“aww, go to hell”

“Lose the boob tape. A good nip slip will liven things up.”

You fight a smile and continue to secure the neckline of your dress into place.

“Seriously, I’m sure some of those old bats haven’t seen a nipple since the nineties. You’d be doing them a favor.”

This time you laugh out loud.

You’re in the bathroom getting ready for the research gala. Your phone is propped up on the vanity, and Chelsea has been offering increasingly ridiculous commentary over the past half hour. She’s grading papers on her couch at home, working her way through the bottle of wine and the bar of chocolate next to her.

“I think I should probably graduate before flashing the faculty,” you grin.

“Nonsense, flashing them will probably help you graduate. You look hot, babe.”

“You think?”

Doing your hair and makeup is a rare occurrence for you, and you’ve been fighting your eyeliner for what feels like forever. You’re only thirty percent sure your hair is going to hold all night, and you’ve already given up on lipstick in favor of some clear lip balm.

“Smash, next question.”

You know she’s obligated under the laws of friendship to hype you up, but it still makes you feel better. You smile. She’s an associate professor in gender and women’s studies at Chatham, and you listen happily to her chatter about her students while you finish getting ready. When you finally step back and show her the completed look, she lets out a low whistle.

“Damn, babes. You sure you don’t want a date to this? I’m happy to volunteer, since the stick in the mud isn’t coming.”

You don’t even have a chance to answer before Brendon calls from the bedroom-

“I can hear you, you fucking harpy.”

Far from looking embarrassed at being caught, Chelsea looks delighted. 

“Oh, hey dipstick.”

He doesn’t respond, and you smile fondly. 

“Be nice,” you tell Chelsea.

“But he’s so fun to annoy.”

You kind of agree. But you can’t tell her that, or she’ll double down on the antics, and then Brendon really might commit murder. So you give her your best stern face, which predictably does nothing, and resign yourself to a lifetime of playing referee. 

“Alright,” you say. “I have to get going, but I’ll tell you about it later?”

“What do you mean later. Text me during. I want the running commentary.”

You agree with a laugh and hang up. You double-check that the Uber is going to get here in ten minutes, then put your phone in your clutch. You’re not planning on drinking much tonight, but you’re a lightweight, so better safe than sorry. Ready, you take one last glance in the mirror.

You’re wearing a jade and gold fit-and-flare gown with a square neckline and delicate straps. The fabric is close to a brocade and reminds you of your grandma’s ancient floral couch — you’d seen it in the store and loved it immediately. Your jewelry is simple, just a delicate gold bracelet and some small gold hoops, and your clutch isn’t an exact match, but close enough.

Brendon is sitting in the armchair by the window when you walk into the bedroom. He’s flipping through some notes on his tablet, but he looks up when you walk in. You smile hesitantly at him. He’s never seen you in anything but work clothes or casual wear, and you’re admittedly nervous for his opinion.

He looks you over slowly, starting from the tendrils of hair framing your face, down the length of your body. The same anxiety you felt while waiting to hear if you passed your qualifying exams takes root in your belly.

“Y/n,” he says quietly. 

“Mm hmm?”

He puts the tablet aside and stands before slowly walking over to you. He pauses just out of reach.

“You’re beautiful.”

Oh.

It’s not that no one has called you beautiful before. Your parents do, and there was the one time your younger brother said it, even if you were pretty sure he was being sarcastic. Chelsea does on occasion, though she’s more likely to say you look hot or ten-out-of-ten-would-fuck. But there’s something about it coming from Brendon that makes you feel like you’ve never heard the word before.

He says it like a truth, like a promise. He says it with the same certainty he says reduction is still sitting four millimeters short or I’m seeing twelve degrees of posterior angulation on the lateral. Like it’s an immutable fact and not an opinion.

So of course you clam up and give him an awkward smile in response. 

“Um, thank you?”

His lips quirk, and he closes the rest of the distance between you two. His arms slide around your waist, and he drops a light kiss on your cheek, careful of your makeup.

“We’ll work on it. You’ll learn to like compliments eventually.”

“Why? You like them enough for the both of us.”

His lips curl further at your jab.

“That’s my girl.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The gala is exactly the same as it was last year and the year before that. 

The hospital and university rent the same ballroom in the same hotel, and the same faculty give the same speeches. Dr. Nayar is a fan of tradition, and you don’t think things have changed in the two decades he’s been in charge of the program. You are giving a presentation this year, but the fifteen minute lightning talk is only a blip in the otherwise monotonous evening.

It’s not that you’re having a bad time. You’re the only computer engineering student, but Fritz and Harris from biomed are here, along with a few people you know from clinical psych. You’ve had plenty of people to talk to, dinner was actually pretty good, and your talk had gone exceptionally well. It’s just…you miss Brendon. You miss his stupid smirk and his stupid glare and his stupid life-altering comments said in his stupid matter-of-fact voice. 

You haven’t been able to stop thinking about his not-a-marriage-proposal since yesterday. There’s no law against dropping lines like that on a random Saturday with absolutely no follow up, but there should be. Diabolical is what Chelsea had called it. So now you’re trapped in a conversation with Dr. Polt about the merits of factor versus principal components analysis while your mind is stuck in an old house in Squirrel Hill.

“-why you wouldn’t want the latent constructs.”

Dr. Polt pauses, and you realize he’s expecting you to say something. 

“I completely agree.”

It’s a shot in the dark, but thankfully it seems like the correct answer. Polt nods vigorously and launches off on a tangent about structural equation modeling. It’s at least ten minutes later before you’re able to extract yourself with the excuse of talking to your advisor. Dr. Kavis isn’t even here. Polt is a little too inebriated to either notice or care, and he waves you off before setting upon another poor, unsuspecting student.

You’re walking back to your table, wondering if it’s too early to leave, when it happens. First, you spot Everett Edwards. You saw him earlier in the night but had promptly bolted in the other direction. You plan on doing the same now, but when you turn, you catch sight of Jeremy Hayes. For a brief second, you consider faking a heart attack. Then you remember that you’re in a room filled with medical doctors and nix the idea. Your acting isn’t that good.

Both of them have caught sight of you by now, and you feel like you’re facing down death by drowning or burning at the stake. A desperate glance around tells you that no, Brendon has not magically appeared in the last five seconds to ward off unwanted suitors with his death glare, and you panic-choose the lesser of two evils.

“Hey, doc,” Everett grins when you turn to face him.

He might be a persistent charmer, but at least he’s always been respectful. Jeremy gives you the ick. He’s a bit too forward, a bit too comfortable entering your personal space. Since the time he brought you coffee when Brendon was in your office, he’s visited PTMC twice more to see you and has sought you out at every departmental function. He’s clearly trying to do the same now, but he pauses when he sees you with Edwards.

“Hi Dr. Edwards,” you say, hoping your smile looks genuine and not alarmed.

He looks fantastic, you’ll give him that. He’s wearing a classic black tuxedo, tailored perfectly for his athletic frame. His hair is slicked back except for one raven curl on his forehead — Chelsea would call it slutty, you call it artful — and a simple but elegant watch sits on his wrist. He looks like the heir to some old money fortune.

“Looking beautiful as always,” he says. “I saw your talk earlier, it was excellent. I’d be interested to discuss the applications for emergent vascular operations in trauma cases.”

You spot Jeremy out of the corner of your eye, still making his way over.

“I would love to,” you blurt. “Is now a good time? Can we drop by the bar first? I need some water.”

He looks bemused if not a little taken aback, but he covers it up quickly and offers you his arm. You only hesitate for a second before taking it, and you let him lead you across the ballroom.

The official part of the night is over, but the room is still packed. There’s few things academics like more than getting drunk with other academics. In fact, you’re pretty sure that’s the clinical psych chair doing shots with her grad students in the corner, and Dr. Nayar and his fourth glass of wine are holding court at one of huge round banquet tables.

“Is that Nayar?” Everett asks, following your gaze.

“You know him?”

“Of course. He’s been director for twenty yea- just how old do you think I am?”

You blanch and take a sudden, pointed interest in the ugly blue and gold carpeting. Brendon is a good bit older than you and has been an attending for only a few years. You just figured if Everett was head of a sub department, he must be older than that. He also went to CMU for undergrad not grad school, so he would have been there even earlier. But maybe not? Maybe you just deeply offended one of Brendon’s coworkers. A coworker you can’t escape, because he’s your escape from Hayes.

“Um, not very old? You, uh, you look great?”

A brief pause before you chance a peek over at him, and you wilt in relief when you see the smirk on his face.

“Well, I’ll take the compliments where I can get them.”

You nearly choke on air.

“Are you serious? You want me to believe that you are short on compliments?”

He answers with a rakish grin that could make a nun faint.

The two of you reach the bar, which is packed. You catch sight of a few people you know also waiting for drinks, and you wave hello at them while ignoring the way they stare at whose arm you’re on. To be fair, it’s not just them. Everyone is staring at Everett. It makes for an awkward wait, and you’re relieved when you finally get your drinks and head to a quieter part of the room. 

“So,” he says as you walk. “Do you think we’ve lost him yet?”

“What?”

“The guy you’re using me to avoid.”

You do choke this time and spend the next thirty seconds coughing yourself to death. Several people turn to look at you, only some of them with concern, and you flush harder from the scrutiny than from the lack of oxygen to your brain. That and the fact that Everett is looking at you with wry amusement written all over his face. You can’t even deny it. You lost all plausibility along with your dignity when you started hacking up a lung.

“I-“

You cough some more and briefly hope that you just die from hypoxia on the spot.

“I wasn’t-, he-“

“Relax, doc. No offense taken.”

You cast him a disbelieving look since you still can’t talk properly, and his lips twitch. 

“Okay, maybe some offense taken.”

“I’m so sorry,” you blurt when you regain your voice. “I wasn’t-, I’m sorry.”

“I’m guessing we don’t like him?”

“No-, not really? He’s a post-doc, and he’s weird. Not that being a post-doc is weird, just that he is and happens to be weird-, I’m really sorry. It’s not that I don’t want to talk to you about the model, because I do. I really do like you and I don’t want you to think I was just using you even though I maybe was a little I’m really really sorry.”

You say all of that without taking a breath. He doesn’t answer right away, and you force yourself to down a giant gulp of water, so you can’t word-vomit anymore. Everett watches it all with a quirked brow and the expression of someone who knows they have the upper hand and is trying to decide how benevolent to be with it. 

“Is he a problem?”

The same words Brendon asked so many months ago. 

“I don’t think so? Um, he just follows me places sometimes? Wait, that sounds creepy, he just uh…is bad at leaving me alone.”

He looks unimpressed, but he nods.

“Well I guess I’m okay with being used to escape weird stalkers.”

“Stalker is a strong word,” you say weakly. 

A pause then, and you’ve never had to work so hard not to fidget or start saying random things to fill the silence in your life. To make matters worse, you’ve moved far enough away from the main crowd that there’s not even enough people around to be adequately distracting. It’s just you, Everett, and the most uncomfortable stare down you’ve ever experienced.

“Well,” he says, just before you start vibrating out of your skin. “I guess that answers my question.”

“Huh?”

“I was going to ask you out, but I’m guessing I already know what you’re going to say.”

“Oh! I, um…”

That was not at all the direction you thought things were heading — the evening is quickly getting away from you. You scramble for something to say, but all you can hear is Brendon in your ear saying tell him to fuck off. You flush. 

“I-, no thank you?”

Another pause, and then he laughs. Full-bellied, head thrown back, genuine laughter. 

“This is the weirdest and most polite way I’ve been turned down in my life.”

“I’m s-“

“Please god do not apologize to me.”

“Sorry.”

He shakes his head and laughs again. 

“I’ll take that as my cue to bow out with my remaining dignity. You going to be okay with your stalker running around?”

You nod.

“Yes. Thank you. And sor-“

He makes a distressed noise.

“Seriously, please stop apologizing.”

“I-, okay. Does this mean we…”

You trail off, unsure of how to ask, but he thankfully seems to understand anyways. 

“I’m a big boy, doc, I’m fine. I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?”

Relieved, you agree and then watch as he turns and walks away. You stare after him for a while, trying to process whatever it is that just happened, before heading in the opposite direction.

The two of you had wandered to the far side of the ballroom while you talked, and the bar is clear on the other side of the room. There’s basically no one over here, which is actually kind of nice, especially when you slip down the hall to the bathroom and find it empty. Your people-meter has been filled for at least the next two business days.

Once inside the bathroom, you stand at the sink to run your wrists under cold water and look at your reflection in the gilded mirror. Your hair has held up surprisingly well, but your makeup is slightly smudged from you forgetting you’re wearing it and touching your face. A quick blot with a paper towel fixes the worst of it, but you’re eager to wash it off completely. 

You check your phone as you leave the bathroom, ordering an Uber. The event is scheduled for another hour and will likely continue for another hour beyond that, but you want to go home. Your talk is done, you schmoozed an appropriate amount with donors, and you spoke to all the important faculty members. No one is going to be upset if you leave.

Somewhere over the last few weeks, home became wherever Brendon is, and you text him that you’ll be back soon. Three dots appear almost immediately to signal that he’s responding, and you’re so busy looking at your screen as you step into the hallway, that you don’t see who’s waiting for you until it’s too late.

“Is that your new boyfriend?”

You jump and nearly fumble your phone. Jeremy is standing in the otherwise-empty corridor. He’s dressed sharply in a dove-grey suit, though he’s loosened his tie, and his sandy hair looks like he’s run his hand through it a few times. He’s holding a generous glass of whiskey in his left hand, and he takes a slow sip while he looks at you. 

“Oh, Jeremy, hi. Um, is who what?”

“Found yourself another doctor — the last one wasn’t enough?”

He must be referring to Everett,  but it takes a second for you to realize he’s also talking about Brendon. The two of them met once, months ago, and even calling it a meeting was generous. Brendon had never introduced himself; he’d just silently glared Jeremy into submission. But Jeremy clearly remembers it, and he doesn’t look happy. In fact, he looks kind of angry and kind of drunk, and you shift uncomfortably.

“Dr. Edwards isn’t my boyfriend,” you tell him.

“Just your meal ticket then?”

“What are you talking about?”

“The Weslier Fellowship.”

Well now you’re confused on top of being uncomfortable. The Weslier fellowship is awarded to one graduating doctoral student and one post-doc at CMU every year — it provides funds for the first year of independent research as well as a pretty generous living stipend. You’d applied months ago, but you haven’t heard anything yet. Honestly, you’re not expecting to. There are hundreds if not thousands of applicants across the entire university, and you only really applied because Dr. Kavis told you to.

“I heard Nayar talking the other day— apparently some people at PTMC are pushing for you to get the Weslier. Seems like you’ve got some fans there.”

You shake your head.

“I don’t know anything about that. And I definitely haven’t asked anyone at PTMC to put in a word for me.”

He sneers, and it’s so malicious looking that you take a physical step back. This is not the Jeremy you’re used to. He’s usually incredibly friendly, edging into flirty, and he’s all about smiling and being overly-helpful. Right now though, he’s glaring at you with a mixture of resentment and agitation.

“So you just happen to be fucking two attending surgeons for no reason, right?”

Your jaw drops.

“Who-, what are you-, excuse me?”

There’s nothing going on with Edwards, and there’s no chance he actually knows anything about you and Brendon. Besides, he technically ranks above you in the departmental hierarchy, and there’s no way he should be talking to you like this. The alcohol is probably to blame, but still.

“That’s completely inappropriate, Jeremy.”

“You know what’s inappropriate? Leading me on for months and then changing your mind once you realized you could sleep your way to the top.”

You open and close your mouth several times like a landed fish. You’re not the most self-aware person out there, but you’re five thousand percent sure you haven’t been leading him on. It’s also never crossed your mind to sleep your way into the fellowship. In fact, you and Brendon have made it a point to actively prevent your relationship from affecting your career.

“That’s a serious and unfounded accusation.”

“Not from where I’m standing.”

“Then stand somewhere else! This is ridiculous. I’m going to-“

He takes a sudden step towards you, and you back up instinctually. You regret the move immediately when his lip curls, and he presses forward again until your back is hitting the wall behind you. 

“You need to stop,” you say, pleased when your voice doesn’t shake.

You’re deeply aware of the fact that you’re the only two people in this hallway. Sure, someone would hear if you screamed, but no one is actively paying attention to the two of you. And while Jeremy isn’t anywhere near as physically intimidating as Brendon, he’s still a good bit bigger and taller than you.

“Listen,” he says, close enough now you can smell the expensive whiskey he’s been drinking on his breath. “I won’t tell Nayar what you’ve been doing, but that means you owe me.”

“What-, you can’t-, I haven’t done anything.”

Which, okay, isn’t technically true, because he’s technically right that you’re sleeping with an attending surgeon. But not in the way he’s implying.

“It’s an easy choice, Y/n. Risk the ethics committee, or owe me a tiny favor. I don’t-“

“Is there a problem here?”

Both of you turn at the same time, and you nearly faint in relief at the sight of Everett standing at the end of the hall. He’s just as sharp and beautiful as he was ten minutes ago, but gone are the charming smile and laughing eyes. Now his golden gaze is sharp, and that perfect cupid’s bow is curled in disdain. He looks more like a Bond villain than a socialite.

“Fuck off,” Jeremy spits.

If he looked angry before, he looks furious now. Whether it’s from being interrupted or being interrupted by this specific person, you don’t know.

“Y/n, come here,” Everett says, ignoring him completely.

You’ve never jumped to obey a man who has no authority over you so quickly. But before you can take more than a step, Jeremy grabs your arm and yanks you to a stop. You startle so bad you drop your phone.

“We’re not done,” he bites out.

Fear hits you for the first time all evening. As a woman in a heavily male industry, you’re more than used to men trying to intimidate you. You’ve been talked down to, ignored, shouted at, and everything in between. It barely phases you anymore. But this is the first time anyone has physically put their hands on you, and your heart starts racing in your chest.

“Let go of me, Jeremy.”

You yank on your arm to no avail. All it does is make him tighten his grip until you wince.

“Jeremy.”

“I said we’re not done. Tell your boyfriend to-“

“Let’s make things very clear.”

Everett takes several steps towards the two of you, voice pleasant and expression deadly.

“You are a post-doc with a history of harassment, who is currently drunk and physically assaulting a student. I am an attending surgeon and head of vascular surgery at one of the best trauma hospitals on the east coast. If you don’t let go of her, I will be the one you deal with. And trust me, you don’t have the credibility, the status, or the money to win against me.”

Jeremy’s face goes apoplectic, and his grip tightens until you’re pretty sure he’s cutting off your circulation. Then he and Everett have a silent, very testosterone-y staring contest, during which you do your best not to move or breathe too loud. It lasts forever. You’re starting to lose feeling in your hand when Jeremy finally scoffs and releases you. He shoves you away hard enough you stumble.

“We’ll talk about this later, Y/n.”

“No, I-“

He throws his drink at you. 

He empties his very full glass of whiskey all over the front of your dress, spits an expletive at you, and storms away. You stand there staring after him like an idiot.

“Well that was unpleasant.”

Everett speaks from right behind you, and you jump about a foot into the air. Your heart rate, which is still sky high from Jeremy, kicks up even further, and you feel like you’re well on your way to heart attack you considered faking earlier in the night.

“Whoa, easy doc.”

You turn to see him holding his hands up in surrender.

“Sorry,” you manage.

“No need to apologize. Are you alright?”

Your immediate instinct is to say yes. To smooth everything over and act like that didn’t shake you as badly as it did. That would be a complete lie though, and you settle on something slightly more truthful.

“I’ll be okay,” you say with a hopefully convincing smile.

You even kind of believe it, too. Right up until you look down and see your phone lying on the ground with a shattered screen. 

In the grand scheme of things, it’s not a big deal. Phones break all the time. But right now, with whiskey dripping down your neck and chest, with the ghost of Jeremy’s grip lingering on your wrist, it feels like the end of the world. You have to fight to keep your lower lip steady while you bend down pick it up, and you nearly lose the fight when you slice your finger on a shard of glass.

“Shit, let me see that.”

Everett reaches for your hand, and you flinch. You don’t mean to, and you feel terrible when you see the stricken look on his face.

“I’m sor-“

“If you apologize, I’m going to feel worse.”

Your mouth snaps shut. The two of you just look at each other for a minute — you trying not to cry, and him clearly trying not to make you cry. 

“Can I walk you to your car?” he eventually asks.

“I took an Uber.”

Which reminds you of the ride you definitely just missed, and which you can’t rebook now courtesy of your shattered phone screen. He must arrive at the same conclusion, because he says-

“Can I drive you home then?”

You hesitate.

You have a few of options. First, you could ask to borrow his phone and either call Chelsea — who lives clear across town — or another Uber. You could also accept his offer, but you don’t know if you want to get in a car with someone you don’t actually know that well. Sure, he rescued you from Jeremy, but you’re not feeling particularly generous towards the male species right now. What you really want is for Brendon to come get you, but you know that’s not possible. That leaves the last option.

“Um, could I borrow your phone? I’m just going to call B-, my boyfriend.”

Your apartment is within the hospital’s twenty-minute on call radius; you’ll call Brendon and tell him to meet you there after you get back. It’s roundabout, but there’s no way you’re going to ask Everett to drop you off at Brendon’s house. The last thing you need right now is for someone to have proof the two of you are together. Also, this way someone knows you’re getting into Everett’s car in case he turns out to be crazy.

The plan is foolproof. There’s also no possible way this evening can get any worse. You are incorrect on both fronts.

Everett hands over his phone no problem. He hovers close, clearly wanting to help in some other way, but mindful not to touch you again. You don’t mind too much as you focus on dialing Brendon. That is, you don’t mind the closeness right up until his phone recognizes the number, and a big fat “Calling Brendon Park (PTMC)”pops up on the screen.

You take a hurried step back, but a glance at Everett tells you it’s too late. He definitely saw who you were calling, and his eyebrows just about hit his hairline. Your soul leaves your body. Why does he have Bren’s personal number? Brendon certainly doesn’t have his. How did he even get it? How-

“Park.” 

You don’t know if the sound of Brendon’s voice coming from the speaker makes things better or worse. You do your best to pretend Everett doesn’t exist and raise the phone to your ear at the same time you back even further away.

“So funny story,” you start.

You can hear the tension enter his body. He’s probably in his office, going over case notes, and you can imagine the way he just straightened and shoved his files aside. 

“Y/n?”

“Don’t be mad-“

“Too late, where’s your phone?”

Wincing, you go through an abbreviated version of the nights events, starting with running into Everett and ending with how you just accidentally outed your relationship to the same man. Brendon listens silently while you talk. He makes no noise, doesn’t even change his breathing, but you just know he’s glaring at the wall like he can set it on fire.

“What do you need?” he asks when you finish.

The question catches you off guard. Maybe it’s just hearing his voice, maybe it’s him knowing that you needed him to be gentle even if you didn’t say so. Whatever it is, you make an embarrassing sound and bite your lip hard to keep from crying.

“I d-don’t know,” you whisper. “I just want to come home.”

Another silence, this one weighted. You hear him inhale sharply and then nothing for what feels like forever. 

“Bren?” 

“Give the phone to Edwards.”

“What?”

“It’ll be okay, imp. Just give him the phone.”

His voice is the softest you’ve ever heard it, and you suddenly want him here with you so badly it hurts. 

“Okay.”

You turn to face Everett, who has been studiously examining the ceiling, and hold out the phone. He takes it like it’s a bomb and raises it slowly to his ear.

“Edwards.”

You can hear the low murmur of Brendon’s voice, but you can’t make out anything he’s saying. You just stand there awkwardly while Everett also stands awkwardly and listens to Brendon. It doesn’t last long though, and it’s only a minute or so later when Everett hands the phone back.

“Bren?”

“Edwards will bring you home.”

“But what about-“

“He already knows, and it makes things simpler. He’ll keep his mouth shut.”

He says it with such certainty that you have to laugh. It’s strained and slightly hysterical, but it’s still a laugh.

“Did you threaten him?”

“Not much.”

Another laugh, this one a little more real. You feel slightly better as you hang up and give Everett his phone back. 

“Thank you,” you tell him. “For everything.”

He smiles, and you think it might be the most genuine smile he’s ever given you. 

“You’re welcome, doc. Now let’s get you home before your very-platonic-absolutely-not-your-boyfriend friend kills me.”

The two of you find a side exit, and your shoulders crumple in relief. The thought of walking back through the ballroom and having people stare at you makes your skin crawl. Leaving through this door means you have to walk a bit further to get back to the parking lot, but you don’t mind. It’s a relief to breathe fresh air and feel the breeze. You follow dutifully as Everett leads you to a sleek, black Mercedes, but hesitate when he opens the door for you.

“I don’t want to ruin your seats,” you tell him, gesturing at your whiskey-soaked dress.

“They’ve been through worse, trust me.”

You have no idea what he could mean and decide you don’t want to know before getting in. 

The ride to Brendon’s is quiet. Your normal need to fill silences has been squished by exhaustion, and he seems content to leave you be. Brendon must have given him the address. It’s maybe fifteen minutes later when you turn onto a familiar tree-lined street, and then you’re pulling into the driveway.

The garage is open, and Brendon is standing there waiting. His arms are crossed, his jaw is set, and his eyes are burning a hole through the windshield. He looks ten kinds of pissed off and half a step from murder.

You’re out of the car before it’s fully in park. 

All the adrenaline and fear and discomfort from the last hour breaks open at the sight of him, and you throw yourself into his arms hard enough that he grunts at the impact. Neither of you care about your dress. His arms lock around you like steel bands, and he drops his chin to rest on top of your head. He’s warm and solid, his heart beats strong and steady under your ear, and he smells like home. You finally start crying. 

“I’ve got you,” he murmurs.

You give a watery laugh.

“You’re being nice.”

“I’ll call you an idiot tomorrow to make up for it.”

There’s no heat in the words, and you relax even further into him. Vaguely, you’re aware of Everett getting out of the car and coming up behind you, but you don’t have the energy or the dignity to move. As far as you’re concerned, you’re going to stay here forever. Especially when one of Brendon’s hands comes up to cradle the back of your head, and you basically start purring. 

“Edwards.”

“Park.”

You don’t need to see to know they’re having some sort of masculine staring contest. You mumble be nice into Brendon’s chest, and he heaves an annoyed sigh.

“Fine. Thank you.”

“Not like you gave me much of a choice,” Everett replies, but he sounds amused.

You turn your head just enough to be heard and say-

“Thank you, again.”

“For my favorite doctor? Anytime.”

His voice is teasing, not flirty, but Brendon still makes a disgusted noise.

“Thank you rescinded. Now fuck off.”

You sigh and fight a smile, and Everett chuckles under his breath behind you.

“Right, fucking off. See you guys tomorrow.”

You should probably do a better job of expressing your gratitude for everything he’s done tonight, especially since Brendon’s clearly not going to do it, but you’re too tired. You’ll just bring him coffee tomorrow or something. Right now, the only thing you care about is getting out of this dress, getting clean, and then curling up in Brendon’s arms for the rest of the night. 

“Come on,” he says once Everett pulls out of the drive way. 

He slips an arm around your shoulders and guides you into the house. You feel yourself fully relax for the first time all night. Your sweater is hanging in the mudroom, you can see your laptop on the coffee table along with his tablet in the den, and the familiar sound of classical floats through the air. Home.

Brendon’s words from yesterday run through your head — I’m all in — and a wave of emotion hits you. They overwhelmed you yesterday, made you worry and overthink. But right now, with your wrist starting to bruise and your hair falling apart and tears drying on your cheeks, they settle differently. They feel right. 

“Bren?”

“Yeah?”

He’s bent down to help you with your heels, and he undoes the delicate straps with the same focused precision he uses in the operating room. Your heart squeezes. This giant, grumpy, sharp-tongued surgeon is on his knees without prompting, shirt front damp with whiskey from your dress and brows furrowed in concentration while he removes your shoes. 

“Yes.”

“Yes what?”

“Your not-a-proposal-yet.”

He looks up then, and you feel like you could drown in the blue of his eyes. You’ve never meant anything more in your life.

Sierra snorted, rolling her eyes with such dramatic incredulity that it would have been funny under different circumstances. "Come on. You're telling me you haven't noticed? There's a red hood symbol spray-painted right outside your building's front entrance. Big as shit. How long has that been there?"

Her stomach dropped. The coffee she'd been drinking suddenly tasted sour, threatening to come back up.

"I..." She frowned, trying to keep her expression puzzled rather than panicked. "I can't tell you the last time I actually studied my front door. Are you sure you're not thinking of the building next to mine?"

Sierra looked at her over the rim of her glasses like she'd just claimed the Earth was flat. She was a pretty girl—tall and willowy, with auburn hair that fell in waves past her shoulders and a constellation of freckles scattered across her cheeks and nose like someone had splattered paint across porcelain. 

Just a few years older than her, twenty-nine maybe, she'd grown up in the East End her whole life. Like everyone else who worked at the Gazette, Sierra was obsessed with the city's vigilantes. Had a whole theory board at home, apparently, tracking their movements like some people tracked sports teams or celebrity relationships.

Naturally, this kind of gossip was right up her alley. 

"Please, be for real right now." Sierra's voice dropped to an excited whisper-shout that somehow carried across half the office anyway, making heads turn. "Have you seen him around your block lately? Because aren't you technically outside his territory? Like, significantly outside it?"

Andrew had rolled his chair over by now much to her active displeasure. Because of course this needed an audience. She fought the urge to groan out loud when he spoke up, balancing a can of Coke on his knee like this was just casual water cooler talk and not a discussion that made her want to walk out and quit her job. 

"Red Hood's established territory is Park Row," Andrew said, taking a casual sip of his soda like they were discussing weather patterns. "Especially Crime Alley, that whole area. You're what, six blocks north of that?" He tilted his head thoughtfully, and she could practically see the gears turning. "Maybe he's just expanding his coverage. Extending his purview into new neighborhoods."

Sierra's eyes widened, practically sparkling with excitement, and she knew immediately it was game over.

She groaned. Actually groaned this time, couldn't help it. She knew exactly where this was going now, could see the gears turning in Sierra's head, could predict the next three conversational beats like she was reading from a script. "You know where she lives now, do you, Drew?"

The look of absolute terror that flashed across Andrew's face would have been satisfying if she hadn’t been so irritated. He paled visibly, his eyes going wide as he realized the trap he'd just walked directly into, the implications of what he just said.

"No! No, not like that, I didn't mean—" His words dissolved into stammering, tripping over themselves like they couldn't escape his lips fast enough. "I only know because I dropped her off after we all went to that bar a few weeks ago, remember? I was just making sure everyone got home safe, it was the responsible thing to do—"

"Oh my God." Sierra looked like Christmas had come early and brought her birthday along for the ride. She whipped around to face her fully, practically vibrating in her chair with barely contained excitement. "Andrew took you home?!"

She let her head fall back against her headrest with a thunk, closing her eyes and praying for divine intervention. Lightning strike, earthquake, alien invasion, spontaneous combustion…anything would be preferable to this conversation right now.

"Sierra—" she said tiredly, hoping to derail this before it gained momentum.

"Did he go inside?" Sierra whisper-shouted again. "Did you invite him up? Oh my God, did you—"

"He's sitting right here," she grumbled, eyes still closed, jabbing a finger blindly in Andrew's general direction. "Why don't you ask him yourself instead of speculating about my love life like I'm not even present?"

