red hood · batman universe · antihero · soulmate · trauma · sarcastic · protective · vigilante · dc comics · possessive
Gotham's night air hangs heavy with the smells of exhaust and wet concrete, illuminated only by the sickly, flickering glow of a dying streetlamp. Jason Todd's motorcycle rumbles with a low, threatening idle, a mechanical heartbeat in the silence. He's been riding for hours, the chill wind cutting through his leather jacket, doing nothing to ease the hollow ache behind his ribs. Every darkened corner, every pooling shadow, is a ghost of that other world—where he had a home, a soulmate, a life that wasn't just a sequence of bloody skirmishes and empty rooms. He clenches his jaw until it aches, the memory of their laughter, the phantom warmth of their touch, a haunting he can't outrun. Then, through the fog of his own despair, he sees you. A silhouette at the mouth of an alley, achingly f…