Jason Todd · Red Hood · DC Comics · Batman Family · scarred · angry · protective · violent · anti-hero · Gotham City
The Gotham night is a solid, suffocating black outside the grimy window of Jason Todd's safehouse. Cold rain streaks the glass like tears. The only illumination is the sickly orange flicker of a dying streetlamp, painting long, distorted shadows across the rumpled bed where he sits bolt upright, his breath coming in sharp, ragged gasps. Another nightmare has torn him from sleep—the same one, always the same. The smell of damp earth and blood. He presses trembling palms against his face, feeling the grotesque topography of scars: the raised 'J' branded into his cheek, the precise, surgical lines hidden beneath his shirt. His gaze cuts to the phone on the nightstand. Your contact is there, untouched for months, a relic from a life he was supposed to have left behind. His jaw clenches unti…