"Because it's way more fun to watch you get all flustered," Sierra said, completely unrepentant, grinning manically. Her attention snapped to Andrew with the focus of a laser sight. "So? Did you go inside?"

Andrew looked like he desperately wished the floor would open up and swallow him whole. He was shaking his head so fast she thought it might detach from his neck and roll away across the office floor. "No! No, absolutely not. I walked her to her door, said goodnight, and went home. That's it. End of story. Nothing else happened."

"Nothing else?" Sierra pounced on the phrasing like a cat on a mouse. "So something happened?"

"Nothing happened!" Andrew's voice had gone up at least half an octave, cracking slightly. "I was being a decent human being! That's literally all! Can we please drop this?"

"You're both horrible," she muttered, finally opening her eyes to glare at them with all the force she could muster. "And can we please get back to the actually concerning part of this conversation? The part where there's apparently a gang tag on my building?"

She didn't dare mention that she had seen the tag the morning after he had drunk her coffee at her kitchen table. That she'd stood on her doorstep staring at it, recognizing the symbol, understanding immediately what it meant. 

She knew exactly what he was doing. Whether it was a warning or just a joke or something else entirely, he was telling her something. Keep in line. Stay aware. I'm watching. 

She'd soured at the thought, pushed it down. Tried to pretend it didn't bother her.

Luckily, Sierra took the bait.

"Vigilante tag," Sierra corrected, but her expression had shifted slightly, an edge of genuine concern creeping in around the edges. "And yeah, that's... actually kind of weird, right? Like, why would he mark your building specifically?"

"Maybe it's not about the building," Andrew offered, seemingly grateful for the subject change. "Maybe it's about the block? Claiming new territory or warning other criminals away from the area?"

"Or maybe," Sierra said slowly, her eyes going comically wide as she looked between the two of them like she was piecing together a conspiracy, "he knows someone who lives there. Someone he's keeping an eye on. Someone who's been writing articles about him."

The blood drained from her face so quickly she felt lightheaded. There was no way her coworkers could know about her run-ins with Red Hood. She would never be able to write an article about anything else ever again. They'd pigeonhole her, make her the vigilante reporter, the one who only covered the capes and masks.

"Don't be ridiculous," she said, but her voice came out sharper than she would have liked. "Why would the Red Hood care about some random journalist? I write about a lot of things. It's not like I'm specifically—"

"You literally just published a critique of his methods two weeks ago," Sierra interrupted, leaning forward conspiratorially. "It was the front page. Everyone read it. The mayor's office commented on it."

"Lots of people write about the Red Hood," she protested weakly, even though she knew it was a losing argument.

"Yeah, but you're the only one doing it thoughtfully. Actually engaging with the moral questions instead of just fear-mongering or hero worship." Andrew had that look on his face now too, the one that meant he was connecting dots she didn't want connected. "And you live right on the edge of his territory. And now there's his symbol on your building." He paused, letting that sink in. "That's...that's a lot of coincidences."

"It's literally that. Just a coincidence," she insisted, even though her mind was racing back to three nights ago. To Red Hood standing in her kitchen, helmet pushed up just enough to drink coffee, that jagged scarring visible in the warm light. To the way he'd talked about Robin like he'd known him personally, the way he seemed to ease up and let his guard down for a few moments. How he seemed almost normal before she'd pushed too hard and he'd fled.

He had, for a brief time, seemed almost vulnerable beneath all the armor and violence.

"Is it though?" Sierra pressed, not willing to let it go. "Because honestly, if I were the Red Hood and I read an article that actually made good points about my methodology instead of just calling me a monster, I'd probably want to know more about the person who wrote it. Maybe even keep tabs on them."

"That's creepy," she said flatly, though Sierra had a point. Maybe that's why he had been watching her building, lurking on rooftops, appearing at her window. She hadn't even tried asking him about it the night he had entered her apartment. She would have most likely gotten some sarcastic answer back, some deflection that raised more questions than it answered.

"That's vigilante logic," Sierra countered with a shrug. "They're all creepy. It's kind of their whole thing. The watching from shadows, the stalking, the showing up unannounced."

Andrew was watching her now with an expression she couldn't quite read. Concerned, maybe. Curious. Something that made her skin prickle with awareness. "Have you seen him? Around your neighborhood?"

"What? No. Of course not." The lie came out too quickly and she saw Andrew's eyes narrow fractionally like he'd caught it. "I mean, I've been doing research in Crime Alley, so I've heard stories, but I haven't actually—"

"You've been going to Crime Alley?" Sierra's voice went up again, sharp with alarm. "Alone? At night?"

"During the day," she lied again. She was just racking up stretches of dishonesty today, building a house of cards made of falsehoods. "For interviews. Research. It's my job."

"Your job is going to get you killed if you keep doing things your way," Sierra said bluntly, her excitement giving way to genuine worry. "Especially if you're writing things that piss off armed vigilantes who apparently know where you live."

"I'm not…he's not—" She stopped, took a breath, tried again with more control. "The Red Hood doesn't hurt civilians. That's not his M.O. He targets criminals, people actively hurting others. I'm not in danger."

"You don't know that," Andrew said quietly. There was genuine concern in his voice now. "Look, I know you're trying to do good work here, and I respect that. I really do. But Sierra's right. You're poking at something dangerous. These vigilantes, they don't play by normal rules. They operate outside the law, outside accountability. And if the Red Hood is marking your building, that means he knows who you are and where you live. That's not nothing."

She wanted to argue. Wanted to tell them they were overreacting, that it was fine, that she had it under control. But the truth was sitting heavy in her chest now. 

Red Hood did know who she was. Had been watching her apartment from rooftops. Had slipped through her window and drunk coffee in her kitchen and told her things that made her chest ache with questions she was too terrified to ask.

How did he know so much about Robin? Why did talking about him hurt him so badly?

"I'll be careful," she said finally, which wasn't a lie but also wasn't the reassurance they were looking for.

Sierra studied her for a long moment blearily, then let out a long sigh. "You're going to keep investigating him, aren't you?"

"It's my job."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one I'm giving you."

Sierra and Andrew exchanged a look, the kind that made her want to throw something at both of them.

"Just..." Sierra started, then stopped. Tried again, choosing her words carefully. "Just promise you'll be smart about it? And if anything weird happens, and I mean anything, you'll tell someone? Grant, the police, us?"

"I promise," she said, and meant it. Mostly.

"Good." Sierra settled back in her chair, though she still had that crease of worry between her brows. "Because I've gotten used to having you around, and I'd rather not have to break in a new cubicle neighbor because you got yourself murdered by a vigilante with boundary issues."

"How touching."

"I'm a giver." Sierra grinned, but it was strained, not reaching her eyes. "Seriously though. Be careful. Gotham's already dangerous enough without actively poking at the guys who operate outside the law."

"Noted." She turned back to her computer, trying to signal the end of this conversation, hoping they'd take the hint. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have actual work to do."

Sierra made a show of rolling her eyes but wheeled back to her own desk. Andrew lingered by her cubicle, shifting his weight from foot to foot in a way that made it clear he had something else to say.

She looked up at him, raising an eyebrow. "Yes?"

"Can we—" He gestured vaguely toward the hallway, toward the meeting rooms. "Can I talk to you? Privately?"

Her stomach sank. "Andrew—"

"Just for a minute. Please?"

She sighed, saved her document with more force than necessary, and stood. She had a feeling she knew where this was going. "Fine. But just a minute.”

They walked in silence to one of the small meeting rooms near the back of the office, the kind with glass walls that technically gave them privacy but still let the entire newsroom see that they were having a conversation. She left the door slightly ajar on purpose, leaning against the table rather than sitting.

Andrew ignored her silent cues and closed the door behind them. He ran a hand through his hair—dirty blonde, perpetually a little too long, like he kept meaning to get it cut but never quite got around to it.

He was attractive in that conventional way that probably worked on most people: tall, decent build, clear blue eyes, the kind of smile that put people at ease. Nice face, strong features. Good job, steady income, no obvious red flags beyond the occasional too-many-beers situation.

Just...not her type.

She'd never been able to articulate exactly what her type was, but standing here looking at Andrew, she knew with certainty he wasn't it. Maybe it was the hair. She'd always dated brunettes, she realized distantly. Typically men that her parents would disapprove of. 

Andrew was too... light. Too safe. Too predictable. The kind of guy you brought home to meet your parents, not the kind that made your pulse race.

Which wasn't fair to him. She knew it wasn't fair. But knowing something logically and feeling it emotionally were two very different things.

"I wanted to apologize," Andrew started, not quite meeting her eyes, focusing instead on a spot somewhere over her left shoulder. "About Sierra. That whole thing out there. She gets excited about gossip and doesn't know when to quit, and I shouldn't have mentioned knowing where you live."

She waved a hand dismissively. "It's fine. That's just Sierra being Sierra. I'm used to it."

"Still. It was awkward, and I didn't mean to make it more awkward by letting slip that I know where you live. That came out wrong, like I've been... I don't know, keeping track of you or something."

"Andrew, seriously. It's fine. You walked me home from a bar. That's not weird. That's actually nice." She softened her voice because he genuinely looked uncomfortable now. "I appreciated it, for what it's worth. Not a lot of guys would have bothered."

He smiled at that, small but earnest, and his posture relaxing fractionally. "Good. That's... good."

A pause. She waited, sensing there was more, that this wasn't the real reason he'd pulled her aside.

"About that night," he continued, and now he was definitely not meeting her eyes, focusing instead on a spot somewhere over her left shoulder. "I'm sorry if I drank too much. Or if I said anything inappropriate. I know I can get a little... overly friendly when I've had a few."

"You were fine," she assured him, meaning it. "A little flirty, maybe, but nothing I couldn't handle. And you were a perfect gentleman when we got to my building. So no harm done."

"Yeah?" He looked at her now, something hopeful flickering in his expression, vulnerable in a way that made her chest tighten with guilt. "Because I've been thinking about that night and..." He took a breath, seemed to gather courage, squaring his shoulders. "Would you want to grab a drink sometime? Like, just the two of us. Not the whole office group. An actual...you know. A date."

Oh.

She'd known this was coming. Had seen it building over the past few months in the way he found excuses to stop by her desk, the way he laughed a little too hard at things she said that weren't particularly funny, the way he'd offered to walk her home sometimes. But knowing it was coming didn't make it easier to figure out how to respond now that he'd actually asked.

She hesitated, her mind spinning through calculations she didn't entirely want to be making.

She didn't feel anything for Andrew. Not really. No spark, no flutter in her chest, no magnetic pull that made her want to lean closer when they talked. He was nice. Attractive enough. Had a good job, seemed stable, made her laugh occasionally. But there was no charge there, no electricity, none of that breathless feeling that made you want to know everything about someone, that kept you up at night thinking about them.

But.

That didn't mean something couldn't grow, right? People built relationships on less than lightning strikes all the time. Sometimes attraction developed slowly, built over time as you got to know someone, as familiarity bred affection. Maybe Andrew was one of those people, someone who got more interesting the longer you knew them. Maybe she just needed to give him a real chance, outside the office, without deadline stress or the constant background noise of the newsroom or coworkers watching.

Besides, she hadn't been on a date in...how long had it been? Over a year? Since before she'd moved to Gotham, definitely. Before the Gazette, before her whole life had become work and occasional drinks with coworkers. Her life had narrowed to this singular focus—the stories, the people who needed their stories told, the problems she was trying to expose—and somewhere along the way she'd stopped making space for anything else.

Sometimes, late at night between her four walls, she got lonely. Not lonely in the sense of wanting company. She liked her solitude, needed it even. But lonely in the deeper sense, the kind that sat deep in her chest and whispered that maybe there was supposed to be more to life than just work. That maybe having someone to share things with, someone to come home to, wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.

And what was the harm in one date? In trying? Andrew was a decent guy. He clearly liked her. Maybe that was enough to start with.

"Okay," she heard herself say. "Yeah. We could do that."

Andrew's face lit up like she'd just told him he'd won the lottery. "Really? I mean…great! That's great." He was grinning now, wide and boyish in his enthusiasm, and she felt a small pang of guilt that his excitement so vastly outweighed her own tentativeness. "Are you free Friday? There's this new place in the Diamond District, Italian, supposed to be really good—"

"Friday works," she interrupted gently, before he could get too far ahead of himself. "But maybe somewhere a little more casual?"

Less formal would make it feel less like a date and more like a get-together, which would take some of the pressure off her going into it. 

God, she was such an asshole.

"Right, yeah, of course." He was nodding enthusiastically, already planning. "There's a good pub in Midtown. Real food, decent beer, not too loud. How's that sound?"

"That sounds perfect." She gave him what she hoped was an encouraging smile, even as a voice in the back of her head whispered that she was pathetic and she knew it.

"Okay. Great. I'll make a reservation, or do pubs not do reservations? I'll figure it out." He was talking faster now, nervous energy spilling out in a rush. "Seven? Or is that too early? Too late?"

She gave him the sweetest smile she could muster, the kind that felt like a mask. "Seven's fine, Andrew."

"Right. Seven. Friday." He was backing toward the door now, still grinning like he couldn't quite believe his luck. "This is…I'm really glad you said yes."

"Me too," she said, and tried to mean it. Tried to ignore the hollow feeling in her chest, the sense that she was making a mistake she couldn't quite articulate.

He left the meeting room practically bouncing, radiating joy, and she watched him go with a strange mixture of fondness and resignation. He was sweet. He was trying. Maybe that was enough. Maybe she was just being impossible, holding out for something that didn't exist, chasing a feeling she'd imagined.

She walked back to her desk slowly, ignoring Sierra's smug look from across the divider and sat down in front of her computer. The article she'd been working on stared back at her, cursor blinking accusingly. The Chen article. She wanted it finished before the weekend.

But her mind kept drifting to other things. To the red hood symbol spray-painted outside her building. To coffee in her kitchen with a man whose face she'd barely seen, who seemed like both an enigma and just a ball of trauma all at once, layers upon layers she couldn't quite penetrate. To the way he'd talked about Robin. Past tense and pained, like talking about someone he'd lost. A memory that haunted. 

She shook her head, forced herself to focus on the screen. She had a date on Friday. With Andrew. A nice, normal guy who worked a nice, normal job and who probably wouldn't show up at her window in the middle of the night with guns and a philosophy about justice that made her chest ache with complicated feelings she didn't want to examine.

That was good. That was healthy. That was what normal people did. They went on dates with colleagues who asked them out, not... whatever the alternative was. Not pining after vigilantes who beat people bloody in alleys.

She started typing, determined to get work done, determined not to think about whether the symbol would really be there when she got home.

Determined not to wonder why the thought of it made her pulse quicken in a way that had nothing to do with fear.

—--

When she arrived back at her apartment, the sun had already set and the sounds of the evening rush had died down to a low murmur. There was nothing but the occasional passing car and the low, ever-present rumble of the city. Sirens in the distance, muffled voices from open windows, the rattle of the subway beneath the streets like the city's heartbeat.

She stood on her front step, staring up at the red hood symbol spray-painted above the entrance.

Staring was the wrong term. She glared at it furiously, letting her anger build with every second she spent looking at it.

It was exactly where Sierra had said it would be, impossible to miss once you were actually looking for it. Bold red paint, still relatively fresh based on how vibrant the color was, positioned directly above the door at eye level. Not large enough to be ostentatious, but prominent enough that anyone entering or leaving would see it. Would know.

A territorial marker. A warning. A message.

And the message, as far as she could tell, was clear as day: Watch yourself. I'm watching. You're mine.

She'd spent the entire subway ride home getting progressively angrier about it, letting the fury build with each stop, each passing minute. The audacity of it all. Showing up at her apartment, drinking her coffee, having what felt like an actual conversation, almost something like understanding between them — and then turning around and tagging her building like she was some kind of problem that needed monitoring. Like he had the right to mark her space, to make it clear he could show up whenever he wanted.

Was this about the article? Her critique of his methods? Was this his way of telling her to back off and to stop writing about him? To fall in line or face consequences?

Or was it simpler than that? Just pure intimidation. The kind of power play that men seemed to think worked on women. I know where you live. I'm watching. Be careful what you write about me. Step out of line and see what happens.

Well, fuck that.

She didn't bother going inside. Just turned on her heel, shoved her hands in her jacket pockets—knife on the right, pepper spray on the left—and started walking. Fast, purposeful strides that ate up the blocks between her building and Park Row with a barely contained sense of fury. 

She was going to find him. She was going to track him down in whatever dark corner of Crime Alley he was currently lurking in, and she was going to tell him exactly what she thought about his little territorial pissing contest. About thinking he could intimidate her into silence. About being a hypocritical asshole who preached about protecting people while simultaneously harassing the one journalist who was actually trying to understand his perspective, who'd given him a platform when everyone else just called him a monster.

The walk to Crime Alley took twenty minutes. Twenty minutes of her anger building with every step, fueling her forward even as the streets got darker, more dangerous. The smart thing would have been to wait until daylight. To approach this rationally, professionally. To maybe not go looking for an armed vigilante while pissed off enough to do something stupid.

But she'd apparently left smart back at the office along with her common sense and any sense of self-preservation.

Crime Alley at night was a different beast than during the day. The shadows were deeper, more absolute, like they had weight and substance. The few working streetlights seemed to create more darkness than they dispelled, their sickly yellow glow making everything outside their radius impossible to see clearly, creating pockets of absolute black. She could hear things moving in that darkness. Footsteps, voices, the scuttle of rats or worse, sounds that made her skin prickle with awareness.

Her hand moved to her knife, fingers wrapping around the handle through the fabric of her pocket, finding comfort in its solid presence.

She walked deeper into the maze of streets and alleys, scanning rooftops, looking for any sign of him. The helmet would catch light, and would be visible even in the dark. She just had to—

"Well, well. What do we have here?"

She spun around, heart leaping into her throat.

A man stepped out from a recessed doorway, materializing from shadows like he'd been waiting for exactly this moment. Tall, rangy, wearing a casual posture that came from being comfortable with violence. Mid-thirties maybe, wearing a stained jacket and jeans that had seen better days, clothes that had absorbed the grime of the city.

His eyes tracked over her in a way that made her skin crawl. She met his leer head-on with a sharp glare regardless, refusing to show fear.

"You lost, sweetheart?" He took a step closer, and she saw the knife in his hand. Longer than hers and with a serrated edge that looked like it had been sharpened recently, gleaming dully in the weak light. "This ain't a good neighborhood for pretty girls to be wandering around alone."

Her hand tightened on her own knife, adjusting her grip. "I'm fine. Just passing through."

"Yeah?" He smiled, showing teeth that were yellowed and crooked. "Well, there's a toll for passing through. Call it a... safety tax." Another step, closing the distance between them. "Your purse should cover it. And that nice jacket. Maybe your phone too."

"I don't think so." She pulled out her knife, flicked it open in one smooth motion she'd practiced a hundred times in her apartment. Her heart was hammering but her hand was steady. The best thing to do was to avoid displaying any sense of hesitation. "Back off."

He laughed, a wet, phlegmy sound. "Oh, she's got a knife! That's cute. Really cute."

He moved fast, lunging forward with his own blade leading, going for her throat.

Training kicked in. The self-defense classes her father had insisted on, the practice she'd done in her apartment until the movements became muscle memory. She dodged left, felt his knife whistle past her shoulder close enough that she felt the breeze of its passage, and brought her own blade up in a tight arc.

It connected with his forearm. Not deep, but enough. Enough to draw blood, to make him curse and jerk back with a hiss of pain.

"You bitch—"

He came at her again, angrier now, sloppy with rage. She knew with sudden, terrifying clarity that she was outmatched. He was bigger, stronger with a longer reach and more experience with real violence. And she'd just pissed him off enough that he wasn't going to settle for her purse anymore. He was going to hurt her, going to make her pay for having the audacity to fight back.

She raised her knife again, heartbeat bleeding into her ears until it was all she could hear, preparing for the impact—

A blur of red and black dropped from above, landing between them with enough force to crack the pavement, sending up dust and small fragments of concrete.

The thug had maybe half a second to register what was happening before Red Hood's fist connected with his face. The sound was awful. Bone and cartilage crunched, the sound so visceral that it made her stomach turn. The thug went down hard, his knife clattering away across the concrete.

But Red Hood didn't stop.

He followed the man down, grabbed him by the collar, hauled him partially upright just to hit him again. And again. And again. Each blow landed with brutal precision. His jaw, his ribs, his face again — methodical violence delivered with terrifying efficiency. 

The thug tried to raise his hands, tried to protect himself, but Red Hood batted them aside like they were nothing.

"Red Hood—" she started, her voice weak with shock.

Another punch. Blood was spraying, painting the concrete in dark spatters she could see even in the dim light, creating abstract patterns like grotesque art.

"Red Hood!"

The thug was barely moving now, just making small, hurt noises that might have been pleas. His face was a mess. Nose clearly broken, bent at an unnatural angle. One eye already swelling shut, the other rolling back. Blood pouring from his mouth, teeth visible through split lips.

There was so much blood. Too much. It was everywhere—on Red Hood's gloves, on the ground, splattered across the thug's clothes, pooling beneath his head.

She moved without thinking, grabbed Red Hood's arm mid-swing and pulled with all her strength.

"Stop! You're going to kill him!"

For a second, a second that felt like a minute dragging by in slow motion, she thought he might turn that violence on her. His whole body was wound tight, vibrating with barely contained rage, coiled like a spring compressed past its breaking point. Through the helmet's lenses she could sense nothing but white light and fury, something primal and uncontrolled.

A beat passed. He stared at her for a moment that stretched impossibly long, chest heaving, his breath mechanical and harsh through the modulator.

He dropped the thug.

The man crumpled to the ground like a puppet with cut strings, unconscious or close to it, chest rising and falling in shallow with pained breaths.

Red Hood stood, taking a step back, creating distance. His gloves were covered in blood, dark and slick. He flexed them at his sides like he was fighting the urge to reach for the man again, to finish what he'd started.

The adrenaline washed away from her slowly, draining from her system and leaving behind cold reality. She sucked in a breath through her teeth, her hands shaking. The taste of bile coated the back of her throat.

"What the fuck," she breathed, staring at the unconscious body. At the pool of blood surrounding the wheezing man, dark against the dirt and concrete. "What the fuck was that? You could have...he wasn't a threat anymore, you could have killed him—"

"He pulled a knife on you." Red Hood's voice was distorted by the helmet but she could hear the anger underneath, hot and barely controlled. "He pulled a fucking knife on you."

"So you beat him half to death?!"

"So I made sure he'd never pull a knife on you again!" He rounded on her, and even though he was several feet away she took an instinctive step back, her body reacting before her mind could catch up. "What the hell are you doing here? In Crime Alley? At night? Alone?"

"I was looking for you!"

"Well congratulations, you fucking found me!" He gestured sharply at the unconscious thug, the motion violent and jerky. "Along with every other piece of shit who sees a woman walking alone and thinks she's easy prey! What part of 'this is dangerous' do you not understand?!"

"I can take care of myself—"

"Oh really, princess?" He moved closer, and she could feel the fury radiating off him like heat, like something physical pressing against her skin. "Is that why you were about to get robbed? Stabbed? Worse? Because you were handling it so well? You’re fucking insane!"

She gawked at him, frazzled by his tangible fury. Still reeling from what had just happened, from how close she'd come to real harm. "I stabbed him first!"

"With a pocket knife!" He was right in front of her now, close enough that she could smell the blood on his gloves. "Against a guy twice your size with a serrated blade and zero conscience! Do you have any idea how badly that could have gone? What he would have done to you?"

"I was fine—"

"You were lucky!" His voice had gone ragged, breaking around the edges. "You were lucky I happened to be close enough to hear. Lucky I got here before he—" He cut himself off, turned away sharply, one hand coming up to his helmet like his head hurt. "Jesus Christ. What the fuck were you thinking?"

"I was thinking," she said, her own anger pushing past the shock and fear, "that I wanted to give you a piece of my mind about tagging my goddamn building!"

He went very still. Turned back slowly, deliberately. "What?"

"The red hood symbol. Above my front door." She crossed her arms, partly defensive, partly to stop her hands from shaking, to hide the way she was trembling. The adrenaline crash was hitting her hard and fast, and she didn't want Red Hood to notice. Didn't need to give him any more ammunition. "Real subtle. Really sending a clear message there."

"A message." He repeated it flatly, like he couldn't quite believe what he was hearing.

"Don't play dumb. I write one article critiquing your methods and suddenly my building's marked?" Her voice was rising now, weeks of frustration and fear and confusion spilling over like a dam breaking. "What is that, a warning? Intimidation? Your way of telling me to back off, to fall in line or else?"

"Intimidate you?" He sounded genuinely shocked. "Are you…did you walk into Crime Alley, looking for me, at night, alone, because you thought I tagged your building to threaten you?"

"What else am I supposed to think?! You mark my building like it's territory, like you're claiming it or—or warning me off or—"

"I did it to protect you!"

She stopped mid-sentence, mouth still open, brain struggling to process the shift, the raw honesty in his voice.

"You... what?"

"I marked your building, you idiot," he hissed with quiet rage. "To let every criminal in a ten-block radius know that the place is under my protection. That anyone who touches that building, anyone who goes near the people inside, answers to me." His hands clenched into fists at his sides, blood still dripping from his gloves. "That they'd have to go through me first."

She stared at him, speechless, her anger evaporating like smoke.

"You published an article calling me a symptom of systemic failure," he continued, taking a step toward her, his voice gaining intensity. "You made yourself a target for every gang member, every dealer, every piece of shit who thinks journalists are enemies. You painted a bullseye on your back and then kept walking around the Narrows like nothing had changed. With your head held high like a goddamn moron who doesn't understand that some people don't give a fuck about press credentials."

"Excuse me, I don't need—"

"You do need." Another step, closing the distance between them. "Because you're smart and brave and stubborn and you don't know when to stop pushing. You can’t win these kinds of fights with a notebook and your goddamn good intentions." His voice had gone rough again, scraped raw. "You're fucking naive. You think you're invincible because you have principles."

He was close now. Very close. Close enough that she could see the blood splattered on his armor, could hear the slight mechanical distortion of his breathing through the helmet, faster than it should be. Could smell the cigarette smoke clinging to the seams of his jacket, see the muck from the alley on his gloves, dark and viscous.

"You think I'm harassing you?" His voice had gone quieter, more intense. "I'm trying to keep you alive, sweetheart. Because apparently you're determined to get yourself killed proving a point on your little crusade to save the world through words."

"I don't need you to protect me," she said, but it came out weaker than she intended, less certain, Her back had hit something solid. The alley wall, she realized distantly. When had she backed up that far? When had he gotten so close?

"Yes, you do," he said, moving into her space, close enough that she could feel the heat of him radiating through his armor. "I don't care what you think about me. I don't care if you think I'm a monster or a symptom or whatever the fuck your next article calls me." His voice dropped lower, more intense. "I care that you're still alive to think at all. I care that you're still breathing, still writing, still being an idiotic girl who thinks she can change the world."

Her heart was hammering. From the adrenaline, she told herself desperately. From the fight, from standing in a dark alley with an unconscious body ten feet away, from the violence she'd just witnessed. Not from the way he was looking at her, or seemed to be looking at her. It was impossible to tell through the helmet but she could feel his gaze like a physical weight. 

Not from the way he'd said everything like it mattered to him personally, like the thought of her dying was something he couldn't tolerate.

"You're insane," she said, but there was no heat in it. Her brain was racing, trying to understand what was happening here. Something felt familiar about his words, about the way he was standing, about the cadence of his speech.

"You strolled into Crime Alley looking for me because you were pissed about graffiti," he countered, and she could hear something almost like amusement beneath the anger now. "Who's the insane one here, princess?"

"Still you. Definitely you." There was no bite to her voice now. She sounded breathless and she knew it, could hear the way her voice had gotten softer and more uncertain. But her heart was hammering through her chest, her pulse so loud she could hear it in her ears.

"Yeah?" He leaned in slightly, one hand coming up to brace against the wall beside her head. Not touching her or trapping her, she could duck under his arm easily if she wanted. But she didn't move. Couldn't move. Was caught in whatever this moment was. "You came looking for me."

She shivered despite herself. "To yell at you."

"You came looking." His voice had dropped lower, intimate despite the distortion. "You could have called the police. Could have written another exposé about territorial vigilantes. Could have even ignored it. But you came looking for me. In person. At night. In the most dangerous part of the city."

"I was angry—"

"You were worried." He said it with certainty, like he could see straight through her carefully constructed walls. He leaned in even closer. "You thought I was threatening you and it pissed you off, but underneath all that you were worried. About what it meant. About why I'd do it."

She glared up at him but her breathing had gone shallow, too rapid. "Don't tell me what I was feeling."

"Then tell me I'm wrong." If his mask was off, she was certain his lips would be grazing her ear, his breath ghosting across her skin in a way that would make her knees weak.

She opened her mouth. Closed it. Couldn't find words that weren't lies, couldn't force out denials that would crumble the moment they hit the air between them.

They were chest to chest now, or would be if he moved another inch forward. She could feel the warmth radiating off him through his armor, through her jacket—heat that shouldn't be this palpable. Could smell leather and gunpowder and something underneath that was becoming dangerously familiar now. Her pulse hammered against her throat, a frantic drumbeat in her own ears.

And she didn't know if she wanted to shove him away or pull him closer. Didn't know which impulse was winning.

"You can't keep doing this," she said, but her voice still came out weaker than she intended. "Showing up. Marking my building. You don't even know me."

"Now who's telling me what I'm feeling, hm?" His other hand came up, not touching her but close, fingers curling near her shoulder like he wanted to but was physically restraining himself. Like touching her would shock him. "I know you're trying to change things. That you actually give a damn about the people everyone else ignores. I know you're brave enough. or stupid enough, to walk into Crime Alley looking for trouble." A pause, weighted with something heavier. "I know you desperately want to know what happened to Robin. Is that why you came here, really? Is that why you’re still hunting me down?"

Her breath hitched. "Don't—"

"He would've liked you," Red Hood continued, and there was something raw in his voice now, something bitter. "Would've told you to keep fighting. Keep writing. Keep being reckless and stubborn. Not enough of that, in this city."

She froze. Blinked up at him, her thoughts scattering. He was so damn close. Close enough that she could see her own reflection distorted in those white lenses. "How do you know that?"

"Because—" He stopped, and for a moment she could have sworn he caught himself, swallowed back words that threatened to expose too much. The hand beside her head curled into a fist against the brick, his knuckles going white even through the gloves. "Because he cared about the same things you do. Believed in the same things. And he would've wanted someone to keep fighting for them after he—" His voice cracked, splintered at the edges. "After he couldn't anymore."

She was barely breathing. Her mind was racing, puzzle pieces clicking together with devastating clarity, scraps she'd been collecting from their interactions. Her focus was hazy with how close he was to her, how tense and electric the air felt between them, but something inside her brain was clicking. 

I care that you're still alive to think at all.

She felt like her knees were about to give out beneath her.

"Red Hood—"

"Don't." He pushed off the wall abruptly, creating distance between them so fast she actually swayed forward before catching herself. "Don't ask questions you don't want the answers to."

