. Bruce may never openly admit it, but he needs us even more than we need him."
_Selina Kyle, Catwoman_: "Here I thought Lucius would've talked Bruce out of it. Honestly, Catwoman? Of all the drop-dead sexy femme fatales we've run into over the years? Shit, why not Wonder Woman or Black Canary? At least they make fighting Penguin and Two-Face a lot easier."
_Dick Grayson_: "One of the only cave crawlers to accept me for who I was, rather than what I was expected to be. I never quite got to have a brotherly bond with my predecessor like Tim has; "Busy with the Titans" was always the excuse, but we did have our moments. If there was anyone who I felt guilty for betraying all those years ago, it was him."
_Barbara Gordon_: "Ahh Barbie, if there was anything that proves that I should've pulled that trigger rather than...trying to wrench the truth out of Bruce, it's you. I don't expect you to forgive me, or to understand my misguided state of mind at the time, but I do hope we can be friends again, some day, but I understand if you never want to talk to me again."
_Tim Drake, Red Robin_: "My golden child of a replacement. Luckily enough for him, Tim wasn't in town during my little tirade, I'd hate to think what would've happened if he was. I do wonder why he named himself after a restaurant though, was "Big Belly" too obvious?"
_Damian Wayne, Robin_: "I wonder what the bride to be thinks about Bruce's dalliance with Talia? Were they even dating at the time? Honestly, Bruce needs to come to terms with his sexual frustration before it results in more kids that consider their katana their best friend. Do wish the kid luck with the cape though, thing was always tight on me."
_Stephanie Brown, Batgirl_: "Cluemaster had a kid?"
_Cassandra Cain, Blackbat_: "Did I miss the memo that in order to be Robin and or Batgirl you had to have a minimum of five years training under international assassins?"
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**Extra**
- Perhaps as a carry over from his time on the streets, Jason likes to assign nicknames to his closer acquaintances, such as "Barbie" for Barbara and "Circus" for Dick.
- Frequently caught talking to inanimate objects, such as (
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**Story Arc:**
_Making Amends_
After four years away from Gotham, Jason Todd has returned to the city of his birth on the day of Batman's wedding in order to reintegrate himself into the lives of the only family he has ever known. His time with the All-Caste allowed Jason to deal with and even understand his anger, and he now seeks something he'd never thought he'd seek out again: Redemption, a true sense of belonging, a place to call home. But past actions are hardly ever forgotten and even less so forgiven in Gotham, and Jason's got a long list of people to make amends with, and some less than friendly people are gunning for his helmet.
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!( "Red Hood")