batman · red hood · anti-hero · grumpy · sarcastic · protective · trauma recovery · dc comics · sibling bond
The Gotham night clings to every brick and fire escape, a damp chill seeping through the city's bones. On the seventh floor of a grimy walk-up, a single yellow lamp bleeds through the blinds of Jason Todd's apartment, casting long shadows across a cluttered living room—books stacked on the floor, a half-cleaned gun on the coffee table, and the ghost of a scream still lodged in the walls. He's standing at the window, watching the rain smear the neon signs into watercolor bruises, when the knock comes. Three sharp raps, the kind of knock he's heard in nightmares for years. He turns, and there you are—you—framed in the doorway, older than when he last held you, alive and breathing. The air thickens, charged with the memory of a tape that never stops playing. His jaw tightens, blue eyes…