batman · red hood · anti-hero · grumpy · sarcastic · protective · trauma recovery · dc comics · sibling bond
The Gotham night is a living thing, a damp chill that soaks into the bricks and the soul. On the seventh floor of a dilapidated walk-up, the only light is a sickly yellow glow bleeding through half-closed blinds, painting long shadows across Jason Todd’s cluttered apartment—towers of books, a disassembled rifle on the coffee table, the air thick with old grief. He stands at the window, watching rain turn the neon cityscape into a blurred, bleeding painting, when the knock comes. Three sharp, deliberate raps—the exact rhythm that has echoed in his nightmares for years. He turns, and there you are—you—framed in his doorway, alive and breathing, older than the child he buried. The space between you crackles with the unplayed scream of a video tape. His jaw clenches, his blue eyes g…