Chapter Text
Blood on the fender, in the sender’s shoe, in his
Liquor sack
Blood on the street, call it Milagros Boulevard,
Mercy Lanes #9
Blood on the alien, in the alligator jacket teen boy
Juan
There is blood, there, he says
Blood here too, down here, she says
Only blood, the Blood Mother sings
- Blood on the Wheel: Juan Felipe Herrera
Darren Gray thought of himself as a smart man; well, as smart as a lifetime gang-member-turned-disabled-pseudo-nurse could be. Surviving tended to be more important than reading books in school.
He’d done a lot of things in the name of survival: intimidation, extortion, torture, murder; the usual repertoire one tended to build in a Gotham gang run by Black Mask.
The GCPD had been all too happy to slap at least a dozen charges on him when he’d ended up in the hospital with a shattered knee and at least ten fractured bones after the Red Hood had crashed what was supposed to be a routine drug shipment.
The doctors told him he’d been lucky to keep his leg. A bullet to the knee wasn’t pretty, and he’d have to rely on a cane or crutch for the rest of his life, however long that would end up being.
It’d been two, almost three, years already, and a buddy of his managed to bribe the right person a few months back, and he’d been let out on parole on the condition that he work at a Wayne-sponsored medical clinic; in Crime Alley of all places.
Darren had tried to refuse at first. The Red Hood controlled the Alley, and he still had a penchant for killing shitty people as far as rumors went. Then he’d been threatened with a lifetime sentence in Arkham and immediately gave in. He might be a bad guy but spending any amount of time with the psychos locked up in Arkham was terrifying.
So there he was, slipping back into the familiar role of sewing people up and keeping a bland smile on his face whenever a face from his past would show up in the doorway of the clinic.
“Darren! I need an empty room in the back right now!”
Darren glanced apologetically at the man whose nose he’d been in the middle of setting, and pushed himself up, wincing as his bad knee twinged. It tended to do that a lot when the weather turned gloomy, which was most of the time in Gotham.
“Coming!” He called back as he leaned on his cane. He made his way to the back of the clinic and rounded the corner to see Dr. Thompson and Bug propping up the Red Hood, who was swaying dangerously between them.
His mouth went dry and he blinked, to make sure he was seeing things correctly. The man definitely had the signature blood-red helmet on, and the two guns strapped to his thighs were also pretty standard Red Hood.
The addition of Bug’s face which was as pale as a sheet only served to confirm his suspicions. Very little scared the 6’4” muscle of a man, but the Red Hood was definitely one of the few things that did.
Dr. Thompson glared at him. “Hurry up and keep your mouth shut,” she said and jerked her head towards her office. Darren shook himself out of his daze and tried to focus on finding an empty room for the patient.
Thankfully, the corner room hidden partly by Leslie’s office wasn’t occupied by a napping nurse, so he motioned for the trio to enter.
Once inside, he busied himself with laying out the medical supplies and making sure the machines were working as Dr. Thompson and Bug settled the Red Hood onto the bed. The Red Hood seemed to be familiar with her if letting her take off his helmet was any indication.
The Red Hood’s face was surprisingly young under the helmet, face still covered by a domino, (Darren wondered how paranoid of a person he’d have to be to wear a domino and a helmet) even though Darren wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting him to look like.
“Probable moderate concussion, suspected multiple gunshot wounds, torso, right bicep. Direct pressure, Bug, Darren. ” Dr. Thompson said shortly, helping the Red Hood pull off his body armor. Darren never thought he’d see the day when the Red Hood would be lying on a table in front of him, and it made his mouth go dry. He’d also never thought he’d be stopping the crime lord from bleeding out.
Once Hood was stripped of his very bullet-dented armor, Darren could see clearly the blood seeping out of a singular bullet hole near his ribs and what looked like a graze on his bicep. He locked eyes with Bug who was standing across from him, and the man’s expression told him everything.
Darren took a deep breath and told himself to pretend that the man underneath him was an old friend from the routes, and placed shaking hands over bloody underclothes. Bug, of course, fled the room.
“‘s not that bad, Doc,” the Red Hood said, his words slurring as she flashed a light in his eyes.
“And how many times have I heard that,” Dr. Thompson said tersely. “Moderate concussion it is.”
“It’s really not that bad,” he protested, despite looking a little more than nauseous.