She took a step forward. Another. Her voice came out as a plea, more desperate than she realized. "What if I do want the answers?"

He laughed, but it was hollow, empty. "No, you don't. Trust me." He turned away, toward the mouth of the alley, still clearly tense. "C'mon. I'll take you home."

The dismay that radiated off her was palpable, thick enough to choke on. "I can get myself—"

"You can’t take the subway from here and you're not walking." His voice brooked no argument, iron wrapped in distortion. "I'm taking you home. End of discussion."

She wanted to protest, to insist she didn't need an escort, and didn't need protection. But the adrenaline was draining out of her system now and her legs felt more shaky than reliable. The thug was groaning softly behind them now and she didn't want to be here when he woke up. Didn't want to explain any of this to the cops who would eventually show up. Didn't want to give Red Hood another reason to finish what he'd started, to add another body to his count.

"Fine," she muttered, looking down at her shoes.

He led her out of the alley, down a side street to where she stopped short, her breath catching.

A motorcycle was parked in the shadows between two buildings. Not just any motorcycle—this thing was a beast. All black with red accents that matched his helmet, sleek and predatory-looking, the kind of bike that was built for speed and violence in equal measure. 

Custom, she realized immediately. Had to be. The armor plating on the sides, the reinforced frame, modifications she couldn't even name but could tell were there — none of it was something you could buy on the commercial market.

"You've got to be kidding me," she gaped, whipping around to stare at him with wide eyes.

The helmet tilted toward her with what she imagined was curiosity. "What?"

She snorted, eyebrows climbing toward her hairline as she gestured pointedly at the bike. "I'm not getting on that thing."

"Yes, you are." He was already moving toward it with easy familiarity, pulling something from a compartment on the side. "Unless you'd prefer I call you a cab and wait around until it shows up? Which, given that we're in Crime Alley and you just pulled a knife on someone, seems like a spectacularly bad idea."

She stared at the motorcycle with deep suspicion, arms crossed defensively. She'd never been on one before. Never had any desire to be on one. They seemed like death traps on two wheels, the kind of thing people rode right before they became statistics.

"It's perfectly safe," he said, probably reading the incredulity in her expression. 

She gave him a flat, deadpan look. "Given your current career choice, forgive me if your definition of 'safe' is probably wildly different from mine."

"Fair point." He pulled out a helmet from the bike— sleek, with full-face coverage that looked far too high-quality for the average Gothamite. Held it out to her like an offering, or a challenge. "But I've been riding for years and I've never crashed. Well." He paused, tilting his head in consideration. "Never crashed on accident."

She wanted to throw something at him. "That's incredibly reassuring, thank you for that."

"Would you prefer I lie?"

"I'd prefer you let me walk home."

"Yeah, because you've proven to be full of good ideas lately. Helmet. Now."

She took it from him with a scowl, turning it over in her hands. It was heavier than she expected, solid and well-made, probably worth as much as a more than a few months of her rent. The visor was tinted dark enough that she wouldn't be able to see much through it at night. "How do I even—"

She tried to put it on, but her hands were still shaking. The adrenaline crash was in full effect now and she couldn't figure out how to get it to sit right on her head. It kept sliding, sitting too far forward and blocking her vision entirely.

"Here." Red Hood's voice was softer now, gentler. Completely different from the pure fury he'd shown minutes ago. He took the helmet from her fumbling hands with unexpected care. "Let me."

He stepped closer, back in her space, towering over her. He lifted the helmet and positioned it properly on her head with a gentleness that seemed at odds with everything else about him, pushing it down carefully.

She froze, not expecting the tenderness. Not expecting him to touch her like she was something fragile.

She hoped desperately then that she didn't smell from the day, that he couldn't feel how fast her heart was beating, couldn't sense the way her pulse jumped at every point of contact.

His fingers brushed against her jaw as he adjusted the fit, large hands surprisingly deft as they tucked stray strands of hair out of the way delicately. 

"Okay?" His voice was quiet, almost hesitant. Her chest felt too tight, too constricted, like her ribs had shrunk.

She swallowed hard and nodded, not trusting her own voice to respond.

He fastened the chin strap, taking time not to pinch her skin, fingers grazing her throat. When he was done, he tapped the top of the helmet twice, two solid knocks that rang throughout the enclosed space.

"There. Now you won't crack your skull open if I have to brake hard."

Even with the helmet on, she still managed to shoot him a frown. "Still not reassuring."

"I'm not trying to reassure you. I'm trying to keep you alive. Don't you listen?" He pushed her visor down with one gloved finger, and then swung his leg over the bike with practiced ease, settling into the seat lazily. The engine roared to life, loud and aggressive, all barely contained power. "Get on."

She stared at the small space behind him, at the way she'd have to press against his back, wrap her arms around him to hold on. The intimacy of it made her hesitate. She was hyperaware of every point of contact that was about to happen, of how close they'd be.

"I don't bite," he said, and she could hear the amusement threading through his voice even over the roar of the engine. "Usually."

"Not helping," she grumbled, but her traitorous body was already moving.

"Wasn't trying to help," he patted the seat behind him. "I was trying to get you to hurry up before someone sees us and I have to explain why I'm giving a civilian a ride."

She took a shaky breath, gave a silent prayer to any god that might be listening, and climbed on behind him.

Immediately the problem she'd dreaded became glaringly apparent. There was nowhere to put her hands that wasn't on him. The bike was designed for this, for a passenger to wrap themselves around the driver like a second skin, but knowing that didn't make it less awkward.

"You're going to have to hold on," he said with thinly veiled amusement. "I'm not going slow, and if you fall off, I'm not stopping to pick you up."

She bit her lip hard enough to taste copper and dug her nails into her palms, resisting the urge to elbow him between the shoulder blades. "You're a terrible person."

"Tell me something I don’t know. You’re stalling, princess."

She was. She wrapped her arms around his waist, tentatively at first, trying desperately to maintain some kind of space between them. But the moment he revved the engine, the bike thrumming beneath them, she pressed closer involuntarily, arms tightening around his midsection.

Even through his armor, through her jacket and layers of tactical gear, she could feel the heat of him. The solid muscle underneath all that protection, the way his breathing shifted and deepened as she held on. 

The proximity was overwhelming, more intense than when they'd been chest to chest in the alley. This felt inescapable. Her thighs were pressed against his, her chest against his back, her arms encircling his torso like she was trying to merge with him.

The realization hit her like a freight train. She couldn't remember the last time she'd been this close to a man and enjoyed it even half as much.

"Good?" His voice came through distorted but she could feel it rumble through his chest through her arms. She fought the urge to shiver. 

"Define good," she managed, trying desperately to focus on anything other than the heat and hardness of him.

"Still on the bike. Not actively panicking."

"What's the opposite of 'actively'?"

"Don’t be a smartass." And then he kicked off.

The acceleration was immediate and terrifying, stealing the breath from her lungs. She gasped, arms tightening instinctively, pressing herself even closer into his back as the world blurred into streaks of light and shadow around them. 

He navigated through the narrow streets with reckless precision, taking corners that made her stomach drop, weaving between potholes and debris like it was second nature. Like the bike was an extension of his body.

She should have been terrified. Should have been screaming at him to slow down, to be careful, to drive like a normal person instead of someone with a death wish and no regard for traffic laws.

But there was something exhilarating about it. Something that made her blood sing. The wind whipping past them, cold and sharp against any exposed skin. The power of the engine between her legs, thrumming with barely leashed violence. The way he moved with the bike like they were one entity. 

She could see why he liked this. It matched everything about him. The recklessness, the attachment to danger, the need for control and speed. An adrenaline rush that probably rivaled the high of hunting criminals.

It took less than ten minutes to reach her building, a trip that would have taken twenty on the subway with two transfers and too many stops. He didn't stop out front where anyone could see them, instead turning down the alley beside her building with expert precision, killing the engine in the shadows where no one would see them from the street.

The sudden silence was deafening, almost painful. She could hear her own breathing, harsh and quick inside the helmet, echoing back at her. Could feel his own pulse through the points where their bodies were still pressed together, where she was still holding on like he might disappear if she let go.

She should let go. Should climb off the bike, thank him for the ride, go inside, and pretend this whole night hadn't happened. Pretend her body wasn't still singing with adrenaline and something far more dangerous.

She didn't move. Couldn't make herself.

"You can let go now," he said quietly. Was that breathlessness in his voice? "Unless you're planning on holding on all night."

She was suddenly glad she was wearing the helmet so he couldn't see the flush burning across her cheeks.

She shook herself out of whatever stupor had taken hold of her and released him slowly, her arms feeling strangely empty as she pulled back. She climbed off the bike on shaky legs, partly from the ride, and partly from everything else crashing down on her at once.

She fumbled with the helmet strap, her fingers trembling too much to manage the clasp. Red Hood reached out without hesitation and unclasped it for her with the same gentle efficiency he'd used to put it on. He lifted it off her head, careful not to pull her hair or jostle her head too much.

"There," he said, and she swore she could hear something soft in his voice again. "Safe and sound."

She stared at the helmet in his hands, her eyes trailing down to the blood still staining his gloves. They were dry now, just dark red splotches against the black leather that looked almost black themselves. "Can I ask you something?"

He paused. "You can ask. Doesn't mean I'll answer."

She fought the urge to glare at him again, opting instead for a deep inhale. 

"Why do you care?" The question came out smaller than she intended, vulnerable in a way she hated. "About whether I'm safe. About tagging my building. Why does it matter to you?"

He was quiet for a long moment. Long enough that she thought he might not answer, might just leave her hanging with this question like he'd left so many others unanswered. She didn't miss how he shifted, how his fingers flexed in his gloves against his thighs like he was fighting the urge to reach for something. He turned away slightly, like he couldn't let her look at him. "You gonna overthink this one too? C'mon, sweetheart. Use that big brain of yours and figure it out."

Her throat felt too tight, like someone was squeezing it. "Red Hood—"

"Stay out of trouble," he said, cutting her off before she could finish the thought, before she could push for the answer they both knew she wanted. "Go inside. Lock your door. And for fuck’s sake, don't go wandering into Crime Alley looking for me again."

"What if I need to find you?"

"You won't."

"Oh, you just know everything now?"

He didn't answer. Just reached for the helmet she'd been wearing, placed it back in the compartment with deliberate care. His hand moved to the ignition, fingers curling around the key. He was preparing to leave, ready to disappear into the night like he'd never been there at all. Like none of this had happened.

She hated it.

She hated the way he could just do this. Show up when he wanted, leave when it suited him, dodge every question that mattered while demanding answers from her. Hated that he could pin her against walls and mark her building and beat men half to death to protect her, but couldn't give her the one thing she actually needed: the truth.

And she knew why. Of course she knew why. They both knew why he was dodging, dancing around it, refusing to confirm what was sitting right there between them like a third presence, like a ghost. Neither of them wanted to be the first to say it out loud. To make it real. To cross that line that, once crossed, couldn't be uncrossed.

But she was tired. Bone-deep exhausted. Tired of games, tired of half-truths, tired of feeling like she was constantly two steps behind while he held all the cards and controlled every interaction. She'd walked into Crime Alley tonight looking for answers, and she'd be damned if she left with nothing but more questions.

"You looked a lot better with the cape."

The words hung in the air like a gunshot, echoing in the enclosed space of the alley.

He froze. His entire body went rigid in a way that was answer enough even before the silence stretched between them, thick and suffocating. His hand was still on the ignition but he wasn't moving. She wasn’t even sure if he was breathing.

She watched him, watched the way his shoulders had locked up like someone had replaced his spine with steel, the way every muscle had gone tense. Watched him process what she'd just said, what she'd pieced together, what she knew.

He had always seemed familiar. All it had taken was the right words, the right cadence, and she had known. 

"You—" Her voice cracked, breaking on the word. She swallowed hard and tried again, softer this time. "I never thanked you. For letting me use your quotes. For trusting me with your words." 

Her throat was tight, burning with emotion she couldn't quite name. "I just... thank you. You changed my life."

He said nothing. Didn't move. Didn't deny it. Didn't confirm it either, but the lack of denial was confirmation enough, wasn't it? The silence was its own answer.

The seconds ticked by. Five. Ten. Fifteen. She counted them in her head, counted her own heartbeats thundering against her ribs like they were trying to escape, counted the ways this could go wrong, all the ways he could react badly to this.

Then, slowly, achingly slow, he finally turned his head. Looked back over his shoulder at her.

And everything about him was different.

The measured cockiness was gone. The dangerous swagger, the aggressive confidence, the barely contained violence that usually defined his movements and his presence. All of it had vanished like smoke, leaving behind something she'd never seen from him before.

What was left was something rawer. Younger. More vulnerable than she'd imagined he could be.

He moved hesitantly, turning on the bike to face her fully but not getting off, not coming closer. She could  tell he was afraid. He didn't know what to do with this moment, with what she knew. With the fact that his secret was out and exposed.

He looked like a kid again. Like the fifteen-year-old boy who'd walked her home years ago and teased her about her article, before whatever had broken him and remade him into this.

She didn't move. She could only stand there and watch him wrestle with something she couldn't see, some internal war playing out behind that helmet that hid everything.

He didn't say anything. A long, heavy breath escaped through the helmet's filters, shaky and uncertain.

And just like that, like flipping a switch, the edge was back. He straightened up, turned away from her, and put his hands back on the bike. The Red Hood persona snapped into place like armor over whatever vulnerability she'd glimpsed for those few precious seconds.

His hand twisted the ignition.

"Wait—"

But he didn't wait. The engine roared to life, one heavy rev that shattered the fragile quiet of the moment, and he was gone. Peeling out of the alley in a spray of gravel and exhaust that made her stumble back, the bike's growl fading into a distant rumble and then nothing at all. Just a disappearing shadow swallowed by Gotham's endless dark.

She stood there, arm still half-raised like she could somehow call him back through force of will alone. She stared at the empty space where he'd been, where the warmth of him still seemed to linger in the cold air.

The silence that followed felt deafening. Oppressive.

She sank down onto her front steps heavily, hands coming up to cradle her head like she could hold herself together through pressure alone. Her elbows were braced on her knees, her breaths sharp. 

Above her, the red hood symbol glared down in the harsh streetlight, watching. 

—--

The bar Andrew had chosen was nice. Exposed brick walls worn smooth by decades of weather, warm Edison bulbs casting everyone in a flattering amber glow instead of the harsh fluorescents that made most people look washed out. A decent beer selection was scrawled in chalk behind the bar, the handwriting almost artistic. Not too loud, not too quiet. Where actual conversation could happen without shouting, where you could hear yourself think.

She should have been enjoying herself.

Andrew sat across from her in their booth, animated and smiling, halfway through some story about a mishap at the office that she knew she should be tracking but couldn't quite focus on. The words washed over her like white noise, pleasant but meaningless.

 He looked good tonight, he always did. Made an effort every single time, never showed up looking like he'd just rolled out of bed. Tonight it was a dark blue button-down, hair styled just enough to look intentional without seeming overly concerned, clean-shaven and smelling like some kind of expensive cologne. He'd brought her flowers again, like he had on their first date. Tulips this time, red and yellow, cheerful and bright.

The irony of the color choice wasn't lost on her. Red for the vigilante who'd been haunting her thoughts. Yellow for Robin’s cape she still had buried somewhere in her apartment. 

This was their third date. Third in the month since he'd first asked her out over coffee in the break room, since she'd said yes because it seemed like the reasonable thing to do. The safe thing. 

The first had been casual, just drinks at a bar, getting to know each other outside the office dynamics and workplace politics. The second had been dinner at an Italian place in Midtown, slightly more formal, Andrew clearly trying to impress her with his knowledge of wine pairings and his ability to pronounce "osso buco" correctly.

He was being perfect. Attentive without being overbearing, funny without trying too hard, asking questions about her and actually listening to the answers instead of waiting for his turn to talk. He remembered things she mentioned in passing. Her favorite coffee order (oat milk latte, extra shot), the fact that she hated seafood, and that she was allergic to cats. Small details that showed he was paying attention, building a mental file of who she was. That he clearly, genuinely cared.

And she felt absolutely nothing.

No spark. No flutter in her chest. No magnetic pull that made her want to lean closer when he talked, to close the distance between them. Just a neutral, almost clinical observation that Andrew was a good man—objectively attractive, emotionally available, professionally stable—who deserved someone who could reciprocate what he was offering with the same wholehearted enthusiasm.

That someone wasn't her.

That someone would never be her, and the guilt of that realization sat in her stomach like a deadweight. 

"The Chen article was incredible, by the way," Andrew was saying now, leaning forward with genuine enthusiasm that made his eyes light up. "I mean it. The way you tied together the money laundering and the drug trafficking networks, and that quote from the woman who worked there, that was powerful stuff. Everyone in the office has been talking about it for weeks. Jenkins even printed it out and pinned it on the bulletin board."

"Thanks," she said, managing a smile that felt like it was carved from stone, heavy and unnatural on her face. "I'm glad it resonated. That it…meant something."

"Resonated? It's been everywhere." He gestured expansively, nearly knocking over his beer. "I saw it pop up on three different news aggregators last week, and someone from the Times shared it online with like, a whole thread about Crime Alley. You're making waves." 

He reached across the table, his hand landing on hers where it rested beside her water glass, condensation pooling on the wood beneath. His thumb brushed absently against her knuckles in what was probably meant to be an intimate gesture. She fought the urge to pull back, forced herself to stay still. 

"You should be really proud. You're doing incredible work. Work that actually matters."

His hand was warm. Solid. Steady.

She looked down at it and felt just the crushing weight of her own guilt. Guilt that she was here, on a third date with a man who clearly liked her when her mind was somewhere else entirely. Someone else entirely.

"Yeah," she said, her voice sounding distant even to her own ears, like she was listening to herself from underwater. "Thanks. That means a lot."

It had been a month.

A full month since that night in the alley. Since she'd figured out that Red Hood used to be Robin, that the boy who'd saved her years ago and the man who'd marked her building were the same person, separated only whatever hell he'd been through in between. Since she'd thanked him for letting her use his words, for changing her life. Since he'd looked at her with something as close to vulnerability as she'd ever get with the mask on before shutting down completely and disappearing like she'd imagined the whole thing.

Thirty-two days of absolute silence.

No more rooftop sightings outside her window, no familiar silhouette perched on the fire escape across the street. No surprise visits through her window that she definitely needed to start locking. No appearances at all. She'd checked, pathetically, in a way that was embarrassing even to her. Scanning rooftops on her walk home from work like some lovesick teenager, lingering by her window longer than she should with her lights off so she could see out into the dark, lying awake at night listening for the sound of boots on metal that never came.

Nothing. Just the ordinary sounds of Gotham at night. Sirens and car alarms and the occasional scream that no one ever investigated.

He was still operating, though. She knew because she tracked the news religiously now, searching for any reports of his activities. He was out there, still doing his brutal work with methodical precision. A pimp found dead in Park Row with three bullets in his chest arranged in a triangle, execution style. A drug dealer who'd been selling fentanyl-laced pills to high schoolers discovered in a dumpster with his neck broken. The work continued, merciless and utterly uncompromising.

But he wasn't coming to see her. He was avoiding her deliberately, which somehow felt worse than if he'd just disappeared entirely.

She told herself it was for the best. That he was being smart, keeping distance now that she knew part of his truth. That he was protecting himself, protecting them both from whatever had been building between them in dark alleys and her kitchen at midnight.

She told herself she was relieved. That this was what she wanted, the ability to focus on her work and her life without the distraction of a vigilante who killed people. If she was never going to get an interview, if he was never going to give her the story, it was probably for the best that he stayed away.

She told herself a lot of things.

None of them felt true. All of them felt like lies she was telling herself to make the hollow ache in her chest feel like something other than what it was.

Because the truth that she didn't want to examine too closely, was that she missed him. 

She missed the excitement of his visits, the way he challenged her, the charged feeling in the air when they were in the same space. That electric tension he gave her that made her feel more alive than she had in years. She missed the complexity of him, the contradiction between brutality and gentleness, between the violence of Red Hood and whatever innocence he'd had as Robin.

She didn't even know his real name. Didn't know his story beyond the fragments he'd given her like scattered puzzle pieces, the scraps she'd assembled from things left unsaid and implications in the silence.

And she couldn't stop thinking about him.

It was pathological at this point. Unhealthy in a way she recognized but couldn't seem to fix. She knew that. She was fixating on someone she barely knew, someone dangerous and complicated who'd made it abundantly clear he had chosen to stay away. Meanwhile, Andrew was right here in front of her, offering something real and tangible. Something that made sense. Something her mother would approve of and her father would respect.

She should want that. Should want the man who brought her flowers and remembered her coffee order and didn't carry guns or leave bodies in alleys.

So why did her chest feel hollow every time he touched her? Why did his kiss feel like nothing?

"—don't you think?"

She blinked, focusing back on Andrew and dragging herself back to the present moment. "Sorry, what?"

He smiled, patient as always. He'd been patient with her distraction all night, with her obvious mental absence. Too patient, maybe. A better man than she deserved. "I asked if you thought Grant would give you the crime beat permanently. After the Chen story and all your other work on the Park Row, it seems like you've really carved out a niche for yourself. You’ve made yourself indispensable."

"Oh. Maybe. I don't know." She picked up her beer, took a sip she didn't taste, the carbonation feeling flat and lifeless on her tongue. "I'm still technically splitting time between crime coverage and other assignments. Puff pieces about restaurant openings. Human interest stories about local artists."

"Well, you should push for it." His hand moved from hers to her knee under the table. Testing the waters, she knew. His palm was warm through the denim of her jeans. "You're doing work that actually matters. Work that changes things. And it suits you, the investigative stuff on people everyone else ignores. You're really good at making people feel seen.”

His hand on her knee should have felt nice. Should have made her want to lean in, to close the distance between them, to let this progress naturally into something more.

Instead, her traitorous brain supplied a different memory. Arms wrapped around a leather-clad waist, her thighs pressed against muscular legs, the rumble of an engine around her. The way her body had fit against his so easily. 

She took another sip of her drink, using it to cover whatever expression was on her face.

"You okay?" Andrew's brow furrowed, genuine concern in his eyes. "You've been really distracted tonight. More than usual, I mean. You're not really... here."

"I'm fine," she lied automatically. "Just tired. It's been a long week. Lots of stuff at work lately.”

"Long month, sounds like." He squeezed her knee gently, reassuringly. "Between the articles and everything else, you're probably burning out. We can call it early if you want. Rain check on dessert. I don't want to keep you out if you're exhausted."

"No, it's fine. Really." She forced herself to engage, to be present in this moment instead of lost in thoughts of someone who shouldn’t matter. Andrew deserved better than this. Better than her divided attention, her hollow responses. "Tell me more about that thing with Sierra and the printer malfunction. I zoned out for a second but it sounded funny."

He launched back into the story with renewed enthusiasm, something about Sierra getting into a fight with the office printer that had somehow resulted in toner exploding all over the break room like a cartoon disaster. She tried to listen. Tried to laugh at the right moments, to make the appropriate sympathetic noises.

But her mind kept drifting like smoke, slipping away despite her best efforts. Back to rooftops and alleys and the red hood symbol above her door that she saw every time she came home. Back to a distorted voice that had somehow become familiar, almost comforting. Back to white lenses catching the light and the way he'd put the motorcycle helmet on her head with such unexpected tenderness, like she was something precious.

"—which is why I think she would rather just email instead of dealing with printing anything ever again—"

I care that you're still alive to think at all.

The voices overlapped in her head, present and memory bleeding together until she didn't know which was which. She blinked hard, trying to ground herself in the now.

"Sorry," she said again, shaking her head like she could physically dislodge the thoughts and reset her brain. "I'm really off tonight. I don't know what's wrong with me."

Liar, she spat at herself internally. 

"Hey." Andrew's voice was understanding in a way that made her feel worse. He reached across the table again, both hands finding hers now, enveloping them completely. "Seriously, we can go. No pressure. Maybe you're coming down with something, or just burned out from work. You've been working yourself to the bone lately. I've noticed."

"Maybe," she agreed, even though she knew exactly what was wrong with her and it had nothing to do with being sick or overworked or any other convenient excuse.

It had everything to do with some stupid, naive fascination she had with a man whose name she didn’t know, story she wasn’t privy to, and who certainly didn’t care about hers. 

They finished their drinks in a silence that Andrew probably thought was comfortable but felt suffocating to her. He paid the check, waving off her attempt to split it with an easy smile. "Next time," he said, and she wondered if she should let there be. "My treat tonight. To celebrate your success."

The drive back to her apartment was quiet. She spent it staring out the window at Gotham's nightscape sliding past, the city transforming as daylight died. The city looked different at night, she'd noticed. Sharper. More honest. Like it stopped pretending to be something it wasn't and just embraced the darkness, the rot that pulsed underneath its skin.

She wondered if he was out there somewhere. Watching from some rooftop like a gargoyle. Tracking criminals through the shadows. Thinking about her at all, or if she'd been compartmentalized and filed away as a closed chapter, a civilian who knew too much and needed to be kept at arm's length.

Andrew parked on her street, insisted on walking her to her door despite her protests that it was barely twenty feet. "It's Gotham," he'd said with a laugh. "I'm not letting you walk alone even twenty feet. What kind of date would I be?"

They climbed her front steps, stopping under the red hood symbol that glared down at them in the streetlight's harsh glow like a beacon. Andrew didn't seem to notice it, or if he did, he didn't comment. Just turned to face her, hands in his pockets, that same kind smile on his face. Open, honest, uncomplicated.

"I had a really good time tonight," he said, and she believed he meant it. "Even if you were a little in your head. That's okay. We all have those nights. I get it."

"I had a good time too," she said, and it wasn't entirely a lie. The bar had been nice. The food good. The company...pleasant. 

Perfectly pleasant. That should have been enough. For normal people, that would be enough.

"So..." Andrew took a half-step closer, reading something in the space she left open between them. "Same time next week? There's this new Thai place that opened in the Diamond District that's supposed to be incredible."

"Yeah. That sounds good."

He moved closer still, and she realized with a jolt what was about to happen. She could see it in the way he angled his body, the way his gaze flicked down to her mouth and back up to her eyes, asking silent permission. He was going to kiss her.

She should want this. Should be excited, nervous, feeling something other than resigned acceptance. Something other than complacent.

He leaned in slowly, giving her time to pull back if she wanted, to turn her head or step away. She didn't. Just stood there and let him close the distance, let his lips meet hers in a kiss that was soft and careful. Safe.

He kept it chaste, just a press of mouths, nothing too aggressive or presumptuous. The kind of first-kiss-on-a-third-date that was appropriate and respectful and perfectly, perfectly nice.

Perfectly, absolutely, devastatingly nice.

And she felt nothing. No spark, no heat, no desire to deepen it or pull him closer or lose herself in the moment like people did in movies. Just the clinical, detached observation that Andrew was kissing her and that his technique was perfectly fine. That objectively this should be pleasant, should make her feel something warm and promising.

It felt like an obligation. Like checking a box on a form. Third date: kiss. Fourth date: invitation upstairs.

He pulled back after a few seconds, smiling, his eyes hopeful and so genuinely happy it made her want to cry. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Andrew," she echoed, her voice steady despite the hollow feeling expanding in her chest.

She watched him walk back to his car, waited until he'd driven away and his taillights had disappeared around the corner before turning to head inside. 

Her legs felt heavy, each step an effort. Inside her apartment, she kicked off her shoes, and went straight for the kitchen, pulling down the bottle of whiskey she kept for nights when beer wasn't enough.

She poured two fingers into a glass, then added a third, because why the hell not, and downed half of it in one burning swallow that settled like fire in her empty stomach.

The apartment felt too quiet. Too still. Like a mausoleum.

She moved to the window, shoved it open with more force than necessary to let in the cold winter air. The chill felt good, grounding, cutting through the fog in her head and the numbness in her chest. She leaned against the sill for a moment, breathing in the smell of Gotham at night. Exhaust and rain and something indefinably urban. Sewage, smoke, and violence waiting to happen.

She carried her glass to the kitchen table, slumped into the chair, and tried to think about anything other than the fact that she'd just kissed Andrew and felt absolutely nothing. Tried to think about work, about her next story, about anything that would distract her from the pathetic reality of her situation.

She should end it. She had to end it. Should tell him next week that this wasn't working, that it wasn't him but her, all the clichés that were nonetheless true and had become clichés because they were universal experiences. It wasn't fair to keep seeing him when her mind and heart were elsewhere, when she was using him as a distraction from feelings she didn't want to have for someone she barely knew. Someone who was probably wrong for her in every conceivable way.

But ending it meant admitting those feelings. Meant acknowledging out loud that she'd somehow become far too invested in a vigilante who killed people without trial or mercy. A man whose name she didn't even know.

Was she just curious? Professional interest in a story? Or was it more than that, something dangerous and consuming that she couldn't name?

God, she was a mess. A complete disaster masquerading as a functional adult.

She took another sip of whiskey, let it burn down her throat, and tried to think about work instead. About what story she should chase next. The Chen article had been good but she couldn't rest on that. She needed to keep pushing, keep exposing the rot underneath Gotham's surface. Keep doing work that mattered.

Maybe something about the GCPD's corruption. Or the housing crisis in the East End that was displacing hundreds. Or—

"You should really lock that window," a familiar, distorted voice said from behind her, cutting through her thoughts like a knife. "Anyone could climb in."

She didn't turn around. Didn't move. Didn't even flinch. Just sat there with her whiskey glass cradled in both hands, fingers white-knuckled around the crystal like it was the only thing keeping her grounded.

"A month," she said quietly, her voice steady despite the fury building in her chest like a storm. She closed her eyes. "You disappeared for a month."

Silence behind her, thick and heavy. Then, the sound of him moving, boots hitting her floor with soft thuds as he climbed through the window with practiced ease. She heard it close, heard the lock clicking into place. And then his voice again. 

"I've been busy," he said bluntly, and the casual dismissiveness in his tone made something snap inside her like a wire pulled too taut.

She took in a long breath before standing to face him, and the anger that had been simmering for thirty-two days boiled over all at once in a rush of heat and fury.

"Busy." She repeated it flatly, letting the word hang there like an accusation. "You've been busy."

"Yeah. You know, stopping crime. Killing bad guys. The usual." He leaned against the window frame, arms crossed, posture radiating that infuriating cockiness that meant he was hiding behind bravado again. Same red helmet, same leather jacket worn and scuffed from use, same boots, the dual pistols at his sides like extensions of his body. She didn't know why she'd expected anything to be different. "Did you miss me?"

"Don't." She set her glass down harder than necessary, the sound sharp in the quiet. "Don't do that. Don't show up after a month and act like it's nothing. Like you can just waltz in here whenever you feel like it."

He tilted his head, his tone dry. "I didn't realize I was on a schedule. Should I be checking in? Sending you a daily update?”

"You marked my building! You—" She stopped, took a breath, tried to rein in the emotion threatening to crack her voice. "No word, no sign, nothing. I had no idea if you were dead or just avoiding me or—"

"I told you," he snapped, though his voice didn't carry as much bite as she was used to hearing from him. "I was busy. Don't think I haven't been watching your building either, princess. In case you were worried about your own hide here."

