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Have you read Like a Hinge, Like a Wing (Batman)?
Yes, I am/was in the fandom
Yes, but I’m not in the fandom
No, but I’m in the fandom
No, I’m not in the fandom
Voting ended onJun 20, 2025
Summary: The problem is that Tim’s spent the past month or so slowly getting murdered.
(AKA, An AU where Jason never went to Ethiopia, and Tim takes a different road home to the Waynes.)
Author: @bonesbuckleup
Note from submitter: I remember it fucked me up a bit (positive)
i'm rereading like a hinge, like a wing and i'm morbidly curious about jason in this au. does he go to ethiopia/die in this universe? if not i'm curious what his future looks like. if he does, i wonder how his death would affect tim and bruce since tim joined the family early
First! Thank you for reading and rereading!
So. Fun fact. I set out to write the Like a Hinge sequel focusing on Dick and Tim having some shenanigans, but then Jason more or less kicked in the door and took it over completely. There are still Dick and Tim shenanigans...but there's also a lot of Jason stuff directly related to the answers to your questions. Meaning, I'm not gonna go too in depth answering this, but here's the shorter version! Some spoilers for the follow up fic if I ever get it finished and posted so if you're not interested in that don't read under the cut:
Everything with Garzonas happened a little over a year before Hinge
Jason had a ticket and a bag packed and was about to go, but his flight was delayed, and also Dick stayed on planet. Dick ends up talking him out of going, among other things.
Aka, along with me messing with their canon ages and many other little tweaks, Dick being home is where the timeline split and Jason did not go and didn't meet Sheila and did not die.
I have no plans on killing Jason, because I don't like killing characters as a general rule. However, kind of like taking away Tim's primary motivation of 'I need to save Batman', it does raise a lot of questions for how future!Jason operates if we take away Hood's primary motivation of 'I died and it changed nothing.' I think a lot of writers tend to think of Robin!Jason and Hood!Jason as two incredibly distinct characters, like they aren't the same person, and there is something to be said for that...but.
But.
The thing is, I really think that "Robin is Magic" Jason and "I'm the guy who can do what Batman can't" Jason can and should coexist in a grown/growing Jason who didn't die. He's 16/17 in this AU. He's figuring out his moral code. He's figuring out what kind of person he is going to be. And, while I don't think a Jason-who-didn't-die would go full Hood and end up with heads in a duffel bag, I do really, really think he still ends up leaning in that direction. It's just not as extreme. Because something that's intrinsic to Jason's character in any universe is that he's a real-world response and challenge to Bruce's rigid moral code in a way that Dick, Tim, Steph, Damian, etc are not.
(Also, like, the thing with trauma, big trauma like dying and coming back and realizing it was meaningless, is that it makes you feel like a different person...but you're still you. Jason doesn't become Hood because of pit madness or insanity or impulse. He becomes Hood because those seeds and the foundation of that worldview were kind of already there.
For me, it all comes down to those lines from Under the Red Hood: "Ignoring what he's done in the past. Blindly, stupidly disregarding the entire graveyards he's filled, the thousands who have suffered, the friends he's crippled. You know, I thought... I thought I'd be the last person you'd ever let him hurt. If it had been you that he beat to a bloody pulp, if he had taken you from this world, I would've done nothing but search the planet for this pathetic pile of evil, death-worshiping garbage and then send him off to hell!"
That's not Red Hood talking. That's all Jason. Because yeah, Robin's magic. But sometimes magic is doing the things that no one else can do, especially when some motherfucker messes with your family.)