Darren did his best to ignore the familiarity in their exchange and he was also certain that if he gave any reaction to anything the Red Hood was saying, he’d be a dead man before the sun rose in a few hours.
“Besides, I took out Black Mask tonight. Bastard was a slippery piece of shit.”
Darren almost lifted his hands in shock before Dr. Thompson fixed him with a stern look that read, what’s said in this room, stays in this room.
“As much as I’m glad he’s gone, are you certain you’ve thought this through?” She asked, ripping apart a package of gauze. “Don’t tell me that you’re going to take over, again.”
Darren couldn’t help but think back to when the Red Hood first made his entrance as a fledgling crime lord; eight severed heads in a duffle bag. He shuddered at the memory.
“Nah, just messing with you, Doc. B would’ve thrown a fit if I did that, can’t do that.”
Darren once again almost lifted his hands in shock.
Dr. Thompson hummed gently in response, unphased, and focused her attention on the graze, and then the rib shot after moving Darren’s hands aside.
Bug had returned to the room at some point with a tray, his face still ashen and drawn tight. Out of the corner of his eye, Darren saw Dr. Thompson gesture for Bug to move closer and then looked at Darren.
“Darren, there’s a couple of IV bags labeled UP019 in the back of the refrigerator, I need you to get two of them, Bug will take over for you.”
“You got it, Dr. Thompson.” He would take any excuse to get out of the room, the back of his shirt was already damp with sweat.
At the sound of his voice, the Red Hood’s eyes fixed on him with alarming clarity.
“I know you.” An edge crept into the former crime lord’s voice. “Three years ago, on the docks.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Darren swallowed thickly, and tried to back away to let Bug handle the situation. He knew he shouldn’t have opened his mouth.
A gloved hand shot up and yanked on his collar, hard. Darren was barely able to stop himself from crashing into the ground with a knee and grunted as a jolt of pain raced through his knee, his bad knee that he’d used to break his fall.
“Hood-” Dr. Thompson tried to say.
“You were in charge of dealing to kids and dealing with whoever was stupid enough to try and run away. You’re supposed to be locked up for a long time. What in the seven circles of hell do you think you’re doing out here,” the Red Hood hissed.
Darren kept still, very still. An injured crime lord was still a crime lord at the end of the day, and the two guns glinted menacingly at him underneath the fluorescent lighting. Bug stood frozen to the side.
“Released on parole, ankle bracelet monitoring, check-ins every other day,” he managed to croak out.
“Released on parole?” Darren tried not to flinch when the Red Hood’s face twisted. “Released on parole for all the shit you did you sick fuck ?!”
The cold metal barrel of a gun pressed harshly against Darren’s forehead and the sound of his heartbeat turned into thunder in his ears.
“I ought to make this nice and slow, Darren. String you up by your guts like a bunch of Christmas lights for the GCPD and tell the next shitstain that tries the get out of jail card ends up being fed to Croco and -”
“Hood!” The gun on Darren’s forehead was pushed to the side, and in his peripheral vision, he saw Dr. Thompson’s hand placed firmly on the barrel.
“Darren is here to help, and I will not have you kill him in this room or so help me, I will call Agent A.”
“You wouldn’t, you guys hate each other,” Hood said, domino lenses narrowing into slits.
“First of all, we don’t hate each other. Second, I don’t care, I will do it if you don’t put your gun away. No killing in my clinic.”
The silence stretched between the two. Darren focused on being a statue, he was a ghost who didn’t need to breathe or blink. It was only after Hood had dropped the gun with an irritated huff that Darren remembered how to inhale.
“Get him out, I don’t think I can look at his face any longer,” Hood told Dr. Thompson.
“Unless you want every single person in Crime Alley to know that you’re injured, I can’t do that. Darren knows when to keep his mouth shut and is the best choice in dealing with your injuries right now.” Dr. Thompson fixed Hood with a flinty gaze. “Especially since I will be strongly suggesting that you stay here for another six hours for monitoring after I remove the bullet.”
Darren never thought he’d see the day the Red Hood would look so cowed. It helped settle his still high-strung nerves a little.
“Now Darren, if you could retrieve those IV bags as well as a bag of O- blood, I would deeply appreciate it. Bug, please continue direct pressure before he bleeds out.” Darren scrambled out of the room as fast as he could, he really wasn’t looking forward to the next six hours.