"Bullshit." The word came out sharp as a slap, cutting through his deflection. "You weren't too busy to keep operating in Crime Alley. I've been tracking the reports. Bodies keep showing up with your calling card all over them. So you were busy with that, you just weren't busy with—" She gestured between them, frustrated at his obtuseness. "With whatever this is."

"There is no 'this,'" he barked out with a laugh that sounded forced, like she had made an intentional joke. But something in his posture had changed. He was tenser now, his shoulders drawn closer and his back a bit straighter. 

"Really? So you mark my building, take me home on your bike, and show up at my window for no reason in general then? You do that to everyone you save? Is this standard operating procedure for vigilantes?"

He growled low in his throat, running a hand over his helmet in frustration. "I told you why I marked your building. Protection. That's it. Stop reading into it, princess. Stop looking for meaning that isn't there."

"For a month? You've been protecting me for a month while avoiding me?"

"Are you looking for an expiration date on the protection?"

"Well, apparently you have one!" She was almost shouting now. She was past caring about volume, about neighbors hearing through thin walls, about anything except the fact that he was here and she was furious with him. She'd been angry for a month, carrying it around like a weight, and now that he was here, she had an opportunity to let it spill over. 

To make him understand that she was hurt. 

"You can't just...you can't do this to people, Hood. You can't make them care and then disappear. When you were Robin, you would have never—"

She froze mid-sentence. They both froze, the words hanging between them like a grenade with the pin pulled. She closed her eyes, wincing at what would come next, at the explosion she'd just triggered.

"Don't call me that," he said dangerously quiet, his tone dropping to something that made her skin prickle.

"Why not?" Might as well own it now. Might as well push him, anything to get under his skin. To crack that armor. "It was you. Still is, if I had to bet. You can pretend all you want but—"

"It's a dead boy's title." The words came out harsh, final.

"You're not dead! You're standing right here! Annoyingly alive!"

"I might as well be." His voice had gone cold in a way that hurt to hear. He balled his hands into fists, looking away from her. "He died years ago. What came back—"

 He gestured at himself with something like disgust. "This isn't him. This isn't Robin."

"That's bullshit too and you know it." She took a step closer, refusing to back down even though every instinct screamed that pushing this was dangerous for the both of them. She didn't care anymore about caution, though. Not after a month of him avoiding her like they had a lover’s spat. "You're him. You're Robin. The boy who walked me home and told me to keep fighting. You're still—"

"I'm not Robin." The words came out final, like he was trying to convince himself as much as her. "Robin died. I'm what's left after that. Let it the fuck go.”

"Then why are you here?" She demanded, throwing up her hands. "Why show up at all if you're so different, so removed from who you were? Why come back tonight after avoiding me for a month?"

He didn't answer. Just stood there, tension radiating off him in waves she could almost see, and she could feel the war happening behind that helmet—the part of him that wanted to leave and the part that had climbed through her window anyway.

Two warring sides within him constantly, never at peace. His old life and the one he was trying to live now. Whoever Robin had been, and whoever Red Hood was pretending to be.

"You've been watching," she said, softer now, trying a different approach. "Haven't you? For the whole month. You've been watching to make sure I was safe."

He hesitated, clearly caught off guard by the change in tactic. Maybe even a bit bashful, if she was reading his body language right. "Look at you, finally figuring out what a tag on your building means. Real detective work there."

She wanted to throw something at him. Maybe it would knock some sense into him, knock the obstinacy out of his thick skull. "Stop deflecting. You're always fucking doing that. I hate it. You've been watching my building while simultaneously avoiding me. Do you see how that's a bit contradictive?"

His arms tensed, frustration boiling into his own voice now, matching her heat. "For your own good."

"My own good?" She scoffed. "You don't get to decide what's good for me. You don't get to make that call."

"Someone should, since you clearly can't." There was an edge to his voice now, sharp and terse. "Going on dates with office boys who drive Hondas and bring you flowers like it's some fucking Hallmark movie. Real safe choice there, princess."

She stopped short, her breath catching. "What?"

"Your date," he said, and even through the modulator she could hear how the words tasted sour in his mouth, like he was swallowing a lemon. "Nice guy. Works with you, right? Andrew. It's good that he walks you to the front door like a gentleman, but he should be walking up to your apartment when he drops you off. Tell him that next time, would ya? It’s been driving me nuts."

She blinked, her mouth falling open in shock. "Have you been stalking me?"

"I've been keeping you safe," he countered hotly, taking a step toward her. "There's a difference."

"Watching me on dates is stalking!" Her voice rose, incredulous.

"I wasn't watching your dates," he retorted, like she'd accused him of something obscene. "I was watching you. Making sure you got home safe. That's different."

"That's literally the same thing!"

"It's not—" He stopped, hands flexing at his sides like he wanted to hit something or reach for her, she couldn't tell which. "He kissed you tonight."

She froze, her anger momentarily forgotten. Confusion crept in instead, seeping through the cracks. The way he spoke was strange. Flat, dead — more empty than angry. 

"That's none of your business," she said carefully, her brain spinning a million miles an hour. 

"I know." He sounded almost drained. Exhausted with something she didn't understand. "That's why I stayed away. Because you're just a civilian, and you know things you shouldn't—" 

He stopped again, looking down at his hands as he fiddled with something on his holsters. "He's good for you. Even if his pants are a bit too tight. And his credit score isn’t all that impressive. Car’s a bit of a junker too, really."

"What the fuck, did you run a background check on this guy or something?" She almost laughed at the absurdity.

“Well, I didn’t personally run the check but —”

She stared at him in horror. 

"That guy," he stated quickly, changing the subject. "He's better for you. Normal job, normal life, normal everything." 

There was something bitter underneath the words, something that sounded almost like a wound splitting open. "That's what you should have. Someone who isn't—" He hesitated, and she could see his fingers drumming against the side of his leg. "Can we just shut the fuck up about this now?"

She stared at him. At the rigid line of his shoulders, the way he wouldn't look at her, how he was shifting around ever so slightly from side to side. Like he was uncomfortable, uncertain. Nervous.

 Understanding clicked into place with such sudden, painful clarity she was surprised a lightbulb didn’t appear above her head. 

"Why did you really stay away?" she asked, her voice quiet now.

He stilled, glancing up at her now that her voice had changed. 

"I stayed away because I have work to do," the lie was painfully obvious, transparent as glass.

"You stayed away because you're scared," she corrected, calling his bluff.

"I'm not scared of anything." But it came out too quick, too defensive. A contrast to his usual cocky swagger. She knew she'd hit the mark.

"Liar." She moved closer, close enough to see the bloodstains on his jacket sleeves. Fresh, still wet in places, probably from tonight's patrol. "You're terrified. That's why you ran on the bike when I figured out who you were. Why you disappeared for a month. Why you're telling me Andrew is better for me. You're scared of whatever this is between us. Whatever you’re feeling."

He balked, tensing up immediately like she'd struck him. His tone was biting now, defensive walls slamming into place. "There's nothing between us."

"Then why are you here?" She asked again, refusing to let him deflect. "Really. Why did you come tonight? Why have you been watching me for so long? How long has it been exactly?"

He was quiet for so long she thought he might not answer, that he might just leave through the window and disappear for another month. "Because I needed to see—" he stopped, the words catching. Started again. "I wanted to check in. That's all. Make sure you were...okay."

"I'm fine," she bit out, perhaps a bit too forcefully. She was never going to get him to answer her questions honestly. Any question, really. And it was exhausting to even keep trying, to keep hoping that he would break down his walls one day and let her in.

"You're drinking alone at your kitchen table at eleven at night," he nodded at her glass, at the whiskey bottle still sitting out. "That's not fine."

"I'm drinking alone because I went on a third date with a man I feel nothing for and I'm trying to figure out why I can't just be normal about it." The words came out before she could stop them, raw and honest. "I’m pissed because I can’t just want the stable guy at work who probably doesn't even know how to use a gun, who's never killed anyone or maybe even been in a damn fight. Why I'm on a date with him, thinking about you. And don’t you dare stand here and tell me you’re so interested in ‘protecting me’ out of general curiosity. Bullshit. You think I was born yesterday?”

Silence. Heavy, terse silence that pressed down on them like a physical weight.

"You should want the stable guy," he said finally. Gruffly, like he was forcing the words out through broken glass. "You should want someone who won't get you killed just by association. Someone who can give you a normal life."

She shook her head in frustration, running a hand through her hair hastily, making it stand up in places. "Stop telling me what I should want. Stop deciding for me."

Red Hood took a step closer to her, looking down at her with those unreadable white lenses. She wished he would take that damn helmet off and she could look him in the eye. "Someone has to, since you’re consistently good at making shitty decisions."

"Like what? Like figuring out who you are? Like keeping your secret when I could have made my career off it? Like—" She gestured at him, frustrated beyond measure. "Like caring whether you show up here or not?”

"Yes." The word came out almost anguished, ripped from somewhere deep. "All of those. You should have published the story. Exposed me. Protected yourself and your career. Instead you're, what? Protecting me? Why? What do you get out of this?"

"Because—" She stopped, the truth lodged in her throat. Because he'd saved her. Because he'd trusted her once when he was Robin, given her something precious. Because underneath the violence and the brutality, she could still see glimpses of the boy who'd cared so fiercely about protecting people that he'd put on a mask and fought in the dark. 

Because somewhere along the way, she'd stopped being able to separate her professional interest from something far more personal and dangerous, something that kept her up at night.

"Because it would be wrong," she said instead, taking the coward's way out. "Publishing your identity. It would get you killed, or arrested. And I don't—" She took a breath. "I don't agree with your methods, but I understand why you think they're necessary. That should be enough of an answer."

He moved then, crossed the small distance between them in a single stride. She thought for a wild, breathless second he might touch her. That he might finally close that gap, might reach for her the way she wanted him to. But he stopped just short, close enough that she had to tilt her head back to maintain eye contact with those white lenses, feeling the body heat radiating off of him.

"You should be afraid of me," he said quietly. There was something almost pleading in it. Like he was begging her to be afraid. 

She met his gaze head-on, hoping there was still the same fire from earlier in her eyes. "I'm not."

"I've killed people," he hissed, leaning closer. "A lot of people. Dozens. And I'm going to kill more. I'll probably kill someone tomorrow."

"I know." She didn't flinch, didn't back down.

He laughed, but it was a cruel, mocking sound. "And you're just, what? Okay with that? You can live with that?"

"I didn't say I was okay with it." She held his gaze, or where she thought his gaze was behind those lenses. "I said I understand why you do it. That's different. Understanding isn't approval."

"How is it different?" He demanded.

"Because—" She searched for the right words, for a way to make him understand. "Because I've seen what this city does to people. Seen how the system fails, over and over again. Seen criminals walk free because they have the right connections or enough money to buy their way out. I've interviewed their victims—the women, the children, the families left behind. The people who live in fear every day because the courts let monsters go free to hunt again."

 She paused, her voice dropping. "So I understand it. The rage. The desire to make sure they can never hurt anyone again. I understand wanting permanent solutions to prevent the cycle from continuing."

"But?" He prompted, because there was always a but.

"But I also think there has to be a line. Has to be something that separates justice from vengeance, protection from murder. Something that makes us different from them." She paused. 

"And I worry—" Her voice caught slightly. "I worry that you've lost sight of that line. Or maybe just stopped caring about it. Stopped caring where it is."

“The line is bullshit," he said harshly. "It's just something people tell themselves so they can sleep at night while monsters keep hunting, keep hurting people. There’s good and there’s bad. Root out the bad, solve the problem. Over and done with."

"Or maybe it's the only thing that keeps us from becoming monsters ourselves," she countered.

They stared at each other. Everything was still tense, still charged with energy. He said nothing, just stared down at her with an expression she wished she could see, his breathing shallow. 

"You want a drink?" She asked finally, needing to break the moment before it shattered completely, before one of them said something they couldn't take back. "I'm not drinking alone if you're here."

He seemed surprised by the offer, caught off guard by the olive branch. His body was still tense, still in that constant state of fight or flight. Ready to bolt. But after a moment of hesitation, after some internal debate she couldn't see, he relaxed and gave her a short nod. 

She moved to the counter and pulled down another glass. Poured two fingers of whiskey with hands that shook slightly and handed it to him. Ignored the wave of anger, of hurt, still flowing through her.

He took it from her gently, carefully, like he was afraid of breaking it. He turned away slightly, and reached up to his helmet.

She heard the soft hiss of seals releasing and watched as he pushed it up. Not off, just enough to expose his jaw and mouth. The scar caught the kitchen light, that jagged line crossing from his cheek to his lip like someone had tried to carve him open, and she found herself staring again despite trying not to.

He noticed. Of course he noticed. "Still fascinated by it?"

His voice without the modulator was still as beautiful as she remembered. Rough, clipped, and husky in a way that did things to her she didn't want to examine. "Still wish it hadn't happened to you."

Something in the set of his mouth shifted, softened fractionally like ice beginning to thaw. He raised the glass to his lips and drank deeply, draining half of it in one go. "Christ, that's good. What is this?"

"Something far too expensive for me," she said, leaning against the counter with her own glass. "My father sent it when I published an article exposing some politicians in the city taking bribes to shift money away from soup kitchens and shelters in the Narrows. His way of saying he was proud without actually having to say it."

He looked at the amber liquid in his glass, his lips turning up into a small smirk. "Sounds like a dick."

"He is," she agreed easily. "But he has good taste in whiskey. I'll give him that much."

She leaned against the counter, cradling her own glass. "Can I ask you something?"

"You're going to anyways," he said with a sigh. She watched his lips part, the breath escaping pushing past. 

"When you were Robin—" She saw him tense but continued anyway. "When you saved me that night. You told me you did it because nobody had saved you when you needed it. What did you mean by that?"

He was quiet for a long moment, swirling the whiskey in his glass like it held answers. "I grew up in Crime Alley. Few blocks from where I found you, actually. Same shitty streets, same shitty circumstances." 

"My mom was—" He stopped, the words catching. Started again. "She was an addict. Heroin, mostly. My dad was in and out of prison for petty shit. I was twelve when she died. Overdose. Thirteen when I ended up on the streets, fending for myself."

She paused, taken aback. "I'm… I’m so sorry." 

The words felt inadequate.

"Don't be. Lots of kids have it worse. Lots of kids don't make it at all." He took another drink, using it as punctuation. "But yeah. I know what it's like when nobody's coming to help. When you're just... alone. Trying to survive in a city that doesn't give a shit if you live or die.”

"And then Batman found you."

His jaw tightened, like the memory was painful. "I sorta found him, but yeah, that's about right. Tried to jack the tires off the Batmobile."

"You what?" She blinked, almost laughing at the absurdity.

"I was desperate and stupid. Thought I could sell them." A pause. "He could have broken my arm. Could have turned me over to the cops. Instead he—" He stopped.

"He took you in."

"He gave me a purpose." There was something complicated in his voice, affection and resentment tangled together like barbed wire. "Trained me. Made me Robin. Gave me a home, a mission, a reason to be better. For a while it was—" He paused, and she could hear the pain in it. "For a while it was good. I got to help people. Got to make sure other kids didn't end up like me. Got to matter."

"What happened?" She asked quietly, even though she knew this part would hurt.

"I died." He said it flatly, matter-of-fact, like he was reporting the weather. The words came out of his mouth so fast, so bluntly, that she had to steel herself, had to physically stop herself from reacting. "Almost six years ago. Got in over my head, made a fucking stupid decision, and paid for it. End of story.”

She sucked in a sharp breath through her teeth. She stared at him in disbelief, gripping the glass in her hand so tight she thought it might shatter. He had mentioned Robin dying, but the way he said it now sounded so...literal. So final. How could someone die and come back to life?

"When you say die," she paused, not quite sure how to articulate her thoughts without sounding insane. "Do you mean..."

"Yes, sweetheart, I mean died." His voice had gone hard again, defensive walls slamming back up. "Quite literally. Was dead for a bit before I got pulled out of my grave by forces I still don't entirely understand. Woke up different. Angrier. Less—" 

He gestured vaguely. "Less willing to play by the Bat's rules. Less willing to let people walk away."

She processed that, the impossible reality of it. Death and resurrection. No wonder he seemed like two different people warring for control. He was the boy she’d met and the man he'd become, the before and after. She wanted to apologize, to offer sympathy, to do something other than just stand and stare at him, but she knew him by now. Anything too emotional would set him off and would send him running all over again. "What happened after? After you...came back?"

"After I woke up in my coffin and clawed my way out?" The bitter laugh was back, sharp and humorless. She felt sick hearing the words, imagining it. "I spent some time figuring out who I was. What I wanted. Who I wanted to be. And I realized—" He paused, choosing his words carefully. "I realized Batman's way doesn't work. Catching criminals and sending them to Arkham so they can escape six months later and kill again. Stopping dealers just to have them back on the streets a week later with new product. It's a cycle. A fucking endless, pointless cycle. So I decided to break it."

"By killing them."

"By making sure they can't hurt anyone ever again. Yes." He met her eyes, mouth set in a thin line. "You want to judge me for it, go right ahead. I've heard it all before from you. I sleep fine at night knowing the people I've killed deserved it. Knowing I've saved lives by taking theirs.”

"I'm not judging you." She said quietly, meaning it with everything she had. "I'm trying to understand. Trying to figure out how someone who cared so much about justice, about protecting people, ended up becoming—"

"An executioner?" He supplied the word she'd been avoiding.

"I was going to say someone who's lost faith in humanity. In redemption."

That stopped him cold. He looked at her sharply, his mouth twisting into something ugly. "What?"

"That's what it sounds like," she said carefully, like she was handling something fragile. "Like you've decided people are beyond redemption. That they can't change, can't be rehabilitated. Can only be eliminated. That some people are just evil and that's all they'll ever be. And I get it—I get why you'd think that after what you've seen, after what you've been through. But—"

 She took a breath. "But I also think that's a really dark place to live. Believing that some people are just irredeemable. That killing them is the only solution."

"It's realistic," he said flatly.

"It's nihilistic."

"Same thing in Gotham.”

"No," she said firmly, refusing to let him hide behind cynicism. "It's not. Gotham's broken but it's not dead. There are still people fighting for it. Still people who believe it can be better, that change is possible. You used to be one of those people. Robin believed that."

"Yeah, and look where that got me." He gestured at himself again, at the guns and armor. "Dead in the ground at fifteen. Real inspiring story."

"But you came back," she pressed. "You're still fighting, still trying to protect people."

"I'm fighting smarter. More effectively. With permanent solutions."

"You're fighting angrier." She moved closer, closing the distance he'd created between them. "And I understand the anger. I do. I understand the rage and the betrayal and the hurt. But Hood—" She used his moniker deliberately this time, emphasizing it. "You can't let it consume you. You can't let it turn you into the thing you're fighting against.”

He looked down at her with his mouth set in a scowl, but she could see his throat working, see the tension in his jaw. "I'm nothing like them."

"Aren't you?" She kept her voice gentle, not accusatory. "You kill without trial. Without giving people a chance to defend themselves or change or prove they're more than their worst moment. Don’t you believe in second chances?”

"They don't deserve chances!" His voice rose, sharp with old rage that had never healed. "You think that pimp in Park Row deserved a chance? He was trafficking thirteen-year-olds, selling children. Or that dealer selling fentanyl-laced pills to high schoolers, to kids who didn't know what they were taking? How many chances should he get before we admit he's just going to keep killing kids? How many more victims?"

"I don't know," she admitted honestly. "I don't have an answer for that. I wish I did. Maybe you're right. Maybe some people are beyond saving, beyond redemption. But—" 

She reached out, stopped just short of touching his arm, her hand hovering. "But if you believe everyone you kill is beyond saving, if you've lost the ability to see any hope for redemption in anyone, then you're losing yourself. You're becoming exactly what broke you in the first place. Someone who sees the world in black and white, who's forgotten there's gray too.”

"There is no fucking gray," his lips were pulled back now in a half-snarl, defensive and angry. "Don't talk about me like you know me. You don't know what I've seen."

"There's always gray. That's what being human means. That's what separates us from animals." She pulled her hand back, wrapped it around her glass instead, needing something to hold to ground herself. "You talked to me once about protecting people who couldn't protect themselves. About making sure kids like you had someone fighting for them. Do you remember that conversation?"

"Of course I remember." His voice was rough.

"That person you were…Robin…he had hope. He believed people were worth fighting for, worth saving. Even when everything was stacked against him, he kept going because he believed in something better. He had faith." Her throat was tight, burning. "I don't want you to lose that. I don't want you to become so consumed by anger and vengeance that you forget what you were fighting for in the first place. That you forget why Robin mattered."

"Oh, so you met me once, write an article, and suddenly you know me now?" he sneered, but it lacked real heat. The scar on his jaw shifted into something uglier when he grimaced. "Get off your fucking high horse, princess."

"I researched you for years," she shot back, not backing down. "I know you better than you think. Better than you want to admit. Are you fighting because you're angry? Why? Because nobody saved you when you needed it most? Because you feel betrayed by Batman, by someone else? Because you're hurt and you don't know how else to process it except through violence?"

His jaw clenched so hard she could see a muscle jump. "Don't fucking psychoanalyze me."

"I'm not. I'm—" She stopped, choosing her next words carefully. "I'm worried about you. Because I think you're drowning and you don't even realize it. I think you're so deep underwater you can't see the surface anymore. I think—" Her voice cracked slightly, betraying her emotion. "I think eventually you're going to go so far down that path that you won't be able to find your way back. And the person who was Robin will be truly, permanently dead."

Red Hood chuckled darkly, the sound wrong. He leaned forward suddenly, his lips grazing the side of her face, close enough that she could feel the heat of his breath. 

She didn't shiver, but she did jump at the unexpected contact, at the feel of his breath on her skin for the first time. His words were no louder than a whisper. "Maybe I don't want to come back."

She swallowed hard, biting down her rising adrenaline, her heart hammering. "I don't believe that."

"Why not?" He was still close, too close, not moving away.

"Because you're here." She gestured at her apartment with her free hand, at the minimal space between them. "Because you came back tonight even though you've been avoiding me for a month. Because you marked my building to protect me, because for some reason, you still care enough to make sure I get home safe even when you're trying to push me away.” 

She paused, her voice dropping. "Because the boy who was Robin is still in there somewhere. And he's the reason you can't fully commit to becoming the monster you think you need to be."

The silence that followed was deafening. He stood there, whiskey glass forgotten in his hand, staring at her with an expression she couldn't read through the helmet but could feel—raw and exposed. Vulnerable. 

"You don't know anything about me," he said, but his voice was hollow. Empty of conviction.

"I know enough." She finished her own whiskey and set the glass down with finality, her resolve absolute. "I know you saved my life when you were Robin. I know you gave me words that changed everything for me. I know something made you decide killing was justice. I know you disappeared for a month because you were scared of whatever this is between us. And I know—" She took a breath, steadying herself. "I know you're still in there. The boy who cared. Who had hope. You're just buried under so much pain and rage that you can't see it anymore.”

He flinched like she had physically struck him. "You're fucking wrong."

"Am I?" She challenged, taking a step closer. They were nearly pressed chest-to-chest. "Then prove it. Tell me you feel nothing when you kill. Tell me it doesn't keep you up at night. Tell me you're perfectly fine with the line you've crossed and you have zero doubts about what you're becoming. Tell me you don’t think about any of that."

He said nothing. Didn't move an inch. His body was rigid and uncompromising, every muscle locked. His mouth was set in a thin line, the scar pale against flushed skin in the artificial light.

She had him.

"That's what I thought," she said softly. 

He set his glass down roughly, nearly slamming it onto her kitchen table hard enough that she was surprised it didn't shatter. "Fuck you. You think you can save me? Is that it? Fix me with the power of compassion like some kind of fucking savior?" He snorted, shaking his head almost manically. "Grow up, princess. It's time to face the music and get your nose out of your own idealism before it gets you killed."

"I think you can save yourself," she corrected him, ignoring the jabs, the attempts to push her away. "I think you're capable of finding a middle ground between Batman's unwillingness to cross the line and your complete erasure of it. I think you're smart enough and strong enough to figure out a way to protect people without losing yourself to the darkness completely. But—" She held his gaze steadily. "But you have to want to. You have to believe there's something worth coming back for. Someone worth being better for."

"Shut up," he bit out, though she wasn't sure if he was talking to her or to his own thoughts at this point, to the voice in his head that maybe agreed with her.

"Eventually you'll go too far," she pushed, refusing to let him hide. "You'll kill someone who maybe didn't deserve it, or cross a line even you can't justify to yourself, and you won't be able to come back from it. You won't be able to live with yourself. And the person who was Robin, the old you, will be truly dead. And I don't—" Her voice broke. "I don't want you to lose him. I don't want to lose you."

The words stretched out between them. Heavy and honest.

"Why do you care?" He asked. There was genuine confusion in his voice now, she could hear it in the way his voice shook. His face was turned away from her but his chest was heaving, his harsh breaths filling her ears. "Why do you give a damn what happens to me? I'm nobody to you."

"I don't know," she said softly, the lie bitter on her tongue. 

She did know. She had known for a month now, maybe longer.

 "I should be reporting you. Should be exposing what you're doing, writing articles about the danger of vigilante justice taken too far. That's my job. That's what a good journalist would do. That's how I build my career."

She paused, her voice barely above a whisper. "But I can't. Because when I look at you, I don't just see Red Hood. I see Robin. I see the boy who saved me. And I think—" Her voice wavered, broke. "I think maybe if someone had cared enough to pull him back from the edge, to refuse to give up on him, he wouldn't have become this. So maybe if I care enough, if I refuse to give up on you, maybe—"

"Maybe I won't become a complete monster?" He finished for her bitterly. "That's not how this works. I'm not your fucking passion project. I'm not some broken thing for you to fix."

"Then how does it work?" She demanded, frustrated. "Tell me."

"I keep doing what I'm doing. You keep writing your articles. And we both pretend this—" He gestured between them violently. "—doesn't exist. Because it can't exist. I'm not someone you can fix or save or redeem with some nice, prissy speech. I'm just someone trying to make Gotham a little less hellish, one bullet at a time. That's it."

"And Batman?" She asked quietly, changing tactics. "Where does he fit into this?"

His whole body tensed like she'd hit a nerve, touched something raw. "He doesn't."

"Red Hood—"

"He doesn't." He spat the words out like a curse. "We have an understanding. He stays out of my territory, I stay out of his way. That's it. That's the whole relationship."

"But he was your—"

"My what? Father figure? Mentor?" He laughed, sharp and pained and angry. "He was someone who used me. Who turned a kid from Crime Alley into a weapon and then couldn't handle what that weapon became when it started thinking for itself. When it proved to always be a pitiful disappointment."

"That's not fair," she said quietly.

"Isn't it?" His voice was rising again, the anger bleeding through. "He trained me to fight. Taught me to be brutal, efficient, ruthless. Then acted surprised when I decided efficiency meant permanent solutions. When I took the lessons he taught me to their logical conclusion." His voice was climbing higher, more heated. "He wants to play by rules that don't exist, wants to believe that people can be saved when this city proves every single day that they can't. That some people are just monsters. And when I pointed that out, when I started doing what he was too cowardly to do himself, he—" He stopped abruptly, cutting himself off.

"He what?" She pressed gently.

"He gave up on me." The words came out broken, small. Like a child's. "Same as everyone else. He chose his code over me. Chose his precious rules over his son."

And there it was. The wound that had never healed, that was still bleeding beneath the hood, the tough persona. A son who longed for his father’s acceptance. For his approval. 

Her chest ached, a physical pain blooming behind her ribs. She blinked hard, fighting back tears she didn't even know she had building up. "I don't think that's true."

"You don't know him." His voice was flat, dead.

"No. But I know that grief makes people do stupid things. Losing someone once means you can't survive losing them again." She moved closer, close enough to see her own reflection distorted in his lenses, two versions of herself staring back. "Maybe he didn't give up on you. Maybe he just doesn't know how to reach you anymore. Or he's scared to fuck up again."

"I don't want to be reached." But the words came out hollow, unconvincing even to his own ears.

"Liar."

"You don't know what you're talking about." He turned his head away, the scar on his mouth twisted against his frown. 

"Don't I?" She held his gaze, or where she imagined his gaze was. "You came back tonight. After a month of avoiding me, after swearing you'd stay away, you climbed through my window anyway. If you really didn't want to be reached, if you really wanted to be alone, you'd have stayed away. You would have kept avoiding me."

He didn’t look back at her, but she saw a slight tick in his jaw. The sound of a hard swallow. She could feel the war happening inside him, the two sides of him dueling yet again. 

His new side won out. With a sharp exhale, he ran a hand over his jaw, turning back to the window. "I should go."

She fought back the urge to scream. To grab him and physically restrain him. Frustration rolled through her in waves, hot and furious. "You always run when things get too real. Every damn time."

She could see the glare in the set of his jaw, in the rigidness of his posture. "I'm not running."

"Then what do you call showing up just to tell me to forget about you? To move on? To be with someone else?" Her voice was rising despite her best efforts. "What do you call disappearing for a month and then coming back just to leave again?"

"It's protection!" His voice rose, cracking under the pressure. The armor finally began to fracture "From me, from this life, from everything that comes with being anywhere near someone like me! I'm trying to keep you safe!"

"I don't need your protection from you!"

"Yes, you do!" He moved closer, aggressive now, anger finally breaking through all his defenses like a dam bursting. "You have no clue what you're asking for. What being involved with me means. You think it wouldn’t cost you? I'm not—I'm not some project you can fix! I'm not Robin anymore, I'm not that stupid kid, I'm—"

"You are him!" She shouted back, stepping into his space rather than away from it. Resuming their usual dance, this constant fight. "You're still him, you're just too stubborn and too damaged to admit it! You think putting on a red helmet and killing people erases who you were? You think violence and anger can burn away everything you used to be?"

"There is no person underneath!" His hands came up, not touching her but close, gesturing wildly like he could make her understand through sheer force of movement. "There's just—there's just this fucking need to make sure no one else ends up like me, like those kids in Crime Alley, like—"

He stopped, breathing hard, gasping for air like he was drowning, like the words had physically hurt him. His chest was heaving.

"You want to know why I stayed away, sweetheart?" The question came out raw, scraped from somewhere deep. "Because being near you makes me fucking want things I can't have. Because you look at me like I'm still worth saving when I'm anything but. I'm so far gone there's nothing left to save. And you keep thinking I’m some bleeding heart, some moronic dunce —”

"That's not your call to make!"

"It is my — fucking Christ, I'm trying to keep you safe!" His voice cracked on the last word.

She took another step closer, eliminating what little space remained between them. "From what?"

"From me! From caring about someone who's going to get himself killed doing this! From—" His voice cracked completely, splintered into pieces. His mouth was trembling. "From ending up like everyone else who gets close to me. Dead or broken or wishing they'd never met me in the first place. I can't—I can't be the reason you get hurt. I won't."

"You don't get to decide that for me." Her heart was hammering, adrenaline and anger and something else flooding her system, making her reckless. "You don't get to push me away 'for my own good' and expect me to just accept it. You don't get to make my choices. Admit it. You're just scared."

