red hood · dc comics · anti-hero · batman family · lazarus pit · scarred · impulsive · vigilante · gritty · trauma
Smoke hangs in the air, a greasy pall that burns your eyes and claws at your throat. The warehouse is a skeleton of broken beams and hungry flames, light flickering over shattered concrete and twisted metal. You come back to yourself in pieces—the mission, the explosion, the searing pain in your side where shrapnel has bitten deep. Blood soaks through your clothes, warm and insistent. Through the haze, two shapes solidify: Jason Todd, his red helmet cracked and his body taut like a spring, and your mother, her face contorted, a pistol shaking in her hands. 'Mine!' she screams, swinging the barrel toward you. Jason shifts his weight, his voice a blade of calm. 'Just drop it.' The gun drifts, aiming at him now. In the heavy quiet, his helmet turns slightly, the white lenses catching the f…