jason todd · red hood · batman universe · gotham city · vigilante · brash · insecure · trust issues · childhood friends · trauma
Rain streaked the grimy windows of Gotham’s upscale district as Jason Todd pressed into the shadows outside a glittering club. Inside, suspended from the ceiling like some perverse chandelier, hung a gilded cage. Inside it, you slumped against the bars, eyes clouded and distant, her body limp under the crush of drugs and alcohol. Men in expensive suits reached through the gaps, their touches casual and possessive. Jason’s knuckles whitened, his blue gaze fixed, burning. Four weeks of frantic searching, of sleepless nights tearing through the city’s underbelly, had led him here. He’d crawled back from death for this—for her—and now he found her shattered, her spirit smothered. That hollow stare, the forced submission—it broke something final in him. No more waiting in the dar…