Darren returned with the IV bags and a poll and hung the bags up while Leslie prepared the needles. One look from Jason was enough to make the man fold in on himself so Leslie sent him out with an exasperated wave.
Jason had sat up to protest, shoving the other man (Bug?) aside when Leslie tried to stick the needles in, and it was only after she reassured him that they were just antibiotics and hydration that he let her slide the needles into the crook of his arm.
Jason lay back down on the table, wincing as the movement tugged at the bullet wound on his side. Bug(?) placed his hands back onto the wound with a little too much pressure and Jason glowered at him.
“Be gentle,” he snapped, preening a smidge at how the man flinched.
“Do you want to bleed out? I thought so. Leave Bug alone, you’ve terrorized them enough.” Leslie admonished.
Jason glared at her. Leslie ignored him.
He let his head thump against the table and tried to tamp down the lightheadedness that came with blood loss. He was already regretting his last-minute decision to do one more loop, he should’ve just gone straight back to his safe house, but then he just had to get stuck in a fight that clearly did not end well for him.
“Anesthetic?” Leslie asked, holding up a small syringe, he shook his head and she placed it back onto the tray.
“Stand watch,” she told Bug, and he left the room as quickly as he had the first time.
“Didn’t know the clinic hired killers now,” Jason eventually said, after Leslie had fished the bullet out and cleaned his wounds.
“It was B’s idea if that makes you feel any better,” Leslie said with a particularly sharp tug at a stitch and Jason winced. “Criminal reformation program, to give them a way out.”
Reformation?
“They shouldn’t be here, that Darren? Absolute piece of shit. Used to be one of Blackie’s best torturers, got his hand on a fifteen-year-old once and the kid ended up dead in the bay with three limbs gone. He should be in Arkham, hell, he should be dead .” Jason would know, Jason had fished the kid out of the bay. Besides, Bruce was dead, what did he care about criminal reformation?
Leslie tugged at another stitch.
“I know. They gave me his criminal record when they brought him here, but the past is the past and the clinic always needs an extra set of hands.”
“So get volunteers, decent people who haven’t killed anyone.”
“It’s Crime Alley, you know this. Not too many people are able to keep their hands squeaky clean.” She went in for the last stitch. “Besides, the program’s been doing good work. You know B named it after you?”
“He named it the Failure Circus?” Jason wouldn’t be surprised if Bruce had at this point.
Leslie let out a long-suffering sigh. “No, he named it the Jason Todd foundation.”
It was the only other option besides ‘Failure Circus,’ but it still surprised him all the same. A flicker of hope and family sparked to life somewhere in his brain before the reality that Bruce was dead, he’d screwed up, and so that’d never happen squashed it. He settled for the tried and true method of deflection instead.
“I’m not dead anymore.”
Leslie didn’t seem to think that warranted a response as she finished patching him up. It was only after she’d cleaned everything up and Jason felt his eyelids get heavier that she spoke again.
“I know you don’t like Darren, I can’t either. But I trust him. He’s really changed since he got here since he discovered he could use his skills to help people instead of hurting them. People like him, they don’t get many real second chances.”
Jason grimaced, he knew what Leslie was saying was true. A lot of criminals who found themselves in the crime life never found a way out, due to money, wading in too deep, and not knowing any other life.
“You forget who my bio dad was like?” Willis Todd was who Jason would’ve become if Bruce hadn’t found him. Violent, angry, and living in a vicious cycle of hurt.
“I remember, and I also remember him before he made the wrong choices.” Leslie huffed, easing herself onto the sagging sofa. “I’ve been here for a long time,” she said softly, weariness creeping at the edge of her voice.
“Maybe some people don’t deserve a second chance,” Jason said, thinking about how much people got away with in Gotham. Petty crime, murder, rape, all of it meaningless if you knew the right people or had enough money to buy a judge.
“I don’t disagree, but some people do. A person can change a lot when they’re provided with the resources and choices to lead a different life.”
Leslie let her words hang in the silence between them.
Jason turned his head to the wall opposite of her. “If I didn’t know you better, I’d say you were preaching B’s no-killing rule at me.”
“I’m a doctor, Jason. I’ve sworn to use my hands to save lives, never to take one. That doesn’t mean I don’t think that there are lives that are better off dead so that no one else will be hurt, but it does mean that I still believe the vast majority of people should have chances to do better, to be better.” Jason opened his mouth to argue, but Leslie cut him off. “Now I know what you’re going to say, but hear me out, just for tonight. The pain one caused will never be reversed, no matter how hard one may try. But violence breeds violence, and death will always be followed by more death.”