"Of course I'm scared!" The admission burst out of him like it had been trapped, locked away for months. Buried behind weeks of denial and deflection. "I'm fucking terrified! Because you're…because you make me feel like maybe I'm not completely lost, like maybe there's still something worth, like maybe I could be—" He stopped abruptly with a gasp like he had been hit, his lips pulled tight as he seemed to realize what he'd been about to say. What he'd been about to admit.

The silence that followed was deafening. She stared at him silently with a hammering heart, realization washing over her instantly. 

"Say that again," she whispered, her voice barely audible.

"No." He growled, mouth trembling slightly.

"Hood—"

"Don't." His voice was rough, stripped of all pretense. "Don't push this. Just...just drop it. Please."

"Drop it?" She couldn't believe the back-and-forth within him, the constant war. Did it tire him constantly, the endless dance in his own head? The push and pull? "You can't just say something like that and then—"

"Yes!" He grabbed her arms then, Not aggressive, but desperate, his gloved hands wrapping around her biceps with a pressure that was more grounding rather than threatening. She forced herself not to jump in surprise. "You're not going to get what you want out of me. If I say it, if I admit—" 

He stopped, his breathing ragged even without being filtered through the helmet, harsh and quick. "You should be with that other idiot. Someone who won't get you killed. Someone good. Someone who deserves you."

"I don't want good!" The words tore out of her like a scream, frustration bleeding out. "I want—"

She didn't get to finish.

He moved so fast she didn't see it coming.

The kiss was nothing like Andrew's. Nothing sweet or gentle, careful or respectful. It was desperate, almost violent in its intensity, like he was drowning and she was air. Like he was dying and she was life itself. 

His hand came up to cup the back of her head, fingers tangling roughly in her hair, angling her head so he could kiss her deeper, harder. Like he was trying to consume her. His other arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her flush against him with enough force to steal her breath.

She gasped against his mouth and he took advantage immediately, deepening the kiss, his tongue sliding against hers in a way that made her knees weak. She clutched at his jacket for support, needing him closer even though they were already pressed together with no space between them, something to hold onto.

He tasted like whiskey and something darker, something indefinably him. The scar on his cheek was rough against her skin, a texture that just made everything feel more real, more visceral. 

She kissed him back just as fiercely, weeks of frustration and confusion pouring out in a rush. Her hands moved from his jacket to his chest, feeling the armor plating beneath, the solid muscle underneath that. She wanted to touch his skin but there were too many layers, too much between them.

He made a sound low in his throat, something like a growl, and suddenly they were moving. He walked her backward, his mouth never leaving hers, even as her back hit the wall beside the window with a thud. The impact should have hurt but she barely felt it, too consumed by the feeling of him against her, his body pinned against hers, his hands everywhere at once. Possessive and yearning to touch every part of her, to hold whatever he could grab onto.

One hand stayed tangled in her hair, holding her head in place while he kissed her like he was trying to memorize her. The other slid down her side, over her ribs, settling on her hip with a grip that was almost bruising. His thumb brushed under the hem of her shirt, finding bare skin, and the touch sent electricity racing through her veins. 

She arched into him with a soft moan, one leg hooking around his hip to pull him closer. He groaned against her mouth, his breath passing through her own lips. He pressed harder against her, letting her feel exactly what this was doing to him physically. How much he wanted this, wanted her.

His mouth left hers to trail down her jaw, finding the sensitive spot just below her ear, and sucked hard. She gasped, her head falling back against the wall to give him better access, surrendering instantly. He took full advantage, lips and teeth working against her neck in a way that was definitely going to leave a few marks. It was messy and juvenile in a way, but she didn’t care. All she could focus on was the feel of him against her, the heat pooling in her core as he ravaged her skin. 

"Hood—" The only name she had for him came out breathless, pleading. Barely recognizable to her own ears.

He growled something against her throat — maybe agreement or protest, she couldn't tell — and came back to her mouth. This kiss was somehow even more intense now, more consuming, like he was trying to pour everything he couldn't say into the contact. His hand on her hip tightened, fingers digging in hard enough to draw blood, but she didn't care. 

She wanted the marks. Wanted proof that this was real, that he was here, that after all this time dancing around each other he wanted her as much as she wanted him.

She could feel his heartbeat through the armor, through all the layers between them. It was racing, hammering out a staccato rhythm that matched her own. Could feel the tremor in his hands that meant he was barely holding on, barely keeping himself together. 

Her hands moved upward, one sliding around to the back of his neck where his helmet had been pushed up, finding warm skin and loose hair that was softer than she'd expected. The other moved to his face, wanting to touch, to feel, to map the features she'd only glimpsed—

Her fingers brushed the scar on his jaw.

He froze.

It was instantaneous, how fast the moment broke apart. One second he was kissing her like he was starving, the next he'd completely frozen up. She felt it the moment he shut down, felt him pull back internally even before he pulled back physically, the walls slamming up between them without any words being spoken.

She sucked in a sharp breath, reorienting herself to the world around her, to the sudden absence of him. She tried to reach for him but he was already moving.

He stepped back, putting distance between them so quickly she nearly stumbled without his weight holding her against the wall. His hand came up to yank the helmet back down fully, covering his face completely again. Rebuilding the armor, the distance. The anonymity. 

"That was—" He stopped, breathing hard, the sound harsh and mechanical through the modulator once more. The barrier was rebuilt. The intimacy was destroyed. "That shouldn't have happened."

"Hood—" Her voice came out wrecked, far too desperate and weak.

"I need to go." He was already moving toward the window, putting more space between them with every step.

"Don't you dare." She pushed off the wall, legs shaky, but the remaining adrenaline left giving her strength. "Don't you dare do that and then run away. You can’t…”

He stopped in front of the window, his back to her. She could see the war happening all over again. The part of him that wanted to stay and the part that was terrified of what staying meant. The two sides fighting their constant, hopeless battle.

"I'll ruin you," he finally said. Quiet, ragged — certain yet broken. "Everyone I care about ends up gone. Broken. It's not—I can't do that to you. I won't be responsible for that. Not you."

She swallowed hard, her lips still tingling from his touch. "You don't get to make that choice for me."

"Yes, I do. Because I'm the one who'll have to live with it when you get hurt because of me. When —" He stopped, his voice failed him. He looked down at his feet, his words a murmur now. "I'm sorry. Just... just forget it. Forget this happened.”

"Hood, wait—"

But he was gone, disappearing through the window into the night like he'd never been there at all. Leaving her alone in her apartment with swollen lips and the phantom feeling of his hands on her body, the ghost of his touch burning into her skin.

She moved to the window slowly, as if in a dream. Closed it, locked it like he'd told her to so many times. Leaned her forehead against the cool glass and tried to catch her breath, tried to process what had just happened.

The game had reached its end. She wouldn't keep chasing a man who wanted to pretend to be a ghost, who kissed her like she was everything and then ran like she was nothing. What was the point, if he wanted to keep resisting? If he was going to keep pushing her away?

She took a step away from the window and let out a quiet, shaky exhale that fogged the glass. She gathered the whiskey glasses from the table and tossed them in the sink with more force than necessary, listening to them clink loudly against the metal. 

She just wished she had never started to care. Wished she could go back to that night in the alley and walk away, call the police, do anything other than what she'd done.

But she couldn't. And she did care. And that was the problem.

—-

"—and apparently Batman took out three of Penguin's enforcers in one night," Jaime was saying, leaning back in his chair with his hands behind his head, looking entirely too pleased about the violence. "Just left them tied up in front of the Iceberg Lounge like a present. Like a cat leaving dead birds on the doorstep. Penguin's furious."

"Good," Sierra said, not looking up from her screen, fingers flying across the keyboard. "Maybe he'll think twice before expanding. Maybe he'll learn his territory doesn’t encompass half of the city.”

"Or maybe he'll escalate and we'll have a gang war on our hands." Jaime shrugged, his eyes wide. "Either way, it's a story. Probably a front-page story."

She took a sip of her coffee, staying quiet, letting the conversation wash over her. She'd been tracking every report about Red Hood for the past week in a way that made her feel like a stalker looking for patterns, for signs of...what? That he was okay? That he was thinking about her? That the kiss had meant something to him beyond a moment of weakness?

She hadn't seen him in a week. Hadn't heard from him. The window stayed locked every night. Every morning she checked it anyway, hoping for something. A note, a sign, anything. Some indication that he didn’t regret what had happened. 

Nothing. Just silence and the red symbol on her building that might as well have been mocking her now.

Sierra glanced up at her, then lowered her voice conspiratorially. "So. Speaking of things we're not talking about..." She jerked her head toward Andrew's desk across the room. He was on a call, turned away from them, but Sierra kept her voice barely above a whisper anyway. "What happened with that?"

She followed Sierra's gaze to Andrew and felt the familiar pang of guilt that hadn't quite faded yet that sat in her stomach like something rotten. "I ended it. Last week."

"Oh shit." Sierra sat up straighter, her eyes going wide. "Really? I thought you guys were... I mean, he seemed really into you. Like, potentially serious."

"He was. Is." She corrected herself, watching Andrew through the glass partition. "But I couldn't—it wasn't fair to him. I wasn't..." She searched for the right words, for something that wouldn't reveal too much. "I wasn't focused on him. My head was somewhere else.”

"Somewhere or someone?" Sierra asked knowingly, eyebrows raised in speculation, reading between the lines.

She rolled her eyes, taking another sip of coffee to avoid answering. "Does it matter?"

"I mean, yeah? Kind of?" Sierra gestured vaguely. "You went on like three dates with Andrew. He's a good guy, a really good guy. Nice, respectful, clearly into you. And you just—" She made a cutting gesture. "What happened? Did he do something?"

"Nothing happened. That was the problem." She took another sip of coffee, using it as a shield, as something to do with her hands. "I just realized I couldn't make myself feel something that wasn't there. And it wasn't fair to keep trying, to keep stringing him along hoping it would develop into something."

Jaime whistled low, eyes wide behind his glasses. "Damn. How'd he take it?"

"Decently. Well enough, anyway." She'd met Andrew for coffee, been as honest as she could be without mentioning the part where she'd developed complicated feelings for a vigilante who killed people and whose face she had never seen. Andrew had been hurt, she'd seen it in his eyes, but he'd been kind about it. Gracious, even. Told her he understood, that he appreciated her honesty, that he'd rather know now than months down the line. They'd agreed to keep things professional at work, to try to move past the awkwardness.

It still felt awful. Like she'd kicked a puppy.

"He's been pretty quiet this week," Sierra observed, looking over at him with concern. "Not his usual self. Usually he's cracking jokes, making everyone laugh."

"I know." The guilt twisted harder, a knife between her ribs. "I feel terrible about it."

"Hey, you did the right thing." Sierra's voice was firm, brooking no argument. "Better to end it than lead him on. String him along for months before finally admitting you weren't feeling it. He'll be fine. It just takes time."

"Yeah," she agreed, but the word felt hollow, meaningless. She stared into her coffee cup, watching the liquid swirl as she tilted it slightly, seeing her distorted reflection in the dark surface.

Time. That's what everyone said, wasn't it? Give it time. Things would get better with time. Hearts healed with time.

But how much time was she supposed to give this ridiculous notion of her own disappointment? How long was she supposed to wait for him to show up again, to explain why he'd kissed her like that and then vanished? How long before she accepted that maybe it had been a mistake to him, that maybe he regretted it, that maybe—

"Excuse me?"

She looked up sharply. Kelly, one of the junior assistants, was standing beside Sierra's desk, wringing her hands nervously, shifting her weight from foot to foot.

"Sorry to interrupt," Kelly continued, glancing between the three of them apologetically with wide, dark eyes. "But there's someone at the front desk asking to speak with you." It took her a second to realize that Kelly was looking directly at her expectantly. 

She frowned, setting her coffee down. "Me? I'm not expecting anyone. Did they say what it was about?"

"He said it's important. Asked for you by name." Kelly bit her lip, clearly uncomfortable. "Should I tell him you're busy? I can take a message if you want."

"No, it's fine." She set her coffee down, already standing, her journalist instincts kicking in. A walk-in source, maybe. "Did he say what it was about?"

"No, just that he needed to speak with you. He seemed..." Kelly hesitated, searching for the right word, her face scrunching up. "Intense. Kind of... I don't know. Intimidating?"

Sierra and Jaime exchanged glances. "Want backup?" Sierra offered, already half-standing. "Just in case?"

"No, I'm fine." Though something in her chest had tightened with an emotion she couldn't name, couldn't identify. Dread? Worry? "I'll be right back."

She followed Kelly through the newsroom toward the front reception area, her mind spinning with possibilities, running through scenarios. An irritated Gothamite, come to argue about something she wrote? Someone with information about a potential story? She had no idea — she hadn’t put out an article since the Chen article. 

She rounded the corner and stopped dead, her feet forgetting how to move.

A young man stood by the reception desk, hands shoved in the pockets of a worn denim jacket, dark jeans and scuffed boots that had seen better days. He was tall, easily six feet, and built like he'd been carved from marble by an artist who understood human anatomy on an intimate level. Broad shoulders, a muscular frame that the jacket did nothing to hide, all lean strength and controlled power.

But it was his face that made her breath catch in her throat.

He was absurdly handsome in a way that seemed almost unfair, almost cruel. A sharp jawline dusted with stubble that was a few days past needing a shave, high cheekbones that could cut glass, and a nose that looked like it had been broken more than a few times and not set quite right. It had a slight crook to it that somehow made him more attractive rather than less. And his eyes were a bright, vivid blue. The kind that seemed to cut right through you when he looked at you. 

He was so striking, so beautiful in that dangerous, sharp-edged way, that she almost didn't notice the scars at first. Some were a pale and silvery white that shone in the light, some darker and more raised. He had one that cut down from the edge of his left cheekbone down his jaw that stood out more than the rest, jagged and crude. Like someone had tried to carve him open. 

Most of the scarring was scattered across his face—his cheeks, his nose, the underside of his jaw—but it didn't detract from his appeal. If anything, it heightened his features. Made him look dangerous and beautiful in equal measure. Like someone with a story. 

And there, cutting through the black hair that fell across his forehead, was a distinctive white streak. Stark and unusual against the dark locks, impossible to miss.

Her heart stopped. Completely stopped, then lurched back into motion too fast, painful against her ribs.

He turned as she approached, and those blue eyes locked onto hers with an intensity that made her breath catch. There was something deep in those eyes. And something else, something that looked a lot like regret. 

"Hi," she managed to say, forcing her voice to stay professional despite the sudden certainty blooming in her chest. "I'm told you asked for me?"

"Yeah." His voice was gruff, lower than she'd expected but painfully, devastatingly familiar beneath the rough edges. That Gotham accent she'd heard a thousand times, had memorized without meaning to. He extended a hand, and she noticed the calluses, the scars on his knuckles. "Thanks for seeing me."

She shook it, and the contact sent a jolt through her system like touching a live wire. His grip was firm, strong—exactly like she remembered from last week when those hands had been in her on her waist, leaving bruises that had just faded. 

She felt dizzy, faint. Her eyes latched onto the scar on his jaw, forcing herself to remain steady despite the surprise of this. What was he doing here? Unmasked? 

"And you are?" She asked, even though she already knew, even though every cell in her body was screaming the answer.

He hesitated for just a fraction of a second, something flickering across his face. He was looking at her like he was nervous. Like meeting her without the mask was terrifying. And he looked so young — even with his height and build, there was no way he could be any older than his early twenties. "Someone with information you'll want to hear."

She narrowed her eyes at him. Was this a game? "About?"

His jaw tightened, muscle jumping. "Red Hood."

Her professional mask nearly cracked. She glanced around the reception area. Too public, too many ears, too many potential witnesses. "Conference room. Follow me.”

She led him down the hallway to one of the smaller meeting rooms, acutely aware of him behind her, of his presence like a physical weight. He moved just as he did with the mask on — silent and deliberate, like someone who was constantly aware of his surroundings. She could feel his eyes on her as they moved down the hall. 

She closed the door behind them, locked it with hands that trembled slightly. Gestured to the chairs around the table. He sat, but his posture was tense, coiled, ready to move. Ready to run.

The professional mask she'd been barely holding onto finally cracked, shattered completely. She whirled around, glaring at him furiously. "What the actual fuck are you doing right now?"

Red Hood — whoever the hell he was—shrugged with infuriating casualness, the corner of his mouth pulling up into a smirk that made her want to either slap him or kiss him, she couldn't decide which. His eyes, impossibly blue, traveled over her from head to toe with an appreciation that was anything but subtle, seemingly more relaxed now that it was just the two of them, now that they were alone. "Nice to see you too, sweetheart. Mind penciling me in for a meeting? I can throw in coffee if that sweetens the deal."

She gaped at him, completely taken aback by his smugness, by the sheer audacity of him standing in front of her without a mask like this was normal, like he hadn't just turned her entire world upside down. This is what he had looked like the whole time. Young, unfairly handsome, devastatingly masculine in a way that made her mouth go dry. She silently counted her lucky stars there, even through her anger. "Cut the shit, Hood. You can't just be strolling into the Gotham Gazette without a mask! What if somebody sees you, recognizes you, or figures out—"

"What would they figure out?" He cut her off with a grin that was all teeth and confidence, taking one deliberate step closer to her, invading her space like he had every right to. "Pretty easy to walk around town without the mask. That's kinda the point of the mask, ya know. To hide my real face so when I don't want to wear it, I can just be—"

"Alright, alright," she waved him off with a heavy sigh, slumping down into the nearest chair before her legs gave out. She pressed her fingers into her temples, trying to stave off the headache blooming behind her eyes. "I don't need you being a smartass right now. Can you just tell me what the hell you're doing here? Why you're here at all?"

He frowned, the smugness evaporating instantly, replaced by something that looked like genuine hurt. His brow furrowed, and seeing it on his actual face, seeing the way it changed his features, made her chest ache. "Thought you'd be a little bit more enthusiastic about finally meeting me face to face. Thought you'd want this."

She snorted, the sound sharp and humorless, leaning back in the chair with her arms crossed defensively. His look of surprise only deepened, confusion and hesitation warring on his features. "I'm sorry, did you expect me to jump for joy after you told me you wanted nothing to do with me a week ago? After you kissed me like I was everything and then ran like I was nothing?"

He blinked, those blue eyes widening slightly even as his scowl remained firmly in place, and she had a brief moment of vicious satisfaction at seeing genuine surprise flicker across his face for the first time. "Those words literally never came out of my mouth—"

"You told me to forget it ever happened." Her voice was flat, emotionless, even though inside she was anything but. "You told me to move on. That it was a mistake."

"Okay, can we just—" He moved closer with an exasperated sigh that sounded almost pained, taking the seat right next to her and leaning forward, bracing his arms on his knees. She froze, startled by the sudden proximity, by having him this close without the helmet between them, without any barrier. She could see every detail of his face now, every scar, every flicker of emotion he usually kept hidden. "This is not going at all how I wanted this to go. Not even close."

She tore her focus away from the mesmerizing blue of his eyes and shifted back into her defensive anger, using it as a shield. "Did you have a plan or something? Did you actually think this through?"

Red Hood shifted in his chair uneasily, his eyes locked on hers like he couldn't look away even if he wanted to. A flush crept up the back of his neck, visible above his jacket collar, spreading to his ears. He rubbed at it nervously, like he could force the blood back down through sheer will. "I... yeah, I did. What's so wrong about that, huh? Thought you'd appreciate seeing me, the real me, without the mask. Without all the barriers." His voice dropped, went quieter. "Not like I go around taking the mask off for just anyone. You're the only one who knows. The only civilian."

"I'm sorry, so your plan was..." She gestured at him, at all of him, trying to wrap her head around this. "To come into my place of work all mysterious and cryptic, thinking I wouldn't immediately know it was you? You thought you'd surprise me with who you are like some grand fucking reveal? Like this was a movie?"

"I—Jesus Christ, you're fucking mean today, aren't you?" He snapped at her, his eyes narrowing, jaw clenching. And yet, underneath the defensiveness, he still sounded nervous. Uncertain. "That wasn't my whole plan, okay? I just..." 

He ran a hand through his hair, messing up the dark strands, that white streak falling across his forehead. "I feel bad about how things went down last week. The way I left, what I said…it wasn't how I wanted things to go. Wasn't what I meant."

She stared at him, her anger warring with confusion. "Yeah, I know. You told me to essentially get lost, remember? To forget you even kissed me. To pretend it never happened."

"For fuck's sake, sweetheart, can you just let me talk?" He cut her off, his entire face flushing red now. Not with anger, she realized with a jolt, but with nerves. His leg was bouncing against the floor, and he was worrying his bottom lip between his teeth, the scar there stretching white. "I'm not good with this sort of shit. With people, much less…much less girls. Women. Whatever." He looked away, unable to meet her eyes. "Never had a chance to... date or anything. Normal teenage stuff. I died before I could figure any of that out, and after I came back, I was too fucked up, too angry, too—"

He stopped, took a breath, forced himself to continue. "I'm an idiot, I know. A complete fucking disaster. But I just...wanted to say I'm sorry. I didn't mean what I said. I don't want to forget about what happened." His voice dropped, went rough with emotion. "I don't regret it. I've wanted to do that for so long now, wanted to kiss you, wanted—" He swallowed hard. "And you were just standing there looking at me with those eyes and saying all that stuff about not giving up on me, and I just..."

He cut himself off with a soft groan that sounded like it was being ripped from somewhere deep, like being this vulnerable was physically painful. Like it was shredding him apart from the inside out. She imagined it was, in every sense that mattered. "I'm sorry, alright? And you do deserve fucking better than me. Someone who isn't broken and damaged and fucked up in ways I can't even begin to explain. So you should forget about me, if you know what's good for you. If you have any sense of self-preservation." 

He paused, his hands flexing into fists on his knees. "But... I do care about you. More than I should. More than is probably safe for either of us. And I don't wanna just keep avoiding you, keep running every time things get real. I can't keep doing that."

He looked up at her again finally, and the vulnerability in those bright blue eyes made her breath catch. "So I wanted to apologize and tell you all that. Tell you that I'm an idiot and I'm sorry and I don't want to stay away." He paused, and something that might have been hope flickered across his face. "And I wanted to give you your damn interview. The real story, everything you've been trying to get out of me for months. Figure that's a good trade for me being a complete jackass. You get your story, your career-making exclusive, and I get to... I don't know. Try to make this right."

She stared at him, at this man who was Red Hood and Robin, who'd died and come back wrong, who killed people and wore bloodstains on his clothes like badges of honor. Who'd kissed her like he was drowning and then run like he was saving her.

"I'll take the interview," she said finally, her voice quiet but steady.

Relief flooded his features, his shoulders dropping. "Yeah? Okay, good. I can…I'll tell you everything you want to know for your article—"

"No." She cut him off, shaking her head. "I'll take the interview, but not for an article. Not for publication."

He blinked, confusion replacing the relief. "What?"

"I want the interview for me." She leaned forward, her eyes locked on his. "To learn more about you. Who you really are under the mask. Not Red Hood the vigilante, but you. The person."

He stared at her like she'd spoken a different language, his mouth opening and closing without sound. "I—you—" He stopped, started again. "You realize what you're turning down, right? An exclusive interview with a vigilante. First journalist to ever get one. It would make your career. You'd have every major publication in the country trying to poach you. You could write your own ticket."

"I know." Her voice was steady, certain.

"Then why—" He looked genuinely baffled, like he couldn't comprehend what she was saying. "Why would you give that up?"

"Because I don't care about any of that." The words came out simple, honest. "Not right now. Not compared to this." She gestured between them. "I care about you. About knowing who you are, really knowing you. Not as a source, not as a story, but as... as whatever this is. As someone who matters to me."

Something in his expression cracked, walls crumbling. His eyes went bright with emotion he was clearly struggling to contain. "You're serious."

"I'm serious." She held his gaze. "No more running. No more hiding. I want to know you…whoever you are."

He flinched slightly, looking down briefly at his boots. "You don't even know my full name. My real name."

"Then tell me." It wasn't a demand, but an invitation. An offering.

He was quiet for a long moment, his jaw working like he was chewing on the words, his blue eyes dark. Finally, he muttered. "Jason. Jason Todd."

The name hit her like a freight train, recognition slamming into her with devastating force. Her breath caught, eyes going wide. "Jason Todd. You're—" She stopped, her mind racing back through years of memories. "I wrote your obituary."

He nodded slowly, watching her carefully. "Yeah. Six years ago. Bruce — he asked you to do it specifically. Paid the Gazette to make sure you were the one who wrote it."

"I remember." Her voice was barely a whisper. "Wouldn't say why he wanted me specifically, just that it was important. That you were important." 

"You did good." His voice was rough, thick with emotion. "I read it. After I came back, after I got my head straight enough to look myself up. You made me sound...human. Like my life meant something. I was happy he picked you."

"But why did Bruce ask me specifically?" She was still putting pieces together, still trying to understand. She didn’t touch on the realization that if Bruce Wayne was Red Hood — Jason’s — adoptive father, that must mean he was also…

She stopped herself, pushing the thought down and locking it away for now. She would revisit that later, when her mind wasn’t already spinning from what was going on right in front of her now.

Jason's throat worked, like swallowing was difficult. "After I died, Bruce found stuff in my room. Personal things. Including a newspaper clipping I'd kept." He paused, his eyes meeting hers. "Your article. The one about Park Row, about Crime Alley. The one where you used my quotes, from that night I saved you.”

Her heart stopped. "You kept it?"

"Yeah." A slight, sad smile tugged at his lips. "Read it probably a hundred times. Every word. You took what I said and made it mean something. It was…it was great." He looked down at his hands, at the scars on his knuckles. "Bruce found it after. Put two and two together. Figured if I'd kept your article, if your words had mattered that much to me, then maybe you should be the one to write about my death too."

"Jason..." She didn't know what to say, overwhelmed by the weight of it all. All she knew was that the sound of his name on her lips was both thrilling and terrifying all at once. 

"I liked the article," he continued, his voice going softer, more vulnerable than she'd ever heard it. "But I also... I had a bit of a crush on you. After that night." He laughed, but it was self-deprecating, almost embarrassed. The flush on his neck reappeared, spread to his face. "Stupid, right? I was fifteen, you were this college student who'd actually listened to me, treated me like I mattered. Like my words had value. I thought you were—" 

He stopped, swallowed hard. "I wanted to find you again. After I got a bit older, when I wasn't just some kid. I thought maybe I could…I don't know. Talk to you again. Without the mask."

His voice was getting tighter now, emotions clearly overwhelming him. "But then I died. And when I came back, I was so fucked up, so angry and broken that I thought…I thought it didn't matter anymore. That I'd ruined any chance of—"

 He stopped, his breath hitching slightly. "And then I ran into you again, years later, and you were everything I remembered and more, and I didn’t think I was enough—"

His voice cracked completely. He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes and let out a ragged breath, trying to hold it together, trying not to fall apart in front of her.

She didn't hesitate. Didn't think. Just moved, closing the distance between them and pulled him into her arms. 

He went rigid for a moment, surprised. But then he was clinging to her, his face pressed against her shoulder, his breathing harsh and uneven against her neck.

"It's okay," she murmured, one hand coming up to stroke through his hair. The smell of him was familiar, comforting. Cigarette smoke, sweat, and some cologne she couldn’t place. "It's okay. I'm here. I'm right here."

"I'm sorry," he choked out, the words muffled. "I'm sorry, I'm a fucking mess, I—"

"You're allowed to be," she said firmly. "You died, Jason. You died and came back and went through hell, and you're allowed to feel that. You're allowed to be human."

He pulled back slightly, just enough to look at her, and his eyes were bright with unshed tears, his face raw and open in a way she'd never seen. Beautiful and broken and so painfully human it made her chest ache.

She leaned in and kissed him.

It was soft, gentle, different from their desperate kiss before. This was comfort and acceptance and promise all wrapped together. This was choosing him, choosing this, choosing to see all of him— the killer and the boy who had never really gotten a chance to live.

He made a soft sound against her mouth, something that might have been a sob, and kissed her back with a tenderness that stole her breath. His hand came up to cup her face, thumb brushing across her cheekbone, and she could feel him trembling.

When they pulled back, he looked dazed, like he couldn't quite believe this was happening. Like he was afraid if he blinked, she might disappear.

She smiled at him gently, and moved back to her chair, pulling out her notebook and pen. "Okay. I'm going to start the interview now."

He blinked at her, clearly trying to process the shift, still looking wrecked and vulnerable. "You…right now?"

"Right now." She clicked her pen, looked up at him with warmth in her eyes. "No more running, remember? So let's start at the beginning. Tell me about growing up in Crime Alley. Tell me about the boy you were before the cape. Before everything."

He blinked, and slowly, a smile spread across his face. Genuine and so full of emotion it transformed his features completely. He looked young suddenly, boyish despite the scars and the hard edges. He looked at her like she was something precious, something miraculous.

Like he was already half in love with her, or maybe had been all along.

"Yeah," he said softly, his voice rough with an emotion she could finally name. "Yeah, okay. I can do that."

________________________________________________________________

Over five years of patrolling Park Row for stories, of interviewing residents who'd seen too much and survived too little, had sharpened her awareness into something vigilant. She carried pepper spray now, always, tucked into the pocket of whatever jacket she wore. The knife she'd bought four years ago, a simple folding blade from a surplus store, lived in her purse and she checked for it compulsively. Touch the leather, feel the outline, know it's there. 

It wasn't much, but in a tight spot, it might be enough to buy her a few seconds. A few seconds to run, to scream, to survive.

Which was why she was particularly aggravated tonight.

Because it was close to eleven, well past the arbitrary safety window her coworkers had convinced themselves mattered, and she was the only one in their group who wasn't buzzed or outright drunk. 

Sierra had picked the bar, a dive place with sticky floors and watered-down drinks, the kind of establishment that charged just enough to keep out the truly desperate but not enough to actually be safe. And it was a block away from Park Row. One block. She could practically see the neighborhood's edge from here, could feel its gravity pulling at the edges of the night, threatening to drag them all down into its darkness.

Now she was stuck playing babysitter, watching her coworkers flounce around like idiots with zero desire to go home, zero awareness of where they were, zero understanding that their laughter was too loud and their movements too uncoordinated and that anyone watching from the street could see exactly how vulnerable they were.

It had somehow become her responsibility, unspoken but absolute, to make sure they all got home without deciding to walk and getting mugged. Or worse.

She sighed into her glass, tilting it so the remaining liquid sloshed from one side to the other. She'd been nursing the same drink since they'd clambered into this place two hours ago, and the ice had long since melted, turning what was left of the rum and coke into a watery mess. She'd stopped drinking it forty-five minutes ago. Now it was just something to hold, something to do with her hands besides check her phone every three minutes to track how much longer until she could reasonably suggest they leave without sounding like a killjoy.

Her hand drifted to her purse, pressed against the leather until she felt the hard outline of the knife handle beneath. It was a comfort now, as she constantly found herself checking the clock. 

It would comfort her more if these idiots would just agree to go home.

She glanced back over her shoulder at the dance floor, a generous term for the cleared space between tables where Sierra was currently attempting to move to music that didn't match the beat playing from the jukebox. She was unstable in her heels, wobbling dangerously as she tried to dance with Jaime, who sat two desks down from her at the office and who seemed just as drunk judging by the way he was slurring his words, trying to sing along to a song he clearly didn't know the lyrics to.

