AU where Jason decides to embrace being an Al Ghul after coming out the pit and rather than going back to Gotham, he just establishes the Red Hood as an Outlaw and LOA worker and moves on from his life as a bat. his life only crosses over with the Waynes again about a year or so after Damian’s settled into the manor, when the family are interrupted one evening by a masked teenager banging on the door, pushing his way inside when Dick opens it, and hurriedly telling Damian, “I need an alibi so mom doesn’t kill me. When she calls, you and Bruce need to tell her i’ve been visiting you in Gotham all weekend.”
baffled, everybody else watches as Damian looks up from his book in a bewildered fashion, gradually turns from confused to sceptical, and asks, “…Why, what’d you do?”
“I may have accidentally blown up another helicopter.”
Damian takes this in calmly. “Twenty dollars.” He demands. The masked teenager squints.
“Five.”
“Twenty.”
“Ten.”
“Twenty.”
“Eleven.”
“Nineteen.”
“Fifteen.”
“Seventeen.”
“Done.”
Damian takes the money from the older boy and then causally turns to Bruce before telling him, “Father, this is my eighteen year old half-brother, Hood. he struggles with paranoia and is slightly mentally unstable from being submerged in the lazarus pit while young, which is why he keeps his name and face confidential from everybody other than our immediate family on our mother’s side. if Mother calls, please tell her Hood has been staying with us for the weekend.”
the rest of the bats are completely indignant, but Hood just considers Damian’s words for a few seconds and then resigns himself to, “Yeah, guess that’s fair.” and doesn’t deny anything, baffling them even more.
and that’s how the Waynes become acquainted with Hood, the probable-pyromaniac-definite-bad-influence older brother that, as it becomes increasingly clear the more he comes around, Damian adores with his whole heart. it’s also how it becomes a semi-regular occurrence that Damian’s older brother runs to the manor to demand refuge and plausible deniability from whatever bullshit he’s done at the league that Ra’s 100% knows he did but can’t fucking prove, at which point Hood will just hide with the Waynes for a few days, masked up 24/7, running around with Damian and causing chaos, confusing the fuck out of everybody because this is the first time they’ve ever been able to see Damian indulge in a genuine childhood sibling-dynamic and it knocks the bats off their feet Every Fucking Time. the only time that boy ever acts like a child is when Hood comes to visit and it both infuriates Dick and Tim, fills them with jealousy, and makes them oddly relieved to know that underneath that weird victorian-boy shell, there’s an actual modern-day child somewhere in there.
also, Hood can be really fucking fun. and he and Dick get along like they’ve known each other for years, so it sometimes just feels like Hood’s a normal part of their family!