Jason knew that and had seen the effects rippling across Gotham. The trauma, grief, and rage left in the wake of violence. It was, after all, the conception of Batman.
“I’m not going to stop,” Jason turned his head back towards her. “I have my rules and people know what happens when they cross me.”
Leslie smiled sadly at him. “I know you won’t, I’m just sharing the insights of an old woman with you.” She pushed herself to her feet, and gently squeezed Jason’s shoulder.
Jason couldn’t find the right words to respond.
She stopped in the doorway to look back at him, “Bug will be right outside. Darren and I will be checking in every hour.” Then she left, closing the door behind her.
Darren paced outside of the door, bad knee forgotten as he debated with himself if he was actually going to go in. One of the nurses in the front had asked if he was alright, and he had to paste a smile on his face and hurry away before she could pry any more.
He didn’t know what Dr. Thompson was thinking. Hood was absolutely going to kill him the second he left the clinic, and Darren rather liked being alive.
Bug nudged him with a sympathetic grimace, and Darren stopped to stare at the other man.
“Why do you have all those muscles if you don’t even have the balls to use them,” he hissed before wrapping his fingers around the doorknob and opening the door. The room was dimly lit and the scent of disinfectant lingered faintly in the room. On the bed, Hood was pointing a gun at him.
For a split second, Darren almost thought that Hood was just going to shoot him dead; ever after Dr. Thompson had threatened him. Then Hood cocked his head and gestured at the sofa with the gun.
“Sit,” Hood said, eyes never once leaving Darren as he very carefully walked across the room and sat down. The sofa sank under his weight and that meant that his knee was bent in a highly uncomfortable position. But it wasn’t like he could exactly stretch it out when the Red Hood was sitting less than two feet away from him.
Darren was only supposed to do a quick check-in to be completed in under five minutes. He could be dead in seconds. Saliva pooled in his mouth, and he couldn’t bring himself to swallow. Hood was still staring at him.
“Grow up in the Alley?” Hood asked, the gun now resting against the side of the bed.
Darren tried to respond when he remembered he still had a mouthful of spit, so he swallowed that and said quickly, “Yes, Hood, sir. Been here all my life.” ‘Sir’ was probably the right way to address the Red Hood…right?
A tremor ran through his body.
“Any family?”
“…none, sir.” He might have a few cousins but he’d never talked to them, wasn’t even sure if they knew he existed.
“Orphan?”
“Six, six years old, sir.”
“When was your first kill?”
“Ten, sir.” A gun, five hundred bucks, enough to last him through the winter.
A common story. His was nothing special in the ocean of homeless orphans whose parents had been killed by accident or in a hit. He’d been one of the luckier ones, actually. He never had to sell his body like some of the others did to survive.
“So that just gives you an excuse to run around on orders killing people and throwing them away? You ever think about how much of a fuck-up you are and that you’d be better off dead.” The bed frame creaked ominously and Darren eyed Hood’s finger that was still on the trigger.
“…I-I uh… I know I’ve hurt a lot of people and killed a lot more too. I’m never going to be forgiven for that, sir.”
Maybe in some other life, he would’ve grown up with a family, in a house. Never touch a gun or pick up the best ways to hurt someone with a knife. But that was just a daydream. The blood on his hands was overflowing, and if he let himself think too much, the weight of the lives that had ended under his hands threatened to drown him.
“You’re damn right about that, and you’re lucky you’re still inside this building because I will not hesitate to plant a bullet between your eyes if I see you out there.” Darren did not think Hood was bluffing- at all. “What do you want with this clinic?”
In the wake of a severe death threat and a trip down the rabbit hole of guilt, Darren’s brain shuttered to a halt and he blinked, mouth agape at the sudden change in questioning.
“I-I’m not sure I understand, sir”
“What I mean, is what the fuck do you think you’re doing here?”
“Oh.” What an incredible answer his mouth decided to provide.
“Spit it out.”
“It was Arkham or here, and I just… I just wanted to live. Always have, sir.” For a second, Darren thought he said the wrong thing because Hood’s finger twitched towards the trigger.
“Get the fuck out of my sight.”
Darren didn’t have to be told twice, he was out before Hood changed his mind and shot him in the back. He really hated his life sometimes.