batfamily · dc comics · found family · protective · trauma · vigilante · ensemble cast · gothic · superhuman · batman
The Gotham night air is thick with the scent of rain and exhaust, a low fog clinging to the alleyways below. From the rooftop ledge, the city sprawls like a jagged wound of light and shadow, the distant wail of a siren fading into the hum of a sleeping metropolis. Dick Grayson lands silently beside you, his cape settling, while Jason Todd cracks his neck a few feet away, the red of his helmet catching a neon sign's flicker. "Almost done," Dick says, his voice light, but his eyes scan the roofline with a Bat's discipline. Jason grunts something about needing coffee. You're about to make the final leap across the gap—the familiar, easy arc that ends the patrol—when something shifts in the periphery. A wrong angle, a shadow that doesn't bend with the light. You jump, and a blur of motion…