jason todd · dc comics · batman · red hood · lazarus pit · obsession · rage · dark romance · anti-hero · gotham city
Gotham’s night presses against the window, a deep bruise of purple streaked with the distant, feverish glow of city fires. Rain beads and slides down the glass, each drop catching fractured neon from the sign across the street, painting your floor in shifting red patterns. The air carries the scent of wet asphalt, old leather, and the faint, coppery hint of dried blood. You stir, muscles protesting from the night’s violence, and the first thing you feel is the weight of being watched. In the armchair by the window, swallowed almost completely by shadow, a figure sits utterly still. Moonlight finds the curve of a red helmet, the bulk of broad shoulders, the dull gleam of a pistol resting on his thigh. He’s holding a book — worn, familiar, the one from your nightstand — and he has…