Work Text:
1- Drug Safety
Jason knows when he is being filmed. He was raised by The Batman. If he couldn't spot someone filming him, he would be a failure as a Wayne and a failure as a vigilante. But the first time someone films him, it’s about his thoughts on lacing drugs.
And, y’know, that's kind of important. Drugs are some god-awful shit, but they are worse when they are laced. It’s exactly what people in the area need to know. They need to know how unsafe it is. And, if that's what someone filming him is recording, it may not be too bad if it ends up on the internet somewhere.
He had his hood on, and they were in a location not easy to find through a video, so what the hell? Jason would also be a bad person if he didn’t know the names of his employees (grunts), so he knew exactly who was filming him, their phone number, even their goddamn house address. And, well, he let it slide. If the man gave up something truly identifying, he could just hunt him down.
What Jason did not know was that it would end up a Gotham net sensation literally overnight. He ended up in the goddamn newspaper. The Gotham Tribune was all “The crime lord ‘The Red Hood’ became an online sensation after he was recorded lecturing on the importance of routine checks on outgoing drugs. Is this crime lord reforming for the better?” And—hell no. That was the answer. No reform needed.
But Jason let it slide. The more people who see the video or paper on proper drug buying, the more people who don’t get themselves killed by buying laced drugs. And, hell, maybe the drug buying rate goes up in Gotham. It's not like it wasn't already higher than all the surrounding cities. It's better for drug use to go up in the city if the drugs are properly tested and circulated.
And Jason felt good about it. Partially because the video ended with him saying that selling drugs (even if checked) to minors was completely off the table. The Gotham kids, and even the parents, really needed to hear that.
2- Gun Safety
The second time Jason is recorded, he is giving a lecture on proper gun use. Yes, a lecture. Like a good old college professor. He is standing in front of several tables that seat his underlings and going over the proper process of handling a gun. This lecture was not unprompted, of course. The new recruits were absolutely shit with guns. Like really, really, really bad. One underling shot themselves in the foot because they forgot to turn the safety off. Just completely forgot.
So, Jason was stuck giving a lecture. You place your hands here. You turn the safety off like this. You don’t turn it off until you are getting ready to fire. Make sure there is not a bullet in the chamber before you cock it. Etc. Etc.
It was received well. It was almost received too well. Everyone on his team was suddenly twice as competent. And it took a huge weight off Jason's back. Even the goons who weren't at the lecture were suddenly holding their guns properly and remembering to check the gun chamber. Jason was wondering what the hell happened that boosted everyone's competency exponentially. Then he remembered. He was being filmed.
So he did some digging. A little digging. Barely any digging, really. And he found the video—filmed from the back of the room when he was lecturing. A whole 22 minutes of gun safety and handling. It was on fucking YouTube. Worse? It was titled “The Red Hood Lectures on the Importance of Proper Handling of Handguns. (Is this crime lord licensed to be a professor?)” No. The answer was no. Jason was barely old enough to be a professor. He was barely college-aged when he became a crime lord. And he had never even been in a college class.
Also, the video kind of made him look weak. Well, not him specifically, but it made his men look incompetent. And that was really the last thing he wanted.
He was going to hunt down the person who recorded it and make them take it down. He was. He really was. Then he looked at the comments. And, well, they were all like:
I’ve had a friend get gravely injured from improper gun usage, so this is really important to me. I’m just glad someone is speaking up on it.
And-
I’ve always been worried about carrying a handgun because I didn’t really know how to use it. But now I’m carrying it everywhere because it feels so much safer. I can finally walk in the streets without worrying about getting kidnapped or killed.
And even-
We live in a shit neighborhood in Gotham, and this made me feel like I could protect my kids. Thank you, RH!
So, well, y’know... Jason let it be. So what if it made him look weak? He dares anyone to try to stare down his or his men's barrel.
3 - Kid… Safety?
The third time Jason was being filmed, it wasn’t of him lecturing his goons. He wasn’t even at their base of operations. He was on the streets of Crime Alley doing his patrol. Well, not really patrol. There was a gang that had been causing trouble on the outskirts of his territory, and it was really starting to piss him off. So he was taking a look at it. More like giving the gang a warning to cut their shit out before he makes them.
He brought some of his men; of course he did. He could brave the whole gang himself, but what's the point in having henchmen if you don't use them? So, yes, he had a few men. And, yes, they had their phones. But who could really blame him for assuming that they wouldn’t be filming his random interactions?
