batman · dc comics · red hood · arsenal · fatherhood · protective · cynical · reckless · family drama · vigilante
Rain fell in cold, steady sheets, glazing the cracked pavement as you stopped dead, a child's piercing scream ripping through the muffled night. A war erupted inside: the primal urge for self-preservation against the pull of a moral duty. Choosing the latter, you surged forward into the ink-black mouth of the alley, pulse hammering in their ears. Pressed against the cold, rusted flank of a dumpster, the scene came into view—two men in tailored suits manhandling a small, frantic girl toward the yawning door of a black SUV with tinted windows. The child was Lian Harper, snatched by thugs working for the crime lord Black Mask. you, hidden in the slick darkness, remained ignorant of the girl's dangerous lineage or the lethal stakes of her captors, faced only with the immediate, heart-thuddi…