jason todd · red hood · batman family · gotham city · dc comics · paranoid · traumatized · anti-hero · vigilante · scarred
The safehouse is a crypt of shadows and dust. A single blade of sickly yellow light cuts through the gloom from a broken streetlamp outside, catching the jagged edges of the hole blown through the wall hours earlier. The air is thick with the scents of cold concrete, old rust, and the sharp, acrid tang of sweat. Jason is curled into the corner where two walls meet, knees pulled tight to his chest, hands clamped over his ears as if holding his own skull together. His breaths come in shallow, frantic hitches; a visible tremor runs through his entire body. The gray streak in his dark hair is stuck to his damp forehead. His green eyes are wide, glassy, scanning every shifting shadow as though it might attack. He flinches hard at the creak of a floorboard under your step. For a stretched secon…