It started out normal; they headed towards the warehouse on the very end of Crime Alley that was very obviously not being controlled by him, phones securely in everyone's pockets. But they stopped short. They stopped short because a group of children were walking towards the warehouse. Three children that could be no more than 6? 8 years old at most? And it was 4 in the morning—4 am.
So yes, Jason stopped to talk to them. Screw him for caring about children, I guess. He stopped right in front of the littlest one. Crouched right down to seem less intimidating and asked the kid what they were doing out so late. The kid's eyes got really wide, and he smiled brightly and said in the thickest Gotham street accent Hood had heard in a long time, “Youah, tha Red Hood! Youah so cool! My bubba says that you keep tha allay safe from tha bad gouys!” It was hands down the most adorable thing that happened to Jason in weeks.
Jason took a breath in and asked once more what they were doing out so late. This time he received an answer from one of the older kids. They stated that they were just taking a walk. But in the guilty way that said they were definitely not just taking a walk. Jason could feel the sigh reverberate through his entire body.
After staunchly ignoring the phone camera that he could see one of his men pointing at him, he asked once more what they were doing near this warehouse at this time of night. The kids broke easily and proceeded to regale him with stories of them dumpster diving and trying to find things they could burn in the alley streets. Apparently, the kids were planning on diving for food and then cooking it over a fire of whatever they could find in the street.
Jason was tempted to tell the kids that it was a terrible idea. He held his tongue, remembering when he was once a small kid doing stupid shit like that. Instead of telling the kids to please not do that, Jason reached into the utility belts on his hips and pulled out every single one of his energy bars—that he kept for emergencies. As well as the emergency chocolate that he kept on him because he deserved it after long patrols sometimes.
The kids absolutely lit up at the chocolate. And also the energy bars... but mostly the chocolate. They scrambled to grab everything that Jason had, robbing him blind. Jason then reminded the kids to please go to the Wayne Food Shelter, which he made sure was stocked and guarded at the end of the street, and please, for the love of God, stop walking around suspicious-looking warehouses at 4 in the morning. It’s his territory; goddamn it, kids aren't going to need to dumpster dive for food.
After the kids were fed and on their way to wherever they were sleeping (hopefully the shelter that was on the card he slipped between two of the energy bars he handed the oldest-looking kid), they headed into the warehouse. They dismantled the entire gang. And placed men at the warehouse so that it couldn't get taken over by some other idiot. Then Jason went home. He went home and completely forgot to get the men to delete the video they had taken.
The video was mortifying. It was on YouTube the very next morning, and it was titled “RH’s Reasons on Why Children Should Not Be Hanging Around Suspicious Warehouses at Night.” It got 100 thousand views overnight. And, at that point, Jason knew there was nothing he could do to stop it from circulating.
4 - People Safety
The fourth time Jason was recorded, he knew immediately that he was letting the video stay up. It all started when he met a very spunky and honestly batshit insane preteen in an alley while preparing for yet another gang bust. Jason controls the alleys all down the Park Row area. He knows where the working girls hang out; he knows the safe places where the homeless sleep. And he was pretty damn sure that the alley that they were going into to prepare for the mission was clear. It was shitty and smelled awful. Nobody wanted to be in it. That's why it was perfect for a five-minute maximum meeting with his men. Or so it seemed.
When they walked into the alley, it seemed to be abandoned. But Jason was not entirely sure of that fact. Immediately he clocked a scrambling sound. He thought it may be an animal. A racoon in the dumpster in the corner. Maybe a rat. His men flowed into the alley behind him, talking about the mission. The scratching noise stopped completely. Not an animal. It wouldn't have reacted that fast. It wouldn't have gotten that quiet. Jason knows he would hear scrambling.
Jason put his hand up. His men stopped talking completely. He mentally thanked them for their competence. The scrambling did not start again. Jason made his way to the dumpster. He made his way around the dumpster.
And then a person-shaped blob flung itself at Jason. He sidestepped and watched the person’s eyes lock onto his wrist before it lunged again. His men started moving. Jason put his hands up to get his men to stop advancing and sidestepped what he now could tell was a kid. He thought thirteen? Maybe fifteen. (Jason was not the best with ages.)
The kid was staring at his wrist, and the kid lunged a third time. But this time, when he got relatively close to Jason, the kid opened his mouth to bite him. And holy shit is that not insane? Jason couldn't help but let out a wildly hysterical laugh and grab the kid by the scruff of his shirt.