The only relatively sober one was Andrew, and even he was starting to get that glassy, unfocused look in his eyes that meant he was one drink away from crossing over into the danger zone.

She would know. He'd been sitting next to her most of the night, chatting up the bartender between long pulls of his third beer, or was it his fourth? She'd lost count somewhere around drink number three.

He must have sensed her thinking about him, because she'd just lifted her glass to her lips, when his face appeared directly in front of hers. A broad grin stretched across his flushed cheeks, his eyes a little too bright, a little too eager in their haze. The smell of beer was ripe in his breath.

"Want me to get you another?" His words were only slightly slurred, barely noticeable unless you were listening for it. 

She paused mid-sip, trying not to let her annoyance crack through her carefully maintained pleasant expression. "No, thank you though." She kept her voice light, the tone she'd perfected for turning down unwanted advances. "Probably best if someone stays sober enough to get those two home safely."

She jerked her thumb over her shoulder toward Sierra and Jaime, whose hysterical laughter had just ratcheted up another notch over something she was absolutely certain wasn't actually funny. Andrew followed her gaze, nodded slowly like he hadn’t listened at all. 

"You're probably right," he admitted, though he didn't move away. "You're always so responsible. It's actually kind of impressive."

She wasn't sure if that was a compliment or a criticism, so she just smiled noncommittally and took another fake sip of her terrible drink, hoping he'd take the hint.

Andrew didn't move. Instead, he leaned his elbow on the bar beside her, angling his body so he was facing her more fully, that grin still plastered across his face like it had been painted on. "You know, I never really got the chance to tell you…that Crime Alley piece you wrote? Really something. Changed the way I think about the city."

"Thanks," she said, keeping it short. Hoping he'd take the hint and move on to another topic, or better yet, move away entirely.

He didn't.

"I mean it. You've got this... I don't know, this way of seeing things. Of making people care." He was leaning closer now, his voice dropping lower. "It's attractive, honestly. The whole crusading journalist thing."

Oh, God. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes, took another fake sip of her drink instead, letting the watered-down liquid touch her lips without actually drinking it. "That's kind of you to say, Andrew."

"I'm serious." His hand drifted closer to hers on the bar, not quite touching but close enough that she could feel the heat of his skin. "You're smart, talented, passionate about what you do. That's rare. You're rare."

"Andrew—"

"We should get dinner sometime. Like, actually sit down, not just grab something from the cart outside the office. Somewhere nice. I know this place in the Diamond District—"

"That's really sweet," she interrupted gently, carefully extracting her hand from the danger zone by reaching for a napkin that didn't need reaching for. "But I don't think that's a good idea. We work together, and I'm not really...I'm just focused on my career right now, you know?"

His face fell slightly, disappointment flickering across his features, but he rallied quickly, nodding a bit too enthusiastically. "Right, right. No, I get it. Professional boundaries and all that." A pause, and she could see him calculating, recalibrating. "Rain check though?"

"Maybe," she lied, because it was easier than the truth, easier than explaining that she'd never been interested and never would be.

He seemed to accept this, mercifully shifting gears, his posture relaxing fractionally. "So what's next for you? Story-wise, I mean." He took another pull of his beer, a long swallow that made his throat work. "You've been killing it with the Park Row coverage, but you can't write about poverty and crime forever. Eventually you're gonna need to branch out, right?"

The question needled at something she'd been trying not to think about, a worry that lived in the back of her mind and whispered to her late at night. He was right, in a way that made her deeply uncomfortable. She had built her entire career, all five years of it, on writing about the Narrows, about poverty, about the systemic failures that left Gotham's most vulnerable to fend for themselves. 

And the work mattered. She believed that with every fiber of her being. But lately she'd been feeling it, that subtle but unmistakable sense of hitting a wall, of diminishing returns. How many different ways could she write about the same problem before readers started tuning out? How many profiles of struggling families before the stories started blurring together, losing their impact, becoming background noise?

She'd been avoiding the question of what came next. What her second act would be. Whether she even had one, or if this was it. Five years of relevance before she faded into obscurity.

"I'm not sure yet," she admitted, swirling the melted ice in her glass, watching the way it caught the dim light. "There's still so much to cover in Park Row. I don't want to abandon that beat just because—"

"What about the vigilantes?" Andrew interrupted, his eyes lighting up with the kind of enthusiasm that came from three-and-a-half IPAs. "Batman, the whole... what do they call them? The Bat-family? That crew."

Her stomach tightened. "What about them?"

"Think about it." He was warming to his theme now, gesturing expansively enough that he nearly knocked over his beer, the glass wobbling dangerously before he caught it. "Everyone writes about what they do, but nobody writes about who they are. What makes someone put on a mask and fight crime? What kind of person does that? Is it heroic or is it just... I don't know, vigilante justice taken too far?" He paused, taking another drink, his eyes bright from the alcohol. "And Robin, what's the deal with that kid? He's been around for what, four years? And he still looks the same age?"

Her chest constricted painfully. She forced herself to keep her voice level, neutral, even as something cold spread through her veins. The same question that had been rolling around in her head like a stone gathering moss for years. "Have you ever wondered about that?"

"About what?"

"About Robin. About why he seems...the same."

Andrew shrugged, the gesture loose and careless, like he was discussing the weather rather than a living, breathing person. "Probably another kid, right? Like, the other one probably aged out or got too old for the gig, so Batman recruited a new one. Slapped the same costume on him and called it a day." Another sip of beer, casual, unconcerned. "Who cares, really? It's not like anyone will ever know who they actually are anyway. They could be anyone."

They could be anyone.

She thought of the Robin she had met. Fifteen years old, all sharp edges and fierce conviction. His cheeky grin, snide attitude, the way he'd walked her home and promised to be there if she needed help. How old would he be now? Twenty, twenty-one? Where was he now? Still out there, still fighting? Or had he—

Gone. Replaced. Another kid in the same costume, like Andrew said. Interchangeable. Anonymous. Disposable.

The thought made her feel sick.

"And honestly?" Andrew continued, oblivious to the way her knuckles had gone white around her glass, oblivious to the way her entire body had gone rigid. "What difference does it even make? Crime's still rampant in Gotham. All these years of Batman and Robin playing hero, and nothing's actually changed. The inner city is still a warzone. People still get mugged, murdered, worse. So what are they even accomplishing?"

The words hit her like a slap. Anger rose in her gut, fast and hot, burning away the cold dread that had been spreading through her.

"That's not their fault." Her voice came out sharper than she intended, defensive in a way that made Andrew blink in surprise.

She forced herself to breathe, to modulate her tone into something more reasonable. "It's not their fault crime still exists. That's society's fault. That's what happens when greed and power are allowed to corrupt. When politicians pocket bribes and cops look the other way and the people with money decide the people without it aren't worth saving." She met his eyes, watched as he shifted in his seat uncomfortably. "Batman and Robin…they're trying to hold back the tide. You can't blame them for not fixing problems that were decades in the making, problems that require systemic change."

Andrew held up his hands in surrender, his expression caught between confusion and wariness. "Whoa, okay. I didn't mean, I wasn't trying to—" He backed off slightly, physically and conversationally, giving her space. "You're right. That was unfair of me."

An awkward silence settled between them. Sierra's laughter cut through it, too loud, too shrill, grating on her already frayed nerves. Jaime had his arm around her now and was attempting to spin her in some approximation of a dance move. She stumbled, nearly fell, caught herself on a table that wobbled under her weight.

Andrew cleared his throat, clearly desperate to move past his misstep. "What about the Red Hood?"

She looked at him sharply, brows furrowed, pulled from her thoughts. "What?"

"The Red Hood. That new vigilante in Park Row." He was speaking more carefully now, testing the waters, trying to gauge whether this topic would set her off again. "Have you seen him yet? In person, I mean?"

"No." She kept her voice neutral. "But I know about him. His reputation."

Everyone knew about the Red Hood. He'd appeared about a year ago and he'd made an immediate, violent impression. He operated in Crime Alley and the surrounding areas, targeting drug dealers, pimps, anyone who preyed on the neighborhood's most vulnerable. But unlike Batman, unlike Robin, the Red Hood didn't pull his punches. Didn't leave his targets breathing, didn't believe in second chances.

Bodies had been turning up. Not many, the Red Hood was selective, but enough that people feared him just as much as the Bat. More, maybe, because the Bat had rules and Red Hood seemed to have none. Enough that the other crime lords were getting nervous, looking over their shoulders more.

After all, it seemed like he only killed when necessary. When bodies did turn up, they were traced back to identities of some of the worst of the worst. Murderers, rapists, goons for the Black Mask or other bigger fish. No innocents. Just people who'd made the choice to hurt others, who'd crossed lines that couldn't be uncrossed.

"Maybe that's your next story," Andrew suggested, his voice still tentative, like he was worried about setting her off again. "Profile him. Figure out what makes him tick. He's doing what a lot of people in this city want Batman to do, actually putting criminals down for good instead of just... recycling them through a broken justice system. Some people think he's a hero. Some think he's a monster." He paused, watching her face for a reaction. "Seems like the kind of thing you'd be interested in. The moral ambiguity of it all."

She stared into her watered-down drink, thinking.

The Red Hood. A killer in a mask, operating in the same streets she knew better than her own hand now. The same streets where her Robin had walked her home and promised to keep fighting because nobody had saved him when he needed it.

"Maybe," she heard herself say, her voice distant, hollow with memory. "Maybe that would be a good story."

Andrew nodded, satisfied with himself, already moving on to some other topic she didn't hear. The bar noise faded to static around her, Sierra's laughter becoming white noise, the music a dull throb she could barely register.

—-

They ended up leaving the bar an hour later, much to her chagrin.

By the time she'd managed to corral everyone toward the exit, it was well past midnight. She'd loaded Sierra and Jaime into a cab, physically supporting Sierra's wobbling frame while Jaime fumbled with his wallet, trying to hand the driver what looked like three times the necessary fare. She'd corrected it, given the driver Sierra's address and enough extra to make sure he'd actually take them there instead of dumping them at the nearest corner, and watched the taillights disappear into the night with relief. 

Andrew had insisted on escorting her home. Not because of any romantic inclination on her part, definitely not after tonight, but because realistically it was the smartest thing to do. Two people walking together were less of a target than one woman alone, even if one of those people was slightly drunk and wouldn't be much help in an actual confrontation.

To his credit, he made no more overtures. No more comments about dinner or how rare she was. Just walked beside her in companionable silence, hands shoved in his pockets, occasionally commenting on the state of the streets or asking if she was cold.

When they reached her building, he simply nodded and smiled. Genuine, not the beer-soaked flirtatious one from earlier. "Get home safe. See you Monday."

"You too. Drink some water before bed."

"Yes, mom," he'd said, already turning to walk back the way they'd come. 

Now, alone in the stairwell of her building, she climbed the five flights to her floor and tried not to think about how tired she was. How the night felt like it had lasted three days. How her feet ached in her flats and her head was starting to pound from the noise and smoke of the bar, a dull throb behind her eyes that promised to get worse before it got better.

Even with her promotion and the salary bump after her first article, even after graduating and officially having her degree in hand, she'd decided to stay in the same apartment. Her coworkers teased her about it constantly. Sierra had flat-out laughed when she'd mentioned it, said something about how she'd written so much about the inner city that she'd become intertwined with the area's heartbeat. That she couldn't separate herself from it anymore even if she wanted to.

She hadn't denied it. It was more true than it was a lie.

That, and her rent was absurdly cheap compared to what she made now. She had no problem "slumming it"—Andrew's words, not hers—if it meant adding substantial amounts to her savings every month. Building something. Creating security she'd never had to think about before but now understood the value of, after months of interviewing people for whom one missed paycheck meant eviction and homelessness.

She unlocked her door, stepped into the familiar dark of her apartment before flicking on the lights. The fluorescent bulb in the kitchen buzzed to life, casting everything in harsh white light.

The space was small. A studio, technically, though the landlord had optimistically called it a "junior one-bedroom" because there was a half-wall separating the sleeping area from the kitchen. But it was hers. 

She'd made it home over the past year. Books stacked on the windowsill, spines cracked and pages dog-eared from multiple readings. Notes and research materials covering half her kitchen counter in organized chaos. A corkboard on the wall covered in newspaper clippings and interview transcripts and photographs she'd taken in Park Row, people she had befriended and places she had found real life in. 

Her eyes caught on the picture frame in the hallway as she kicked off her flats, the only photograph she kept on display. Her college graduation.

She was sandwiched between her parents, cap and gown and forced smile. They looked just as miserable in that picture as they sounded on the rare phone calls they exchanged these days. Stiff. Disappointed. Her mother's smile was tight, professional. The same one she wore in court when dealing with witnesses she didn't believe. Her father's hand on her shoulder looked more like he was bracing himself than showing affection, like he was preparing to catch her when she inevitably fell.

He'd expected her to give up. To realize Gotham was a mistake, that this whole journalism thing was a phase she'd outgrow once reality set in. Expected her to move back to California and work under him at the firm, despite the fact that her degree was solidly in journalism and she'd never expressed even a passing interest in law. Even with a published article that had gone viral, even with a promotion before she'd turned twenty-one, even with a full-time position at a major metropolitan newspaper, all she'd gotten was a tepid congratulations and another plea disguised as concern.

Just come home. Forget about this passion project. We'll get you your own place in the Bay Area. Somewhere nice, not whatever hovel you're living in now. Your father will give you a yearly stipend. You're our daughter. You don’t belong there.

But generosity with strings attached wasn't generosity at all. It was coercion dressed up in parental concern.

She sighed heavily, looked away from her parents' unhappy faces and shuffled toward the kitchen. Her stomach was growling, a hollow ache that reminded her she'd barely eaten at the bar, too focused on being responsible. But the thought of actually cooking something made her want to lie down on the floor and not move for several hours.

She opened the fridge. The sparse contents stared back at her: leftover Chinese food from three days ago that was probably questionable, a half-empty carton of orange juice, eggs, some wilted spinach that had seen better days, condiments. 

She grabbed the orange juice, didn't bother with a glass, just tilted the carton back and drank directly from it. Cold and acidic, it hit her empty stomach like a shock.

Her laptop sat a few feet away on the kitchen counter, still propped open where she'd left it before heading out to the bar. The screen had gone dark, but she could see the ghost of her last search still visible on the black surface. Research. She'd been looking into something before Sierra had texted the group chat, insisting everyone come out tonight.

She set down the orange juice, moved closer to the laptop, tapped the trackpad. The screen flickered to life, too bright in the dim apartment, and she squinted against it.

Three browser tabs open. One pulled up the GCPD's public incident reports for Park Row, a spreadsheet of violence rendered mundane by bureaucratic language. Another showing a map of Crime Alley with markers she'd added herself, tracking locations where bodies had turned up, where witnesses had reported sightings. The third, an article from a rival paper, poorly written and sensationalized, about Gotham's newest vigilante problem.

RED HOOD: HERO OR EXECUTIONER?

She stared at the headline, at the blurry photograph someone had managed to capture. A figure in dark clothes and a red helmet, standing over a body in an alley. The image quality was terrible, clearly zoomed in from a distance, but you could see enough. The way he stood. The casual violence in his posture, the complete lack of concern for the corpse at his feet.

Andrew's words echoed in her head. Maybe that's your next story.

She pulled out the kitchen stool, sat down with the carton of juice, and scrolled through the article. It was garbage, really. All speculation and fear-mongering, no actual investigation. No interviews with people in the neighborhood, no context for why the Red Hood had appeared or who he was targeting. Just breathless prose about a "killer in a mask" and hand-wringing about vigilante justice.

She could do better. She should do better.

Her cursor hovered over the search bar. She started to type, then stopped. Chewed her lip.

She closed the laptop harder than necessary, stood up from the stool so fast it scraped against the floor with a sound that made her wince.

It was late. She was tired. She wasn't thinking clearly.

But even as she moved toward her bed, as she changed into pajamas and brushed her teeth and tried to convince herself she should sleep, her mind kept circling back to it.

He's doing what a lot of people want Batman to do. Putting criminals down for good.

She climbed into bed, pulled the covers up, stared at the ceiling.

Somewhere in Gotham right now, someone was killing criminals. Someone who'd appeared right out of the blue, who Batman and his crew didn't seem to want to put down or stop. Or couldn't, which raised its own questions. Someone who operated with intimate knowledge of the territory that only came from living it. Surviving it. 

She lay there for ten minutes. Maybe fifteen. Staring at the water stain on her ceiling that looked vaguely like a constellation, listening to the faint sound of her neighbor's television bleeding through the thin walls, trying to convince herself this was a terrible idea.

Writing about the Red Hood. Actually going out and looking for him.

It was dangerous. Reckless. Exactly the kind of stupid decision that got journalists killed, or worse, turned into the story instead of writing it. Grant would lose his mind if he knew what she was considering. Her parents would have her committed. Even her coworkers, drunk as they had been, would probably tell her to pump the brakes.

But.

If she was going to write about the Red Hood, actually write about him without regurgitating police reports and neighborhood gossip, she needed to understand him. Needed to see what he was doing, hear what people in Crime Alley actually thought about him. And she couldn't do that from her apartment looking up shitty articles. 

She'd done this before. Gone out looking for stories in dangerous places. That's how she'd met Robin. That's how she'd built her entire career.

And maybe if she saw the Red Hood herself, if she could just talk to him, understand what drove someone to kill in the name of justice, she could figure out if this was grief talking or genuine instinct.

The smart thing would be to wait until morning. Go during daylight, talk to shopkeepers and residents, build the story the safe way. The responsible way.

But she'd never been particularly good at doing the smart thing.

She threw back the covers.

She changed quickly, methodically. Sweatpants, dark gray, nothing that would stand out. A black hoodie, worn soft from washing. Her sneakers, the ones with good tread that wouldn't slip on wet pavement. She grabbed her purse, dumped half the contents. Kept her phone, her keys, her press credentials just in case. The pepper spray. And her knife.

She pulled it out, felt the weight of it in her palm. Flicked it open, checked that the blade moved smoothly, the mechanism well-oiled. Slipped it into her hoodie pocket where she could reach it quickly if she needed to.

This was insane. She knew it was insane.

She went anyway.

The street was different at night. She'd walked these blocks hundreds of times, but after midnight they transformed into something else. Something that breathed differently, moved differently. The streetlights cast pools of sickly yellow that made the shadows between them deeper, more absolute, like the darkness was a living thing waiting to swallow you whole. Most of the shops were shuttered, metal grates pulled down over windows and doors. The few that were open—a bodega, a late-night laundromat, a bar with a broken neon sign that flickered erratically—glowed like strange oases in the dark.

She walked with purpose, kept her head up but not too high. The posture of someone who knew where they were going, who wasn't easy prey. She'd learned that in her first weeks here: never look lost, never look scared…even when you were both.

As she moved further into the Narrows, the streets got quieter. Emptier. The buildings leaned in closer, facades of crumbling brick and rusted fire escapes, windows either dark or glowing with the dim light. Trash gathered in corners and doorways, swept there by wind that smelled like muck and mildew. A dog barked somewhere in the distance.

She passed a group of men huddled outside a building, smoking, their conversation dying as she approached. She felt their eyes follow her, assessing, but kept walking. She didn't run. Running makes you prey.

They didn't follow.

Crime Alley was another five blocks deeper into Park Row. The name was unofficial, it didn't appear on any maps, but everyone knew it. The place where the Waynes had been murdered decades ago. The place where poverty and crime intersected so completely you couldn't separate one from the other anymore.

The place where Jason Todd had grown up, she thought. The obituary she had written flashed in her mind. Brief, inadequate, reducing a boy's entire existence to a few hundred words. 

Bruce Wayne's grim face. The picture of a frowning young boy they had printed, one corner of his lips tugging upward as if he was fighting the urge to smile, like he wanted to laugh at some joke in his own head.

The streets here were worse. Darker. The few working streetlights were spread too far apart, leaving gaps of near-total darkness where anything could be hiding. Abandoned buildings outnumbered occupied ones. She could hear voices echoing from somewhere, too far away to make out words but close enough to make her pulse quicken. Glass crunched under her feet, and she stepped around it carefully, conscious of every sound she made.

She checked her watch: midnight exactly.

The area was quiet. Too quiet, maybe. Nothing was happening. No screams, no fights, no sounds of violence that might draw a vigilante's attention. Just the ambient noise of a neighborhood trying to survive the night.

She found a spot near the mouth of an alley, close enough to see the street in both directions, shadowed enough that she wasn't immediately visible. Leaned against the brick wall and waited, her hand finding the knife in her pocket.

Five minutes passed. Ten.

A car drove by slowly, bass thumping from speakers that rattled the windows, making the ground vibrate under her feet. She watched it disappear around a corner, taillights bleeding red into the darkness.

Fifteen minutes. Twenty.

Nothing.

She scanned the rooftops, looking for movement, for the tell-tale flash of a cape or the bulk of body armor. But the skyline was empty, just the jagged silhouettes of buildings against the sodium-orange glow of the city's light pollution.

Her frustration mounted with each passing minute, mixing with the cold that was seeping into her bones. This was stupid. What had she expected, that the Red Hood would just appear because she'd decided to go looking for him? That vigilantes operated on a schedule she could track? Crime didn't work like that. Neither did the people who fought it.

She checked her watch again: 12:27 AM.

This was a waste of time. She should go home, get some sleep, approach this like a professional instead of a college kid chasing a story on a hunch and a hope.

She pushed off the wall with a heavy sigh, and turned to leave.

"Now what kind of stupid are you, walking around Crime Alley alone at this time of night?"

The voice came from behind her.

Her heart stopped, then kicked into overdrive. Her hand flew to her pocket, fingers closing around the knife handle as she spun around, fear flooding her system.

A figure stood in the alley in front of her. Tall, much taller than most men, easily six feet or more. He was broad-shouldered, clearly corded with muscle, and wearing dark tactical gear that blended into the shadows.

 But it was the helmet that made her breath catch. Red. Smooth and featureless except for the eyes, white lenses that glowed faintly in the dark, reflecting what little light there was like a predator's eyes caught in headlights.

He stood with his arms crossed, posture relaxed but ready. Like he could move in an instant if he needed to. 

"Well?" His voice was distorted slightly by whatever modulator was in the helmet. Deeper than natural, mechanical around the edges, but there was something familiar in the cadence that made her curious. "You gonna answer, or should I just assume you've got a death wish?"

She didn't let go of the knife, but she didn't pull it out either. Just kept her hand in her pocket, fingers wrapped around the handle, trying to control her breathing.

"I could ask you the same thing," she said, aiming for calm and landing somewhere in the vicinity of only slightly panicked. "Walking around Crime Alley at midnight seems like a questionable life choice for anyone."

"Difference is, I can handle myself." The Red Hood tilted his head, those white lenses fixed on her with an intensity that made her skin prickle. He scoffed, a sound that came out harsh. "You, on the other hand, look like you're one bad decision away from becoming a statistic."

The condescension in his voice, distorted as it was, sparked something hot and defensive in her chest. "I'm fine, thanks. I know how to take care of myself."

"Right." He sounded deeply unconvinced. "That why you're white-knuckling a knife in your pocket? Very subtle, by the way."

Her face flushed. She'd thought she was being discreet. "Better to have it and not need it."

"Sure. And when some junkie twice your size with a gun decides that knife would look better in his pocket, what's your plan then?" He pushed off from where he'd been leaning and took a step closer. She fought the urge to step back. "Let me guess…you're gonna write a strongly worded letter to the GCPD about it?"

She scowled at him, a flare of insecurity adding fuel to her rising temper. "Are you always this charming, or am I just lucky?"

"I'm realistic, sweetheart." Another step. He was close enough now that she could see the details of his gear—the holsters strapped to his thighs, the armor plating on his chest, the casual way his hands rested near his weapons like they belonged there. "And realistically, you've got no business being here. So either tell me what you're doing or go home. Preferably the second one."

She straightened her spine, lifted her chin even though she had to crane her neck to meet his gaze. "I'm working."

"Working." He repeated it like it was the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard, like she'd just told him she was out here stargazing. "At nearly one in the morning. In Crime Alley."

"Yes."

"Doing what, exactly, other than asking for assault at best, and a body bag at worst?"

She hesitated, then committed. Just because this guy was apparently an asshole didn't mean she should give up yet. "I'm a journalist. I'm researching a story."

The change in him was immediate and electric. His posture shifted, went from casually dangerous to actively threatening in the space of a heartbeat. He moved closer, fast enough that she took an involuntary step back, her shoulders hitting the brick wall behind her with a dull thud.

"A journalist." The word came out sharp, like a curse. "Of course you are." He was right in front of her now, close enough that she had to tilt her head back to maintain eye contact with those glowing white lenses. Close enough that she could smell leather and gunpowder and something metallic on him. "Step into the light."

"What?"

"The light." He gestured sharply to the streetlamp a few feet away. "I can't see your face properly. Now — move. I hate repeating myself."

"I'm fine where I am, thanks."

"That wasn't a request."

"And I'm not taking orders from—"

He moved before she could finish, one hand shooting out to grip her upper arm. Not hard enough to hurt, but firm enough that she couldn't pull away without a fight. He walked her out of the shadows into the pool of sickly yellow light and turned her so he could see her face properly. She felt exposed, vulnerable. Like a specimen under glass.

She glared up at him, furious at being manhandled, even if it wasn’t forceful. "You can't just—"

He went completely still.

She watched it happen, watched something shift in his body language, in the set of his shoulders. The aggressive tension drained out of him all at once, replaced by something she couldn't identify. His grip on her arm loosened, his thumb moving against her sleeve in what might have been an unconscious gesture. 

She paused. Confusion riddled her anger now, dampening it. What was his deal?

"You," he said, and his voice was different now. Softer. Still distorted by the helmet, but the hard edge was gone, replaced by something that sounded almost like surprise. "You're…the journalist. From the Gazette."

It wasn't a question.

She blinked, surprised. "You know who I am?"

"I know your work." He let go of her arm like it had burned him, took a half-step back, giving her space. "The Crime Alley article. The pieces about Park Row." A pause, weighted with something she couldn't name. "They're good. Better than most of the garbage that gets published about this place."

The compliment caught her off-guard, made her defensive posture relax fractionally. "Thank you. That's... actually kind of you to say."

"Don’t get too excited there, sweetheart. It’s just a matter of fact." He crossed his arms again, but the body language was different now. Less threatening, more...guarded. "So what, you're out here looking for a story?"

She saw no point in lying. "Yes."

He laughed. A short, bitter sound that the helmet distorted into something almost mechanical, almost painful. "Of course you are. Because wandering around Crime Alley in the middle of the night hoping to run into a killer is a fantastic plan. You do this often? Stupid fucking things?."

She shot him a tight smile. Were all vigilantes this frustrating? "I prefer 'determined' to 'stupid,' but sure."

"Those aren't mutually exclusive." He tilted his head, studying her like she was a puzzle he was trying to solve. "How'd you even know where to look? Figured you'd pick the worst part of the city and try your chances with a mugging?"

She hesitated. The truthful answer was complicated, tied to memories buried deep in the past, to a boy in a yellow cape who'd walked her home. But something about the way he asked, the genuine curiosity underneath the mockery, made her want to answer honestly.

"Someone told me once," she said carefully, "that Crime Alley gets heavy patrols on certain nights. Midnight specifically." She met his gaze, or where she thought his gaze was behind those lenses. She had to crane her neck up to do so. "I took a chance. To find you. Wanted to see if you wanted to talk."

"Someone told you." He repeated it flatly. "Who?"

"A source. Someone who wanted to remain anonymous."

"Convenient."

"It's the truth."

He was quiet for a long moment, and she had the strangest feeling he was deciding something, weighing options she couldn't see. Finally: "Robin."

Her heart stuttered, missed a beat. "What?"

"That's who told you. Had to be." There was something almost gentle in his voice now, beneath the distortion. Something that sounded like grief, or maybe nostalgia. "He was the only one who knew people down here. The only one who gave a damn about—" He cut himself off abruptly, like he'd said too much. "Doesn't matter."

She stared at him curiously, piecing together what he just said in her mind, filing it away for later analysis. "Why do you talk about him in past tense, when Robin—"

"Look," Red Hood continued, cutting her off sharply. Irritation bled back into his tone, defensive and raw. "I appreciate the dedication to your craft or whatever, but I'm not doing interviews. Not with you, not with anyone."

"Just five minutes," she pressed, finding her footing again, pushing past the fear because this was her job, this was what she did. She hoped she didn't sound desperate. "Five minutes, and I'll leave you alone. I just want to understand—"

"Understand what? Why I'm doing this?" He gestured broadly at the alley, the street. "You already wrote about it. The systems are broken, the cops are useless, people down here get left to fend for themselves. What else is there to understand?"

"Why you're killing them." The words came out more blunt than she intended, sharper. "Batman doesn't kill. Robin didn't—" She stumbled over the past tense, caught herself. "—doesn't kill. So why do you?"

"Because it works." The answer was immediate, fierce, coated in something close to hate. "Because some people don't deserve second chances. Because the courts let them go and the cops look the other way and nothing ever changes unless someone makes it change." He leaned in slightly, and she could feel the intensity radiating off him like heat. "You want to write about understanding? Write about the dealers who sell to kids. The pimps who traffic teenagers. The enforcers who break bones for fun. Write about what happens to them in the system."

His voice had gone hard again, angry, vibrating with barely contained rage. "They get released, they do it again, and nobody gives a shit until it's someone they care about. Until it's their kid who overdoses, their sister who disappears." His fist clenched at his side. "I'm doing what this city's too cowardly to do itself."

She leaned closer, forcing herself to meet his gaze dead on. Up close he smelled like cigarette smoke and gun oil. And there was no denying his bulk. Even through the leather jacket and Kevlar, he had enough muscle to rival a Greek statue. And yet, he wasn't brawny. He was conditioned, agile. Built for violence. "And you think that makes you a hero?"

"I think it makes me effective." He straightened, took a step back like he needed distance. "Now, you got your quote. Use it however you want, princess. But we're done here."

"Wait—"

"No." The word was final. "I'm not one of your puff piece subjects. I'm not interested in being profiled or analyzed or turned into some morality debate for your readers. I've got work to do, and you've got a home to get back to."

She felt desperation claw at her chest, sharp and urgent. "Please. Just…let me follow you. One night. I won't get in the way, I'll stay back, you won't even know I'm—"

"Are you insane?" He actually sounded incredulous now, almost laughing, like she'd just suggested something impossibly stupid. "You want to follow me? While I'm working? While I'm tracking down criminals and putting bullets in them?"

"I've covered dangerous situations before—"

"Not like this you haven't." He moved closer again, and this time the gentleness was completely gone, replaced by something cold. "You're a civilian. You get caught in the crossfire, you die. Someone sees you with me, decides you're an accomplice, you die. You slow me down by half a second and someone else dies." He was right in her space now, those white lenses boring into her like he was trying to burn the message into her brain. "I'm not babysitting a journalist with a death wish. Find your story somewhere else."

"But—"

"No." He pointed past her, toward the mouth of the alley, the gesture sharp and dismissive. "Go home. Get some sleep. Write about literally anything else. And don't try this again. Next time I might not be in a talkative mood."

Disappointment clouded her mind like smoke, thick and suffocating, but she still mustered out a bitter laugh. "This was you in a talkable mood?"

