Random chapters I can't get out of my head

Red Christmas

Jason pov-

I was in a really good mood as I went from store to store in Gotham city, getting everything on the scarily HUGE and LONG list that I held in my hand, that I almost couldn't hold in one hand out of the thickness of the list.

What was this list, you may be asking?

Simple. It was a Christmas list that all of my kids, the children that lived in Crime Alley, my territory, had made. There was another list just as long in my jacket pocket from the children in the Gotham City Orphanage that I had finished, and would it would be a little bit longer before I finished this list. 

What was I doing? Well, I was doing my yearly role as Gotham's Santa Claus for every child in my city, filling out all of the Christmas wish lists that the kids all make every year and give to their parents, who know that I am wrapped around their children's fingers and know that I will protect them and trust me to, and they give me the lists for me to do. 

I've been doing this for 6 years now, 8 if you count the years I started to do it when I was Robin all those years ago, and I had expanded from just doing it in Crime Alley to my Alley to the orphanage, and eventually to every kid in Gotham from 19 and younger. I myself was now 22, and happy with my full time job as Red Hood, crime boss and anti-hero of Gotham that ran with my family, the Batclan, but only when they really needed my help or when I was blackmailed and manipulated into joining them for something that wasn't life threatening (Dick, Steph, and TIM) and I ran and protected the entire East side of Gotham city, my territory, but helped all of the kids. 

Now, none of my family knew that I did this except Alfred, my grandpa and father figure. I knew that I was his favorite out of the entire family, and I enjoyed it. Alfred taught me everything he knows, told me every story he has about his life before the Wayne's, and had done a LOT for me and believed in me when the others didn't. Well, Cass has always believed in me too, but this was different. Alfred was the only one who knew the real reason why I never spent Christmas with the Wayne family, no matter how hard they tried to get me to show up at the manor. Every year, they would beg, manipulate, try to force me to go, and countless other things, but I would always refuse and lie to them, saying that I was either on a mission with the Outlaws or just busy in general, which wasn't really a lie because I WAS busy.

Anyway, since Alfie knew what I really did for the holidays, I was the only one allowed to not come to the manor for the holidays, Especially Thanksgiving and Christmas. I spent those two holidays with all the Crime Alley kids and the orphanage kids, taking all of them out and spending the day with them, then having the mega huge dinner that was famously cooked my yours truly and Grandpa Alfie sometimes, then opened the presents after dinner instead of in the morning, that way the kids that hadn't finished getting gifts still had an entire day to finish up.

Now me, I spent the 22nd, 23rd, and 24th at night time getting the gifts, but since I started doing all of the Gotham kids, I work all month at night getting gifts, spend almost all day planning fun things for the kiddos, and my free time was held by doing the dirtier and more violent part of my job as Red Hood and constantly hiding from the Batclan, since they always tried to track me down and find me to bring me to the manor against my will. I always had to be extra careful around the holidays, avoiding every camera in Gotham, not staying in any of my safe houses or the secret apartment I stayed in that the family recently found out about (God damned bloody REPLACEMENT!!), and I was forced to rarely sleep during the holidays so that I wouldn't get caught by the Wayne's, who were ALWAYS out patrolling and looking for me non-stop. 

Keeping this secret from them was getting harder and harder every year that I kept doing it, but I was managing. And, after the holidays were done, I would go to the abandoned warehouse that I found a couple of years ago and spend the entire time I was there just SLEEPING. I never slept much, and the second that I was free from the holidays, I went to sleep in the safest place in the city for me to catch up on the desperately needed rest that I sometimes barely made it to the warehouse before passing out from exhaustion. There was one time that I hadn't made it there, and I had woken up a week later in the city orphanage because some of the Alley kids had found me unconscious in a dumpster, having fallen from a roof, and another time, I was brought to Natalie Anderson's, a 12 year old little girl, place with her parents Jack and Kimberly Anderson, and the three of them had looked after me while I had slept for close to two weeks straight.