The kid was flailing and growling and borderline animalistic. And all Jason could think was holy shit Bruce would have one helluva time with this one. The black-haired, blue-eyed menace eventually realized that he would not be able to take down The Red Hood by biting his wrists and gave up. Going completely boneless in Jason's grip. And, Honestly? It punched the air right out of Jason’s lungs.
How many kids just gave up when an attacker or random adult caught them? How many got hurt because they realized that they couldn’t fight back?
A video was posted to YouTube almost a month after the biting incident. To be clear, the video Jason let be posted on YouTube was not the one of the rabid kid trying to bite him. It was actually taken several weeks later at the park that is situated right off of Park Row.
The video of Jason, lovingly titled “RH’s Patented Method of Defense,” was of him in his helmet, a tank top, and gym shorts, teaching a gaggle of preteen-aged children (including the one that tried to bite him) how to throw one hell of a punch. And, maybe, possibly, how to gouge a man's eyes out. Y’know… just in case.
5 - Honestly, this one is definitely not about safety. (Literature Safety)
Jason is man enough to admit that the next time he was posted on the internet, he was not aware that someone was filming him. Yes, Bruce trained him better than that. Yes, Dick would kill him if he found out Jason was so unaware. Hell, Talia would kill him if she found out that all his league training went out the window at that moment.
It was a normal patrol. That is to say, dark, repetitive, and filled with violence. This time, he didn’t have men that he brought with him. He had no reason to be out other than to make sure the area was doing well. No rouges were at large, no gangs were pissing him off, and no bats were even infringing on his claimed territory. It was a nice, normal, kind of boring patrol.
Until he came upon an alley and heard, “Jane Austen shouldn't have even been able to publish books; I mean, what the hell man was it was like in the 1700s?”
Jason paused. He backed up. Then he marched his ass right back into that alleyway. He noticed offhandedly that it was the public library at the very edge of his territory. It was trashed, but it was a library. So, how dare they talk shit about Jane Austen in front of the goddamn library? The shit they were talking about wasn't even correct!
The man facing the entrance to the alleyway jumped when the angry figure of The Red Hood marched right at him. The other man, the one that was saying shit about Austen, turned at his friend's surprise and comically raised his eyebrows when he saw who was coming down the alley. The man in the back stammered out that they weren't doing anything they weren't supposed to. And that they were just hanging out at the library and that Hood couldn't possibly be mad at them.
Jason ignored everything that the man was saying and stopped right in front of the man talking shit about Austen. Then he proceeded to say (shout):
“First of all, Jane Austen was a badass that totally deserved everything she ever wrote to be published. Secondly, she wasn't born until the late 1700s and did not publish her first book until 1811, so that's not even factually correct. Thirdly-”
So, Jason may have gone on a small (30-minute) rant about how badass Austen was, and maybe another small (20-minute) rant about the importance of feminism and female writers in the 17th and 18th centuries. And also an even smaller (15-minute) rant on how the men should respect the hell out of women.
After the men, who tried to leave several times over the course of Jason’s rants, had been thoroughly proven wrong, Jason proceeded to finish his patrol and go home. He was still thoroughly pissed, so he didn't even notice that one of his men, who was actually stationed to discreetly guard the food bank across from the library, had recorded him.
The video was posted that night and sadly titled, “RH’s Opinions on Classic Literature. Books? Jane Austen Specifically? Feminism? IDFK man im not the red hood.”
1 - The Safety of the People of Park Row
The only time that Jason ever recorded himself would be several months after the first video was posted. It would also be several months after an entire channel dedicated to him and run by his men would be created.
The channel boasted videos of several types, including but not limited to “RH’s Guide to Safe Alcohol Use,” “RH’s Guide to Staying Warm on the Streets,” “RH’s Guide to Throwing a Real Punch (holy shit some of the rogues are actually really shitty fighters guys),” and of course “RH’s Guide to Picking a Book That is Not ‘absolute dogshit why the hell are you reading that?’”
The only video that Jason knew needed to be out in the world was the type of video that would truly help. A video that he could teach. A video that would make the murder and rape rate in Park Row decline.
The video was of course lovingly titled “RH’s ACTUAL Guide for the Safety and Protection of the People of Park Row.” It was a video on proper self-defense, and it worked wonders (it also featured Hood kicking all of his men's asses and telling the world exactly how he was doing it). So hell yeah—if Jason was going to be on YouTube, he was doing it his way.