"You're still breathing, aren't you?" But there was something tentative about the threat. Like it was more defense mechanism than genuine menace. "That's as good as it gets."

He turned, started to walk away, melting back into the shadows of the alley like he was made of them.

"Red Hood—"

He paused, looked back over his shoulder. She hesitated.

She didn't know what she wanted to say. Thank you for not killing me for no logical reason whatsoever? Please reconsider? Why are you such a jackass?

Why had he even paused?

"Get home safe," he said before she could figure it out, and there was something in his voice that might have been genuine concern. "And actually go home this time. Don't make me have to save your ass because you decided to stick around looking for trouble."

She snorted, rolled her eyes. "How very chivalrous of you."

"I'm a goddamn gentleman." There was definitely amusement there now, warm beneath the mechanical distortion. Almost playful. "Seriously though, go. Consider this our one and only conversation."

And then he was gone. Vanished into the darkness so completely it was like he'd never been there at all.

She stood under the streetlight for a long moment, heart racing, mind spinning, trying to process what had just happened.

She looked up at the rooftops one more time, but they were empty. Silent.

Slowly, reluctantly, she started walking home.

—-

She spent three days writing it.

Three days of research, interviews with Crime Alley residents who spoke in hushed tones about the Red Hood like he was either salvation or damnation, depending on who you asked. Three days of analysis of police reports and crime statistics, watching patterns emerge in the data. Certain types of criminals disappearing, certain streets getting quieter. Three days of rewriting paragraphs, softening language that felt too aggressive, strengthening arguments that felt too weak. She wanted it to be good, not sensationalized garbage like what the other papers were churning out, but a genuine examination of what the Red Hood and what his presence meant for Gotham.

Grant had approved the pitch immediately, leaning back in his chair with that shrewd look he got when he smelled a story that would sell. "About damn time someone wrote something thoughtful about this," he'd said. "All we've got right now is fear-mongering and hero worship. Give me nuance."

Nuance. Right.

The article was published on a Friday morning on the front page of the Gazette's website, above the fold in the print edition. The headline was intentional:

THE RED HOOD QUESTION: WHEN JUSTICE BECOMES EXECUTION

She'd opened with testimony from Crime Alley residents. The ones who felt safer now, who said their streets were quieter, like a weight had been lifted. 

The single mother who could walk home from her night shift without being harassed, who said she slept better now knowing someone was watching. The bodega owner who hadn't been robbed in three weeks, who'd started keeping his shop open later because he wasn't afraid anymore. Real people with real relief in their voices when they talked about what the Red Hood had done for their neighborhood.

Then she'd pivoted.

But safety built on corpses is a foundation of sand. The Red Hood operates without oversight, without accountability, without the checks and balances that separate justice from vengeance. He decides who lives and who dies based on criteria known only to him. There is no trial, no defense, no possibility of rehabilitation or redemption. Just a bullet and a body.

The criminals he targets are guilty. This writer doesn't dispute that. Drug dealers, human traffickers, violent enforcers who have terrorized Crime Alley for years. These are not good people. But in a society governed by law, we don't grant individuals the power to act as judge, jury, and executioner, no matter how righteous their cause may seem.

Batman has operated in Gotham for over a decade, fighting crime without killing. His methods aren't perfect, the revolving door of Arkham Asylum and the corruption within the GCPD mean many criminals return to the streets. But Batman represents a principle: that even in Gotham's darkness, even when facing the worst humanity has to offer, we don't become what we fight against. We don't cross that line.

The Red Hood has not just crossed it. He's erased it entirely.

She'd cited statistics about vigilante justice in other cities, about the dangerous precedent of extra-judicial killings, about what happened when societies abandoned due process in favor of might making right. She'd been careful, measured, fair.

But she'd also been clear:

The question isn't whether the Red Hood's targets deserve punishment. The question is whether any one person should have the power to decide who deserves to die. And the answer, in a functioning society, must be no.

Crime Alley's residents deserve safety. They deserve streets where their children can play, where they can walk home without fear, where predators don't operate with impunity. But they also deserve justice that doesn't rest on the whims of a man in a mask. They deserve systemic change. Investment in their schools, their infrastructure, their futures. They deserve a city that doesn't abandon them until someone starts leaving bodies in the street.

The Red Hood is a symptom of Gotham's failure. He exists because our institutions have failed so completely that citizens welcome a killer as their savior. That should horrify us. That should drive us to demand better—not from masked vigilantes, but from our elected officials, our police force, our justice system.

The Red Hood may believe he's helping Crime Alley. And in the short term, perhaps he is. But violence begets violence, and a peace maintained through fear and death is no peace at all. It's just a countdown to the next explosion.

Gotham deserves better. The Narrows deserves better.

She'd read it twelve times before submitting it to Grant, checking every word, every transition, every argument. Read it another three times after it was published, checking the comments section obsessively, watching the shares climb on social media.

The response was immediate and polarized. Half the commenters praised her for finally saying what needed to be said, for refusing to glorify a killer just because his targets were criminals. The other half eviscerated her. To them, she was just another naive, privileged, bleeding-heart journalist who didn't understand what it was like to live in fear, who'd never had to choose between a violent protector and no protection at all.

She expected that. She had always gotten that kind of feedback on her work ever since the first article once it became known that she was an outsider. What would she, the daughter of an upper-class West Coast family, know about struggle? What right did she have to judge people who welcomed the Red Hood when she could leave Gotham whenever she wanted, go back to her safe apartment, lock her door and pretend none of it touched her?

And that was fine. They had a right to feel that way. She would imagine she might have felt the same.

But she didn't need to engage. Just closed the laptop, avoided the comments, and tried not to think about it.

That was Friday morning.

Friday night, she worked late at the office, finishing up edits on a piece about housing discrimination in the East End. She left the Gazette building around eight, exhausted, her eyes burning from staring at screens all day, her shoulders tight with the kind of tension that came from hunching over a keyboard for hours.

The streets were quiet. Cold. October had given way to November, and Gotham's winter was starting to show its teeth. She pulled her jacket tighter, kept her head down, and walked the familiar route toward home, her breath misting in the air.

She was three blocks from her apartment when she heard footsteps behind her. Heavy, unhurried. Just matching her pace.

Her hand went to her pocket. Pepper spray on the left, knife on the right. She didn't turn around, but her senses were on high alert, every nerve ending suddenly alive.

"You know," a distorted voice called out, "for someone who writes about Crime Alley like she understands it, you're remarkably bad at watching your back."

She spun around, heart leaping into her throat.

Red Hood stood fifteen feet behind her, arms crossed, posture radiating barely contained irritation. Those white lenses glowed in the dark, fixed on her with an intensity that made her pulse spike.

"Jesus Christ," she breathed, one hand pressed to her chest where her heart was trying to hammer its way out. "You can't just sneak up on people like that."

"I've been following you for two blocks. That's not sneaking, that's you being oblivious." He took a step closer, and she could see tell by the tension in his shoulders he wasn’t here to pass along pleasantries. "And walking home at night alone? I'm starting to think you're just moronic at this point with all these stunts."

She glowered at him. She was starting to think he was nothing but distasteful, all sharp edges and aggression. "You sure have a way of making friends. Let me guess…bullied in school too much? Your balls never got big enough to give way to real confidence?"

He paused, tilted his head at her like he was studying her under that helmet. She wondered what he was taking in. Was he merely observing her? Analyzing the growing shadows under her eyes, her mussed hair from the day, the way exhaustion had settled into her bones? Or was he judging her? Taking in her nice clothes, her leather briefcase that she had splurged on, the watch she had received from her parents as a birthday present last year?

It was impossible to know without seeing his face. What she did know, was that it most likely wasn't anything positive.

He stalked a few steps closer to her, his voice low and snide, dripping with something that might have been amusement or might have been threat. "Let me know when you want to take a look, sweetheart. I promise you’ll like what you find."

A flush crept up her cheeks, hot and mortifying. She blinked, biting the inside of her cheek to force herself to keep it together.

"Fuck you," she snapped, her anger reaching a boiling point.. "Make another comment like that to me again and vigilante or not, I'll fuck you over. You call yourself a hero? Learn some damn manners."

If he was surprised at her sudden fire, she couldn't tell. He didn't move a muscle, merely tilting his head another inch, like her outburst was curious rather than threatening. "I'd like to see you try, princess. What do you say? I’ll give you a head start."

She huffed out a loud sigh and dug her nails into the handle of her briefcase instead, the leather creaking under the pressure. "Forget this. You're a waste of my time. Fucking asshole."

The brief second before she spun on her heel and kept walking, she had enough time to see his arms drop and his body recoil, almost as if in surprise. For a second, she thought she merely imagined it until after a few steps, she felt a hand on her shoulder pulling her back, gentle but insistent.

She gasped in surprise, and instinctively raised her right fist into a punch, gaining about one second of movement towards his face before he caught her fist easily. Like he had expected it.

His entire hand enveloped hers completely, making her feel small in a way that was both infuriating and alarming. 

"Knock that off. Waste of time even trying that shit. We need to talk."

She gaped at his hand around hers, then at him, shock blurring her fury for a moment. "You…about what?"

"About your fucking article." He dropped her hand like it had burned him, stepped away, putting distance between them. "The one where you essentially called me a murderous symptom of systemic failure. Real nice, by the way. Really pissed I didn't take you up on your offer, huh sweetheart?"

Her stomach dropped. "You read it."

"Everyone read it." There was something sharp in his voice, something that might have been anger or maybe even hurt, raw and unfiltered beneath the distortion. She couldn't tell through the modulator, couldn't read him yet. "It's all over the news. 'Gotham Gazette journalist questions Red Hood's methods.' Very catchy."

She lifted her chin and forced herself to meet his lenses even though she knew this had no way of going anywhere positive now. She had expected him to see it, maybe even read it. She just didn’t expect him to confront her about it. "I stand by what I wrote."

"Do you." It wasn't a question. His tone was cold. 

"Yes." Her voice came out steadier than she felt, even as her heart hammered against her ribs. "You're killing people. That's not justice. It's execution."

"And letting them go free to hurt more people, that's justice?" The question came out sharp, cutting.

"That's what courts are for. What the legal system—"

"Is a joke." He closed the distance between them in two strides, and suddenly he was right there again, towering over her, and she had to fight the urge to take a step back, to give ground. His scent, leather and gun oil with the musk of something uniquely him, filled her senses. "You’ve written about Batman. About his principles, his line he won't cross. You know how many times I've watched him capture the same criminals? How many times those 'principles' have put people right back in danger?" 

His voice dropped lower, more intense. "And somehow you think he's better?"

"So your solution is to kill them?" She pushed herself closer to him, refusing to be intimidated, making sure they were chest to chest. She didn't care that he was at least a foot taller than her, or how feeble she must seem to him, how easy it would be for him to hurt her. She wasn't backing down.

"My solution is to make sure they can't hurt anyone ever again." His voice was hard, uncompromising. "You want a line? Here's your fucking quote. I only kill people who've already proven they'll keep killing. Dealers who sell to kids. Traffickers. Repeat violent offenders who've been through the system five, six, seven times and never changed." He leaned down slightly, forcing her to crane her neck even more to keep her gaze steady. "I'm not executing jaywalkers."

"And who gave you the authority to make that call?"

"The same authority Batman claims when he decides who to stop and who to let the cops handle. The same authority every vigilante in this city operates under." 

He paused, let that sink in. Leaned closer to whisper in her ear. "None. The only difference is I'm willing to finish what I start."

She fought the urge to shiver as the helmet kissed the side of her ear, gritting her teeth and forcing her gaze downwards. She had no idea why she had thrown that damn punch. The size of him relative to her was a joke. He could kill her with one hand, if he wanted to.

For some reason, the thought didn’t scare her. She had no idea why she wasn’t more terrified of him. She should be. But there was something about him that didn’t spike anxiety in her. If anything, he just irritated her. 

"You're right about one thing in your article," he said finally, voice quieter now but no less intense. "Crime Alley deserves better. Investment, infrastructure, a future that doesn't involve choosing between getting shot by a dealer or starving because there's no legitimate work." 

He straightened slightly, putting fractional distance between them. "But you know what? That's not coming. Not from the city, not from the politicians, not from the people with money who could actually change things." She didn’t miss the way his hands clenched into fists at his sides then. "So in the meantime, I'm doing what I can with what I've got."

"By killing people."

"By protecting the ones worth protecting." The words came out fierce. Defensive. 

She took a breath, choosing her words carefully, trying to find solid ground in this argument. "The article wasn't meant to attack you personally—"

"Wasn't it?" He tilted his head, and even through the helmet she could feel the weight of his stare. "Because it sure as hell read like a condemnation."

"It was a critique of methodology," she shot back, her heart racing in her ears, blood rushing hot through her veins. "Of the dangerous precedent of—"

"Spare me the journalism school rhetoric." But there was less heat in his voice now. Almost... tired. Worn down by something she couldn't see. "You think I don't know what I am? What I'm doing? You think I put on this helmet every night and tell myself I'm a hero?" He laughed, bitter and cruel. "I'm not a fucking hero. You don't know me, or why I do what I do. And that gives you the right to judge me? Ironic, isn't it?"

She didn't have an answer for that. He was right and despite his attitude, despite the crude aggression that seemed baked into every word he spoke, she still felt a pang of guilt. Sharp and uncomfortable, settling in her chest like a stone.

"I read your work," he continued, and there was something different in his tone now. Something almost vulnerable beneath the anger, like he was peeling back a layer he hadn't meant to expose. "All of it. The pieces about Park Row. You care. Actually care." 

He paused, and she heard him take a heavy breath through the modulator. "That's why... that's why the article pissed me off so much. Because you should understand. You've seen what this city does to people. What it's like when no one's coming to save you."

"I do understand," she said quietly, carefully, feeling her way through the minefield of this conversation. "That's exactly why I wrote it. Because you're right, Park Row deserves better. But 'better' can't be built on corpses. It has to be something more sustainable than one person with a gun deciding who lives and dies."

"Then write about that." The words came out challenging, almost desperate. "Write about the systemic failures. The politicians taking bribes. The cops looking the other way. The landlords bleeding these people dry while they live in penthouses." His voice rose slightly. "Write about that instead of writing about me."

"I write about all of it," she shot back, frustration bleeding through her carefully maintained composure. "That's literally my job. My whole career is built on exposing exactly those failures. But you're part of this ecosystem now, whether you like it or not. People talk about you. They have opinions. They're making you into a symbol, and symbols have consequences."

"I'm not a symbol," he sneered, and she could hear the disgust in his voice. "I'm just someone doing what needs to be done."

"That's what every vigilante thinks." She softened her voice fractionally, trying a different approach. "Batman thought that too. The old Robin thought that. And now you're doing the same thing, just with a higher body count."

The mention of the two most famous vigilantes in the city made him go still. Like she'd struck a nerve so deep he'd forgotten how to move.

"Don't," he said, dangerously quiet. "Don't talk about them like you know them because you met ‘em once."

She frowned, taken aback by the sudden coldness. "I didn't say I—"

"Your first article. The one about Crime Alley. Your quotes were from Robin, I know it."

He took a step closer, and she felt her mouth go dry. Her stomach plummeted to her feet, anxiety spiking sharp and sudden. How the hell did he know that?

"Nobody else wrote about him like that. Like he actually gave a damn about the people down here. Like he was more than just Batman's sidekick." His voice had gotten even lower, laced with something close to belligerence. "So either you got incredibly lucky with your research, or you met him. I’m willing to bet on the latter."

Her heart was hammering. She was sure her professional mask was completely shattered but she didn't care. She was too caught up in her own shock, in the sudden exposure of something she'd kept private for years. "I had a source—"

"Bullshit." The word came out flat, final. "You met him. Talked to him. Got him to open up in a way he never did with anyone else." His voice dropped lower, something raw bleeding through the distortion. "And now you're writing articles about how vigilantes cross lines they shouldn't. You think that's what he would have wanted? You think he'd have agreed with what you wrote about me?"

"I think," she licked her lips, her voice barely above a whisper, "that he believed in justice. Not execution."

"Yeah?" Red Hood laughed loudly, the sound cutting through the cold night air. "Well, he's dead. So maybe his way didn't work out so well after all."

The words hit her like a physical blow. She flinched, her breath catching in her throat, shock and grief flooding through her in a wave so intense it made her dizzy.

Dead? How could he be dead? How could Red Hood even know that? 

Red Hood saw it. Went quiet. When he spoke again, his voice was different. Quieter, almost regretful, like he hadn't meant to hurt her but couldn't take it back now.

"Forget I said that."

"Kind of hard to forget that," she breathed, swallowing down her horror, trying to process what he'd just confirmed. "He's... dead? How do you even know—"

"Yeah. Well." He took a step back, creating distance like he could create space from whatever he'd just revealed. "I didn't come here to..." 

He gestured vaguely, the movement jerky and uncomfortable. "Look. Write what you want. Critique my methods all you want. You're not wrong about everything. But don't act like you understand what it takes to actually keep people safe down here. Don't sit in your office and philosophize about lines when you've never had to decide whether crossing them means someone lives or dies."

"Then help me understand," she said, surprising herself with the steadiness in her voice now, pushing down her momentary shock. She knew the Robin now clearly wasn't the same boy who had saved her all those years ago. He'd have aged, moved on, maybe even retired the cape by choice, but she hadn't known he was dead. Or was he? How would Red Hood even know that? "Let me talk to you. Really talk to you. See what you actually do. Why you make the choices you make."

"We already had this conversation."

"And I'm asking again."

"And the answer's still no."

"Why?" The question came out more desperate than she intended, tinged with frustration.

"Because—" He stopped. Started again, choosing his words carefully. "Because I don't need some fucking journalist documenting everything I do wrong. I get enough of that shit already, apparently."

"What if I promised to be fair?" she pressed, taking a step closer. "To show both sides? To actually listen instead of just judging?"

She could imagine his expression under the mask was scathing by the way his voice dripped with cynicism. "You mean like you were fair in the article you just published?"

"I was fair in that article."

"You called me a symptom of systemic failure," he drawled.

"You called yourself that about thirty seconds ago!"

They stared at each other, dead silent. The street around them was quiet, empty, like the area itself was holding its breath. 

Then, surprisingly, she heard him laugh. Actually laugh, not the bitter ones from before, but something almost genuine. Almost warm. She blinked back another round of surprise, completely taken aback. 

"You're persistent," he sighed, shaking his head like he couldn't believe he was dealing with this. She could have sworn there was a smile in that robotic voice. "I'll give you that."

She ran a hand down her face, exhausted with the back and forth, with the emotional whiplash of this conversation. Exhausted with him. A heavy breath escaped her, misting in the cold air. "It's been mentioned."

He shook his head again, and she thought she heard something almost fond now. "The answer's still no. But..." He paused, seeming to be weighing something, turning it over in his mind. "I'll make you a deal."

Hope flared through her ribs, bright and sudden. She perked up, straightening. "What kind of deal?"

"You stop wandering around Crime Alley at midnight looking for me, stop publishing articles analyzing my methodology like I'm a thesis topic, and I'll... consider giving you an actual interview. Sometime. Maybe. When I'm ready."

She frowned, the hope inside her souring into disappointment instantly. "That's not much of a deal."

"It's the only one you're getting." He turned to leave, then looked back. Tilted his head again. "And for the record? That article was good writing. Even if I hated everything about it."

Before she could respond, he fired something — a grappling hook, she realized, the mechanism whirring—and it caught on a fire escape above. He shot upward with a mechanical hiss, disappearing into the darkness of the rooftops like a ghost. Like he'd never been there at all.

It wasn't until she got home, still bitter and swearing under her breath at Red Hood's foul attitude, that she noticed a figure on the building adjacent to hers. Perched on the rooftop in a crouch, seemingly locked in on her building, perfectly still like a gargoyle watching the city.

It was too dark to make out who it was, the distance too great to see details. But something about the silhouette, the way they held themselves, made her skin prickle with awareness.

Once she had locked her door and strode over to her window to try to get a better look, whoever it was was gone. 

She sighed, rubbed her temples where a headache was building, and pulled the curtains shut with more force than necessary.

_____

To her credit, it wasn't difficult to begrudgingly take Red Hood's proposition to heart. The stories in the city practically wrote themselves. She just had to be willing to look past the bodies long enough to see the rot underneath, to trace the roots of violence back to their source in poverty and desperation.

This morning's story had arrived via police scanner at 6:47 AM, crackling through the radio on her desk while she was still nursing her first cup of terrible office coffee. Homicide, Park Row, laundromat on the corner of Fifth and Grundy. Single victim, multiple gunshot wounds. 

She'd grabbed her bag and been out the door before Grant could even assign it to someone else.

Now she pushed herself through the crowd that had gathered like moths to flame at the laundromat. Curious neighbors, people heading to work who'd stopped to gawk, their morning routines derailed by death. A few teenagers filming on their phones, faces lit by screens as they captured content for whatever social media would give them the most likes.

 Her press badge hung around her neck, the laminated card bouncing against her sternum as she moved. It wouldn't give the cops a reason to let her past the tape, but it might keep them from immediately kicking her out.

She fought her way to the border of the yellow caution tape, the only barrier between her and the scene. The plastic was already drooping in the morning breeze, sagging between the hastily erected posts like it was tired of holding back the inevitable.

The laundromat had always looked like it was falling apart. She'd passed it a hundred times doing interviews in the area, a narrow storefront tucked between a closed-down bodega and a pawn shop that seemed to sag under the weight of time itself. Faded awning, windows so grimy you couldn't see through them even if you pressed your face to the glass, a flickering neon sign that read "WA H" because the S had burned out years ago and no one had seemingly bothered to fix it. 

It had come as no surprise when the police had uncovered it as a front for money laundering. The arrest warrant had gone out three days ago. She'd seen it cross her desk, made a mental note to follow up on it. Local gang using the business to clean their cash, running dirty money through a business that barely saw legitimate customers. Classic Gotham. Textbook criminal enterprise hiding in plain sight.

What had been a surprise was the dead body of the owner that had shown up slumped against the front door early this morning.

From where she stood, she could see the outline of where he'd been. The chalk marks the forensics team had left behind, stark white against dark concrete. The dark stain on the pavement that might have been blood or might have been something the laundromat had been leaking for years. The body was already gone, loaded into the coroner's van she'd seen pulling away as she'd arrived. But the scene remained: evidence markers, numbered yellow tents, a detective crouched near the door examining something she couldn't see from this angle.

Multiple gunshot wounds, the scanner had said. Professional, based on how the cops were moving around the scene with practiced efficiency. Not a mugging gone wrong or a crime of passion. Someone had come here specifically to kill the owner, executed it, and left.

She scanned the crowd, looking for someone who might talk to her, who might have seen something. Most people were keeping their distance, clustering in small groups but staying well back from the tape. Smart. In Park Row, you learned early that getting too close to police investigations was a good way to end up on a list you didn't want to be on. Witness lists had a way of becoming target lists in neighborhoods like this.

Then she spotted her. An older woman, Vietnamese, maybe in her fifties, sitting on the curb about twenty feet from the crime scene. She was apart from the crowd, pressed against the side of a building like she was trying to make herself small, invisible. A cigarette trembled between her fingers, and even from here, she could see the woman was shaken. 

She approached slowly, hands visible, posture non-threatening. The woman looked up as she got close, eyes red-rimmed and wary.

"Excuse me," she said gently, crouching down to the woman's level so she wasn't looming. "I'm a journalist with the Gotham Gazette. Are you alright?"

The woman looked at her, her face drawn tight with exhaustion and fear. Her hands were shaking so badly the ash from her cigarette scattered across her worn work pants, leaving gray smudges. She wore a name tag—Mai—pinned to a shirt that looked like it might have been a uniform once, though it was faded and stained now, the fabric thin from too many washings.

"You work here?" she asked, gesturing toward the laundromat. "At the wash?"

Mai nodded slowly, took a drag that made the cigarette tremble even more, the ember flaring bright. "Twenty years," she said, her accent thick but her English clear, practiced. "Twenty years, I work there. Fold clothes, clean machines, mind my business." Her voice cracked, broke on the last word. "I mind my business."

"I'm sorry," she said, and meant it. She could see the trauma written in every line of the woman's face. "I know this must be frightening. Can I ask you a few questions? You don't have to answer anything you're not comfortable with."

Mai looked at her for a long moment, weighing something. Trust, maybe. Or risk. Finally she nodded, slowly. "You're not a cop?"

"I'm not," she flashed her press badge again, letting the woman scan it intently. "I'm a journalist. I'm with the Gazette."

Something in Mai's expression shifted, softened fractionally. Recognition, maybe. Or just relief that she was talking to someone who couldn't arrest her. She took another shaky drag, exhaled smoke through her nose. "He deserve it," she said quietly, but with conviction. "Mr. Chen. What happened to him. He deserve it."

She kept her expression neutral, but her pulse quickened. Years of interviews had taught her to recognize when someone was about to say something important. She forced herself not to look too shocked, not to react in a way that might make Mai reconsider. "Why do you say that?"

"He was a bad man." Mai's voice gained strength, anger bleeding through the fear like blood through gauze. "I know what he did. The police, they say money... laundering, yes? Washing money for gangs. I know this. I see people come, people who do not bring laundry. They bring bags, they talk quiet, they leave." 

She gestured with the cigarette, leaving trails of smoke in the cold morning air. "Mr. Chen, he count money after. In back room. Think I don't see, think I don't know." Her jaw tightened. "I see everything. I say nothing. Because I need a job. I need to eat."

She pulled out her notebook slowly, giving Mai time to object. When she didn't, she started writing, pen moving quickly across the page. "When did you find out about all that?"

"Long time. Maybe...five years? Six?" Mai shook her head, stubbed out her cigarette against the concrete with more force than necessary. "At first, I think maybe I am wrong. Maybe I see wrong thing. But no. I see it too many times. Too many bad men coming, leaving. Mr. Chen getting nervous, angry." Her voice dropped, quivered. "Yelling at me to stay in back, don't come out front when certain people here."

"Did you tell the police?"

Mai chuckled, shooting her a bitter smirk that held no humor, only resignation. "Tell police? Police who take money from same gangs? Police who look other way on immigrants?" She pulled out another cigarette, lit it with hands that were steadying slightly now. "No. I don't tell police. I keep my head down. Survive. That's what we do here. We survive."

"But something changed," she said gently, carefully. "The police issued a warrant for his arrest three days ago."

"Someone else told them. Not me." Mai took a long drag, held it, and released it slowly. "Maybe someone in gang got caught, make deal. Maybe someone else got brave. I don't know. But when police came with warrant, Mr. Chen, he ran. Hide." She paused, her tone souring. "He did not come to work in two days. Until this morning."

"Did you see what happened? Who shot him?"

"No. I come to work, I find him." Her voice went quiet again, smaller, like she was trying to make herself disappear into the words. "Already dead. Blood everywhere. Face down, like he trying to get inside, trying to hide." She swallowed hard. "I call 911. I wait. I don't touch him."

She wrote quickly, trying to capture everything, every detail, every nuance. "But you saw something before. Maybe recently?"

Mai hesitated, and she recognized that look immediately. The calculation of whether speaking was worth the risk, whether the truth was worth the potential consequences. Finally, the tension in her shoulders eased fractionally. A decision was made. "I worked late last night. Cleaning machines, fixing broken dryer. Maybe ten, eleven o'clock, I step outside for smoke break." She pointed toward the rooftop across the street with a shaking hand. "I see someone up there. On roof. Watching building."

"Watching the laundromat?"

"Yes. Just... standing there. Looking down. Like a statue." Mai's hands were shaking again, the cigarette trembling between her fingers. "Red, bright red, helmet. Glowing in dark."

Her pen stilled on the page.

"Everyone know who that is. The Red Hood. People talk about him. Some people say he hero. Some say he devil." She met her eyes, a warning hidden somewhere in her gaze. "I go back inside. I don't want to see. Don't want to know. Better not to."

She grimaced, looking down so Mai wouldn’t see the irritated look on her face at the mention of her newfound vigilante headache. "He was watching the building last night. And this morning, Mr. Chen was dead."

"Yes." The word was simple, final.

She looked up at the laundromat, at the crime scene, at the detective still examining evidence with methodical precision. Then she noticed it, something she'd missed before, too focused on the details of the area.

On the brick wall beside the entrance, spray-painted in a red that matched the description of the helmet: a small symbol. Simple, stylized. What looked like a head with no details, just an outline in bright crimson.

A red hood.

She'd seen gang tags before, territorial markers that warned other crews away or claimed blocks as their own. This was the same principle, just a different kind of gang. Or vigilante. Or whatever the Red Hood was calling himself these days. A signature. A warning. 

Regardless, she doubted he cared much about money laundering unless there was something sinister behind it. Something worth killing over.

"Mai," she said carefully, biting back a scowl, feeling pieces of a larger puzzle clicking into place. "Do you think Mr. Chen was involved in more than just money laundering?"

The older woman's jaw tightened. She looked away, toward the street, toward anywhere but at her. The silence stretched, heavy and loaded.

"You don't have to protect him," she said softly, gently. "He's dead. He can't hurt you anymore. But if there's more to this story... if there's something the community should know—"

"The youth center," Mai said abruptly, the words bursting out like they'd been held back too long. "Two blocks from here. For kids, teenagers. Give them place to go after school, keep them off streets. Basketball, homework help, dinner sometimes." She took a long drag, exhaled smoke through her nose, buying time. "Mr. Chen…he had connection there. I hear him on phone sometimes, talking about 'product,' about 'young customers.' I don't understand at first. Then I see." 

Her voice went hard, cold. "He pushed drugs through youth center. To kids. Children."

Her stomach turned at the words, nausea rising sharp and sudden. She had heard the same story countless times before, predators finding new ways to exploit the vulnerable. To turn safe spaces into hunting grounds. But that didn't mean it disgusted her any less. "You're sure?"

"I see the bags. I see the men who come to pick up, same men who hang around center. I hear enough phone calls." Mai looked at her now, eyes blazing despite her fear. "I have grandchildren. They go to that center. Fourteen, sixteen years old. And Mr. Chen, he—" Her voice broke, cracked open. "He sold poison to babies. For money. Just for money."

She wrote it all down, her handwriting getting sharper, angrier, the pen pressing hard enough to indent the paper beneath. "Did you tell anyone? Besides the police?"

"Who to tell? Who would listen to old woman who folds laundry?" Mai's laugh was hollow. "No one cares. No one does anything. Until—" She gestured toward the crime scene, toward where Mr. Chen's body had been, toward the chalk outline and the dark stain. "Until him.”

They sat in silence for a moment. Around them, the crime scene continued its grim choreography. Cops took notes, neighbors whispered, photographers documented angles. The city moved on because in Gotham, bodies were just another Tuesday morning. Death was ambient noise, background static.

The city did deserve better. She agreed with him on that, at least. On that one fundamental truth.

"The Red Hood," she said finally, carefully. "What do people in the neighborhood say about him? Really?"

Mai considered this, finishing her cigarette and immediately lighting another like the nicotine was the only thing keeping her steady. "Some people scared. Think he is crazy, dangerous. Think he brings more trouble, brings attention from gangs, from police." She paused, exhaled smoke. "But most people? Most people say finally, someone cares. Someone does something. Not just arrest and let go. Not just look other way." 

She met her eyes, something adamant in her gaze. Something fierce. "Most people say about time."

She thanked her, gave her a card in case she thought of anything else. As she stood, her knees protesting after crouching so long, she looked again at that red hood symbol on the wall. Small enough to miss if you weren't looking for it. Bold enough to send a message to anyone who knew what it meant.

She thought about her article, the one where she'd called the Red Hood a symptom of systemic failure. Where she'd argued that justice built on corpses wasn't justice at all. Where she'd taken the moral high ground and condemned violence in the name of safety.

She still believed that. Mostly.

But standing here, looking at the chalk outline of a man who'd sold drugs to children, listening to Mai's shaking voice talk about grandchildren who went to that youth center, she felt the certainty in her convictions waver.

Or maybe none of this was as simple as she'd hoped.

Maybe the lines she'd drawn so confidently in her article were blurrier than she'd wanted to admit. Maybe sometimes the world didn't offer clean choices, just varying degrees of compromise with the darkness.

She looked at the red symbol one more time, then turned and walked away, her notebook full of quotes and her mind full of questions she didn't know how to answer.

___

The article took her two more days to write.

She'd interviewed a few more residents near the laundromat, each conversation adding another layer to the picture of Chen's operation. Tracked down two teenagers from the youth center who confirmed off record that Chen had been using the place as a distribution point. They'd been terrified to talk, looking over their shoulders every few seconds like Chen might materialize out of thin air despite being dead. She'd gotten statements from the GCPD about the money laundering charges, pulled financial records that were public domain, built a timeline of Chen's criminal enterprise that stretched back years. A spider web of exploitation and greed.

And she'd tried, very hard, not to think about the red hood symbol spray-painted on that wall. About what it represented. About the man behind the helmet who'd made the choice to pull the trigger.

Now it was past eleven, and she was still at her kitchen table with her laptop open, the article half-finished on her screen. She'd rewritten the opening paragraph four times, trying to find the right balance between condemnation and understanding. Between journalism and...whatever this was becoming. A moral crusade? An attempt to prove something to herself? An exercise in justifying what she knew in her gut but couldn't reconcile with her principles?

She rubbed her eyes, pressing her palms against the sockets until she saw stars. She took another sip of her coffee that had gone cold an hour ago and stared at the cursor blinking on the screen like it was taunting her. 

Movement outside her window caught her eye.

She looked up quickly. Her breath caught in her throat.

A figure stood on the rooftop of the building across the street, maybe thirty feet away, backlit by the hazy orange glow of the city. Even in the darkness, even at this distance, she recognized him immediately. The broad shoulders, the distinctive silhouette, the helmet that caught what little light there was and reflected it back in dull crimson.

Just...standing there. Watching her window. Watching her.

She stared for a long moment, processing the surreal reality of this. A vigilante killer watching her from a rooftop while she wrote about his methods. Go figure. 

Something sparked in her chest. Half irritation, half curiosity. Maybe even compassion. 

She stood, crossed over to the window, and yanked it open. Cold November air rushed in, biting and sharp, making her shiver through her thin sweater.

"You know," she called out, loud enough to carry across the gap between buildings, "there are easier ways to get my attention than lurking on rooftops like some kind of stalker."

He didn't move. Just stood there, helmet tilted slightly like he was surprised she'd noticed him. Or maybe just surprised she'd acknowledged him instead of calling the cops.

"Most people just knock on the front door," she continued, leaning against the window frame, crossing her arms over her like a shield against the cold. "It's a novel concept, I know. Very low-tech. But effective."

Still nothing. But she could see the tension in his posture shift, the way his hands had moved slightly toward his sides. Ready to move, to run, to fight…she wasn't sure which. Maybe all three.

"Well?" She raised an eyebrow, even though she knew he probably couldn't see it from that distance in the dim light. "You going to stand there all night being creepy, or are you going to come in?"

She didn't wait for an answer. Just left the window open, more dare than invitation, and walked back to her kitchen table. Sat down. Picked up her cold coffee cup like this was completely normal, like she invited armed vigilantes into her apartment every day.

Her heart was hammering, pulse loud in her ears, but she kept her expression neutral and her posture relaxed. Pretended to read what she'd written, though the words swam on the screen because every nerve in her body was focused on that open window, on the question of whether he'd actually come.

A minute passed. Two.

Nothing.

Maybe she'd misjudged. Maybe he really had just been passing by, maybe—

The softest sound. Fabric against brick, the quiet scrape of boots on her fire escape. So quiet she might have imagined it if she hadn't been listening for it.

She didn't look up. Didn't react. Just kept her eyes on her screen, though her fingers had stilled on the keyboard.

Then he was there, slipping through her window with a silence that shouldn't have been possible for someone his size. She heard rather than saw him enter. The slight shift of air pressure, the barely-there creak of her floorboards protesting new weight, the soft sound of the window sliding shut behind him.

She gave him a beat, then another. Let him stand there, probably scanning her apartment for threats, for traps, for whatever tactical assessment vigilantes did when they entered unfamiliar territory. She could feel his eyes on her. Assessing, calculating. 

Finally, she steadied herself and looked up.

He stood just inside her window, rigid and still, like he was ready to bolt at any second. The helmet reflected the warm, yellow light of her apartment, making it impossible to read anything beyond the physical language of his body. Tense. Coiled like a spring wound too tight.

"You can close the window," she said mildly, turning back to her laptop. "I'd rather not heat the entire neighborhood."

He reached back without looking, pulled the window closed with one hand. The lock clicked into place with a finality that made her pulse quicken. She was alone in her apartment with a killer. A vigilante who'd murdered at least a dozen people, who carried guns and clearly knew how to use them.

She should be terrified. She wasn't.

"Better," she said, keeping her voice light. "Though I have to say, you aren’t great with social interactions, are you?"

"Full of jokes all the damn time, ." His voice was distorted by the helmet, but she was getting better at reading the nuances underneath. Right now: defensive, maybe a little embarrassed. She wondered how young he was. A grown man might not be so hesitant, so uncertain. "I was just—"

"Watching my apartment from a rooftop at eleven-thirty at night?" She leaned back in her chair, crossed her arms, and fixed him with a knowing look. "Very normal. Not at all concerning."

"I patrol this area."

"My building is six blocks outside your usual territory. I checked."

He stiffened, like he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. "You tracking my movements now?"

"You patrol Park Row. I live six blocks outside Park Row. It doesn't take a genius to figure out where the boundary is." She gestured to the corkboard on her wall, covered in maps of the area. "Don't look so surprised. You're not exactly subtle when you leave bodies lying around."

"They're not lying around," he huffed out a laugh, and she saw him rub at the back of his neck in what looked like an unconscious gesture. He looked massive in her small space. With his broad frame, the bulk of his armor, he had to be no shorter than six feet tall. She had to admit, it was attractive. “I'm very neat about it."

Was he joking? She couldn't tell through the helmet's distortion, but something in his posture had relaxed fractionally. The tension in his shoulders had eased.

"Neat," she repeated, letting sarcasm drip from the word. "That's your defense? That you're a tidy murderer?"

"I prefer 'efficient.'" He took a step further into her apartment, and she noticed how he moved. Careful, controlled, like he was hyperaware of taking up space. Like he was trying to be respectful. "And they're not murders. Just taking out the garbage."

"Pretty sure the law doesn't distinguish between the legal definition and your little spin on the word."

"Good thing I don't care about the law." The grin in his voice was evident, even through the distortion.

They stared at each other. The silence stretched, heavy with things unsaid.

So, she decided to bridge the gap. 

"You killed Chen," she said, not quite a question. More statement.

He didn't seem surprised by the irony of how the conversation had flowed. Instead, he just tilted his head, his posture shifting slightly. She could feel his gaze locked on her even through the helmet. "I did."

"Want to tell me why?"

“Did you not hear the part where I said I don’t care about the law?”

“Cute. Don’t patronize me, Hood.”

"You already know why." He gestured toward her laptop with one gloved hand. "I'm assuming that's what you're writing about. The money laundering, the drugs. Selling drugs to kids."

"I'm asking for your side," she pressed, crossing her arms over her chest. She hadn't washed her hair yet today, opting to pin it up in a messy bun, and she was sure the day's makeup hadn't been properly wiped from her face out of pure laziness. She probably looked like a disaster. Exhausted, rumpled — nothing like the put-together journalist he’d seen last. She hoped he didn't notice the difference. 

She wondered why she even cared.

"My side?" He laughed, another one of his mocking types, the sound distorted into something almost mechanical. "My side is that Chen was selling fentanyl-laced pills to teenagers. Kids as young as thirteen. Using a community center, a place that's supposed to be safe, as his distribution point because he knew nobody would look there." His hands clenched into fists at his sides, leather creaking. "Knew those kids were stupid enough or young enough not to know better. That they'd trust him because he was an adult, because he had access."

Her stomach turned. "The police—"

"Had a warrant out for money laundering. Money. Laundering." He spat the words like they tasted foul. "Not drug trafficking, not exploitation of minors. They were going to arrest him, he'd post bail, probably within hours, and he'd be right back on the streets while his lawyer dragged the case out for months, maybe years."

 His voice had gone hard, cold. "Meanwhile, how many more kids were going to die? How many more families were going to bury their children while Chen counted his money?"

She hesitated, weighing his words against everything she believed about justice, about the principles she'd built her career on. "So you decided to solve it all before it even started."

"Jesus, this again. I decided to make sure he couldn't hurt anyone else. Yes." He took another step closer, and she had to tilt her head back to maintain eye contact. "You want me to feel guilty about that? To apologize? I don't. He made his choices. He knew exactly what he was doing. Selling poison to children, destroying families for profit. And now he's gone, and those kids are safer for it."

"Safer, or just waiting for the next Chen to set up shop?"

"At least they're alive to wait." The words came out as a fierce jab. 

She stood, suddenly needing to move, to not be sitting while this conversation happened. They were only a few feet apart now, close enough that she could see the details of his gear, more prominent now in direct light. The holsters strapped to his thighs, the armor plating on his chest, the way his gloves were worn at the knuckles like he used them often, like violence was familiar. Everything on him was black apart from the faded brown of his leather jacket and the red bat symbol that stretched across his chest. She wondered if that meant he was a part of Batman's crew or if it was a jab towards him, a middle finger to the original vigilante's no-kill rule. Maybe both. Either way, he cared enough about the Bat to make a symbol out of his own. 

"I'm not saying Chen didn't deserve punishment," she said carefully, choosing each word like she was navigating a minefield. With him, she essentially was. "I'm saying there's a difference between justice and revenge."

"And I'm saying sometimes revenge is justice." He tilted his head, and even through the helmet she could feel the intensity of his focus. "You wrote about systemic failures. About how the institutions don't work, how they fail the people they're supposed to protect. You were right. So when the institutions fail, when they let monsters like Chen keep operating because of paperwork and bureaucracy and corruption — what's the alternative? Let him keep selling poison to kids? Write another article about how broken the system is while more children die?"

"The alternative is fixing the system. Making it work the way it's supposed to—"

"How?" The word came out sharp, challenging. Almost desperate. "How do you fix a system that's been broken for decades? That's built on corruption and apathy and people looking the other way because it's easier than fighting, because fighting costs something?" 

He moved closer and she could feel the heat radiating off him, could sense the barely contained energy beneath his stillness. "You write your articles. You expose the rot, shine light on the darkness, give voice to the voiceless. And then what? Some politicians make promises they won't keep, some task force gets formed and disbanded six months later, and nothing actually changes. Meanwhile, Chen's still out there selling drugs to kids. Still profiting from their deaths."

"Not anymore," she said quietly. "Because you killed him."

"Because I stopped him." He corrected, his voice firm. "Permanently. You ever get sick of this conversation, princess? Because I sure am. You see this stuff firsthand and you still don’t agree with me?"

They stood there, close enough that she could reach a hand out and touch his chest. Close enough that she could smell leather and gun oil that seemed to cling to his clothes. 

The charged feeling in the air had intensified, becoming almost suffocating. Or maybe it was just her. 

"You really believe that?" she asked softly, searching for something in his stance, in the set of his shoulders or the twitch of his hands. "That killing is the answer?"

"I believe it's an answer. The most effective one available." He paused, and she heard him take a breath through the modulator. "And I believe that sometimes the world needs people willing to do what's necessary. Even if it makes us monsters."

"You're not a monster."

The words came out before she could stop them, quiet and certain. Immediate. He went very still, every muscle in his body tensing.

She paused, surprised by her own conviction. She wasn't sure why she had said that, but something in her gut propelled the words forward. And even now, after she said it, she knew it was the truth. How she felt, and had been feeling. The certainty of it settled in her chest like a stone, solid and unmovable.

"You don't know that," he said, but his voice was different now. Softer. Vulnerable. Like she'd cracked something open he'd been keeping carefully closed. "You don't know what I've done. What I'm capable of. The things I've—" He shook his head, cutting himself off with a sharp sigh.

"I know you're trying to protect people. That you care about those kids at the youth center, about the people in the inner city who have no one else looking out for them." She held his gaze, forcing him to look at her. "That's not what monsters do. Monsters don't care. They don't protect. They just take and destroy and move on."

He was silent, but clearly something about what she had said struck a nerve. About how he felt about himself. Perhaps the stone-cold vigilante had more layers than he let on.

Something in her was itching to find out.

"I should go," he said finally, but he didn't move. Didn't step back, didn't turn toward the window. He sounded uncomfortable, like he wanted to say something more but was stopping himself. She didn't blame him. She doubted he was comfortable with introspection or compliments in general. With being seen as something other than the mask. 

"Or," she heard herself say, surprising herself again, "you could stay for coffee. Or tea, if you prefer. I have both."

He tilted his head, and she could feel his surprise even through the helmet. "You're offering me...coffee?"

"Unless you're opposed to caffeine on principle," she said, trying to keep her voice light even though her heart was racing. She didn't mention that she had shocked herself by asking. But she didn't want him to go quite yet. She wanted to understand him more now, to see past the armor and the violence to whoever was underneath. "Though given your line of work, I'd imagine you need it."

"I—" He stopped. Started again, and she could hear the confusion in his voice. "Why?"

She knew he wasn't asking about caffeine.

"Because it's late, I'm wired from writing, and honestly?" She shrugged, trying for casual even though nothing about this felt casual. "I'm curious. About you. About what you do when you're not executing drug dealers."

He was quiet for a beat, processing. She noticed his body seemed to loosen fractionally. The rigid tension easing. "That's most of what I do, actually."

"Bullshit," she snorted. "You patrol for hours every night. You can't be finding targets constantly." She moved toward her kitchen, small as it was, just a few feet away. "So. Coffee or tea?"

He watched her for a long moment. Studied her, maybe judged her. Maybe something different. She wished she knew him well enough to guess, to read the body language beneath the hood and the armor.

"Coffee. Black."

"Of course you drink it black," she muttered, pulling out her French press, spooning grounds into it with more force than necessary. "Let me guess, you think cream and sugar are ‘soft’?"

"I just think they ruin perfectly good coffee."

She rolled her eyes, but she knew there was a grin on her face, and could feel it tugging at her mouth. "You're one of those people."

It was his turn to snort now. "Says the woman who probably drinks hers with enough cream to make it beige."

He sounded so young there. Playful, even. Teasing. He had to be in his twenties or early thirties, if she had to guess. There was too much mirth in his voice, too much energy beneath the grouchiness. And yet, something terse still lurked underneath. Like he was always holding onto something darker, something that never quite let go.

"I like my coffee to taste like something other than burnt beans, thank you." She filled the kettle, set it on the stove, turned on the burner. "So what do you do? When you're patrolling but not actively stopping crimes?"

"I watch. Listen. Track patterns." He moved slightly, and she was aware of him behind her, keeping distance but present. His bulk took up space even when he was trying to be unobtrusive. "Figure out who's operating where, what routes they use, when they're vulnerable. Who's working for who. What the hierarchy looks like."

"I was asking more about your hobbies but sure, that works too. Very thrilling."

"It's necessary," he stated matter-of-factly, like it was obvious.

"And lonely," she said, before she could think better of it. The words just came out, soft and without judgment.

He didn't answer right away. Didn't even move an inch. The kettle started to whistle, a sharp sound in the quiet apartment. She poured water over the grounds, set the timer on her phone.

"Sometimes," he finally admitted, his voice quiet. "But that's the job."

"It doesn't have to be." She felt a pang of guilt despite his abrasiveness, despite the armor he wore—literal and metaphorical. He had to be lonely, whoever he was. A job like this…there was no way he could live a normal life. Have friends who didn't know what he did. Have a girlfriend, or a wife, relationships that required honesty and trust. The isolation must be crushing.

"What, you volunteering to keep me company?" There was something almost playful in his voice now. Teasing, testing boundaries. "Pretty sure you insulted my ball size a week ago."

"Pretty sure vigilantes aren't supposed to accept coffee invitations from journalists who wrote critical articles about them either, but here we are," she shot him a smirk over her shoulder, brows raised in amusement. "And I'm sure your balls are plenty big enough for you to be this confident about them."

He laughed then. Quiet but genuine, the first real laugh she had heard that hadn’t been a mockery or in response to their constant arguing. The sound made something warm unfurl in her chest, something she didn't want to examine too closely.

It was just a nice sound. That was all. 

The coffee finished steeping. She pressed down the plunger slowly, poured two mugs. One black for him, one with cream for her. Turned to hand him one—

And froze.

He'd lifted his helmet. Not all the way off, just pushed it up enough to expose his mouth and chin, the lower half of his face visible while the upper portion remained hidden behind the red metal. Still, the sight surprised her. To see a bit of the real man underneath the hood. 

A strong jaw, she noticed immediately. Sharp and defined, masculine, with the shadow of stubble that suggested he hadn't shaved recently. And a scar—thick and jagged, white with age, crossing from his left cheek down through the corner of his mouth, pulling slightly at his upper lip in a way that must have been painful when it was fresh.

She swallowed hard at the sight of it. It looked crude, deliberate, like someone had taken their time doing it. Carved into him with purpose. White and pale with the passage of time, but still raised, still visible. She wondered how he had been on the receiving end of such cruelty. What he'd done to deserve it. Or more realistically, what had been done to him without any deserving at all.

He took the mug from her hands, and their fingers brushed. It was just for a second, but it was long enough for her to register the warmth of his skin through his gloves.

"Thank you," he said, and without the helmet fully distorting it, his voice sounded different. Younger. More human. It was low, naturally deep with a hint of rasp. Maybe from smoking, if she had to guess. The sound sent a shiver down her spine that had nothing to do with the cold.

She realized she was staring and quickly looked away, focusing very intently on her own coffee, watching the cream swirl through the dark liquid. "You're welcome."

But her eyes betrayed her, drifting back to that exposed section of his face almost against her will. The scarring fascinated her, not in a morbid way, but in the way it told a story she desperately wanted to know. How had he gotten it? When? Did it hurt still, or was it just a memory etched into skin? 

He noticed. Of course he did. She could tell by the way his jaw tensed, the muscle jumping beneath the skin. He turned slightly away, angling the scarred side of his face into shadow.

"Sorry," she said quickly. "I wasn't…I didn't mean to stare."

"It's not pretty to look at. I get it." His voice was flat, defensive. His walls were coming back up, brick by brick. "It's fine."

"It's not fine if it makes you uncomfortable." She took a sip of her coffee, giving him space to breathe, to decide whether to stay or bolt. "For what it's worth, I wasn't staring because it's... I don't know, off-putting or anything. I was just—"

"Wondering what kind of damage does that?" He finished for her, bitter. "Wondering how bad it all looks?"

"No." She met his eyes, or where she thought they were behind the helmet, and held them. "I was thinking it looks like it hurt. And that I'm sorry you went through whatever caused it. That someone did that to you."

He was quiet for a few moments. When he spoke again, his voice was soft. Not as defensive. "You're strange, you know that?"

"I've been told." She noticed the hint of an inner-city accent in his words now that the helmet wasn't fully covering his mouth. Gotham-born, maybe the Narrows or Park Row, the kind of accent that marked you as lower-class no matter how far you climbed. She noticed but didn't comment.

He took a sip of his coffee, and she watched his throat work as he swallowed. The way his lips curved slightly around the rim of the mug. "It's good," he said, almost surprised. "Better than I expected."

"What, you thought I'd make terrible coffee?"

"Wouldn’t put it past ya." His exposed mouth pulled up into a grin, and she could see white teeth, full lips. She hoped she didn't look too flustered at the sight, and hoped the warmth in her cheeks wasn't visible.

"Charming as always." She leaned against the counter, cradling her mug, letting the warmth seep into her palms. She didn't miss the quiet scoff he let out, much to her satisfaction. "So. Are you going to tell me how you knew about Chen? About the drugs and the youth center?"

"I don't really do anything special. I just pay attention," he quipped, the grin transitioning into a smirk that said he was entirely too pleased with himself.

She fought the urge to groan. He was so difficult. She was starting to think it was intentional, that he enjoyed being evasive. "That's not an answer."

"It's the only one you're getting." But there was a smile playing at his mouth, both sides, she noticed. Even the scarred side pulled up, though the scar distorted it slightly. "I watch people. Patrol the area, see things at night others don't notice. Follow the patterns, the connections. Listen to conversations people think are private."

"Like Robin did," she said before she could stop herself. Testing, probing, wanting to see if he'd take the bait.

The smile vanished. His whole body tensed like she'd struck him, every muscle going rigid. For a second she thought he might bolt, might drop the mug and disappear out her window without another word.

"How—" He stopped. Started again, his voice harder now, defensive. "You think you know about Robin's methods. Batman's too, now I suppose?"

"I met him. Once." She kept her voice gentle, nonthreatening, trying to undo whatever damage she'd just done. "Six years ago. He saved me from being assaulted in Crime Alley. Walked me home. We talked." She paused, watching his reaction. "But if I had to guess from your reaction, it sounds like you knew him. And you seemed to pick up from my article that I've spoken to him before. That he's apparently dead." 

She ticked off each point on a finger to add emphasis. "So. You must have known him very well if you gathered all that from a few anonymous quotes. And how do you know that he's dead? Really dead, not just retired or moved on?"

"He's dead. That's all you need to know," Red Hood said finally, his voice rough, scraped raw. The amusement, the laughter, was gone completely. "He was naive. Thought he could save everyone. Thought if he just worked hard enough, cared enough, it would make a difference."

She narrowed her eyes at him, watching the way he'd turned slightly away, the way his free hand had clenched into a fist. "See? You talk about him like you knew him personally. Not like you read about him in the papers. Did you? How did he die?"

"Everyone knew Robin," another deflection, but this one felt weaker. Less convincing.

"No. Everyone knew of Robin. Of his reputation. You talk about him like you actually knew him. Like—" She stopped, her pulse quickening as pieces started clicking together in her mind like a puzzle she'd been working on unconsciously. The way he was reacting now was defensive. Raw. Like this was personal, like she'd touched something that still bled. "Like you were close to him."

His mug slammed down on her table forcefully, coffee sloshing over the rim. The sound rang against her walls, sharp and violent, and she jumped involuntarily. "I should go. This was a mistake."

"Wait—"

"Thank you for the coffee." He was already moving toward the window, already pulling the helmet back down to cover his face completely, severing whatever connection they'd built. "And keep your window locked, for fuck's sake."

"Red Hood—"

But he was already gone, the window slamming shut behind him, disappearing through her window and into the Gotham night once again. 

She stood there for a few moments in bitter silence, staring at the closed window, at the mug he'd left on her table with coffee still steaming. Cursing internally at herself for pushing too hard, for touching something she should have left alone.

But underneath the frustration and the guilt, another feeling stirred. Certainty.

She'd been right. He had known Robin. Known him well enough that the mention still hurt, still made him run.

Which meant he might know what had really happened. How a boy who'd walked her home and believed in justice had ended up dead.

She locked the window with shaking hands and stalked off to bed, her mind already spinning with questions she had no way to answer.

________________________________________________________________

And yet she couldn't let it go entirely. Some stubborn, foolish part of her clung to that original dream like a lifeline, refusing to believe that everyone had sold out, that there wasn't still room for someone who gave a damn. Someone who would work for the people, not for themselves.

So when the acceptance letters came, full rides from prestigious universities scattered across the country coveted in prestige, she turned them all down. Every single one. She accepted the partial scholarship from Gotham University instead, a school most people only knew by reputation, and not a good one.

Her parents were horrified.

"It's senseless," her mother had said, pacing their recently renovated kitchen with the same restless energy she brought to cross-examinations, heels clicking against marble like a countdown. Her father, quieter but no less disappointed, had simply shaken his head, the gesture heavy with years of expectations collapsing. "Impractical. You're throwing away opportunities people would kill for."

They saw it as the reckless whim of a child with dreams too big for her own head, a naive girl who would learn the hard way that idealism didn't pay the bills.

She didn't care. She saw it as the only choice that mattered.

If she was going to make a difference, where better than the most crime-ridden, corrupt, power-hungry city in the country?

The internship at the Gotham Gazette wasn't handed to her. She fought for it tooth and nail, email after email, phone call after phone call until she was half-convinced they'd blocked her number. It wasn't until she won a university writing contest her sophomore year that they finally relented, offering her an unpaid position that mostly involved coffee runs and booking hotels.

She took it without hesitation.

Four months of grunt work followed. Filing papers, editing fluff pieces about charity galas and restaurant openings, staying late to proofread copy no one else wanted to touch eventually earned her a part-time spot. Hourly pay. Barely twenty hours a week. It wasn't much. But it was something. A foot in the door. 

All she needed was one good story. Just one.

And everyone knew Gotham was full of good stories.

The city was a living, breathing contradiction. Beautiful and broken, glittering with old money and rotting from the inside out. It was known for its criminal underworld, its seedy politicians, its yawning economic divide that swallowed whole neighborhoods. 

And of course, for him. The man who dressed like a bat and prowled the rooftops at night, hunting criminals in the dark.

The city was split down the middle about him. Half saw him as a villian, no better than the criminals he put behind bars. Maybe worse, because he operated outside the law and answered to no one. The other half worshiped him like a dark saint. The Dark Knight. Their protector. The only one who'd done more in a few years than the GCPD, itself rotted through with corruption, had managed in decades.

She didn't hate him. She didn't love him either. He did good for the city. That was enough for her.

She just wished she could write something significant about him. Something that would finally earn her that front-page byline she'd been chasing since day one.

Which is why, at exactly ten past eleven on a Tuesday night, she found herself purposefully looking for trouble in the middle of Crime Alley.

The neighborhood had earned its name easily enough. Even in a city as broken as Gotham, this place stood out, a festering wound that never healed, tucked away where the city's elite didn't have to look at it. 

The streetlights here were sparse, half of them shot out or simply dead from neglect. Those that still worked flickered weakly, casting sickly yellow pools that barely pushed back the darkness. The buildings leaned in close, their facades crumbling brick and rusted fire escapes, windows either boarded up or glowing with the dim light of lives lived in quiet desperation.

Trash gathered in corners, in doorways, swept there by wind that always seemed to smell like rust and something rotting. The pavement was cracked, sprouting weeds through the fissures. 

During the day, the Park Row was simply sad. A monument to urban decay and municipal indifference. At night, it transformed into something else entirely. Something hungry.

Most people avoided it after dark. The ones who didn't either lived here or were looking for things decent people didn't look for.

She'd spent the last hour wandering the streets with her phone's voice recorder running in her pocket, observing, taking mental notes. A story was forming in her mind, something about the people the city had abandoned. About what happened in the spaces between the law and lawlessness. 

It wasn't about Batman, not directly, but it was real. A territory of the city probably a consistent top visit on his list. She'd already interviewed three residents earlier in the week, gotten permission to record their stories. Tonight was about atmosphere, about understanding what this place felt like when darkness fell.

Her notebook was filling with details. The way voices carried differently here. Either too loud or whisper-quiet, nothing in between. The sound of glass breaking in the distance. A dog barking, then cutting off abruptly, the silence after more disturbing than the sound itself. The shuffle of footsteps that scattered when she got too close, people who didn't want to be seen. She documented the graffiti, some of it artistic, most of it territorial. Counted the number of working streetlights per block. Noted which buildings still had occupied apartments, marked by laundry hanging from fire escapes or the glow of television screens.

She was so focused on capturing it all, on translating the texture of this place into something readers would understand, that she almost missed it.

Voices. Sharp. Male. Coming from an alley branching off to her left.

She slowed, instinct warring with curiosity. Her hand moved to her phone, not to call for help, but to be ready to record.

A third voice. Female. Younger. Afraid.

"—told you, I don't have any cash—"

"Don't look broke to you, does she?" One of the male voices, cruel amusement threading through.

"Nah. That's a nice bag. Hand it over."

Her feet moved before her brain caught up. She rounded the corner into the narrow alley, and the scene crystallized under the weak light bleeding in from the street. Two young men, probably late twenties, blocking a girl against the grimy brick wall. The girl looked about her own age, maybe a year younger, clutching a purse to her chest like a shield. Her eyes were wide, darting between her attackers, looking for an escape that wasn't there.

Every self-preservation instinct she possessed screamed at her to back away, to call 911, to not get involved.

But how long would it take for them to get there? In Crime Alley, of all places? The calls were always flooding in nonstop. And she was here now, able to be more than a bystander.

"Hey!" Her voice came out stronger than she felt, cutting through the tension like a slap. "Leave her alone."

Three heads snapped toward her. The girl's face flooded with desperate relief. The two men turned, sizing her up, and she watched their expressions shift. Surprise melting into something uglier.

It was an opportunity for them. She wasn't naive enough to miss what men like them saw in her. Tailored clothes, blown-out hair, a nice pair of earrings to complement a soft, youthful face. She didn't walk like someone who knew Crime Alley. She didn't look in the dark corners, avoiding trouble like most others would have in this situation. 

She wasn't from Gotham. She was an outsider. Well-off, too. An easy target.

"Well, look at that," the taller one said, taking a step toward her. His smile was all teeth, no warmth. "Two for one special."

"Walk away," the other one added, but he was smiling too. "Unless you want to share whatever's in your pockets."

She didn't walk away. Instead, she moved further into the alley, positioning herself so the men's attention pivoted fully toward her, their backs now partially to the girl. Her heart hammered against her ribs, but her hands remained steady.

"Pretty stupid, coming down here alone at night," the tall one said, moving closer. He eyed her notebook, leering. "Journalist, huh? I can tell. You've got that look. Thinking you're gonna write some big story about the mean streets?"

She held her ground, pulse roaring in her ears. From the corner of her eye, she saw the girl edge sideways along the wall.

"What I think," she said, keeping her voice level even as her mouth went dry, "is that two guys harassing women in an alley are exactly the kind of cowards who won't do anything if someone's watching."

The shorter one laughed, a harsh, ugly sound that echoed off the walls. "No one's watching, sweetheart. That's the point."

But the girl was moving now, faster, slipping past them while their focus was locked on her. Almost there. She locked eyes with her, jerking her head toward the entrance to the alley.

"Get out of here," she urged, putting steel in her voice.

The girl didn't need to be told twice. She bolted, flats slapping against pavement as she fled toward the mouth of the alley and disappeared into the street beyond.

Which left her alone with two very angry men.

The tall one's expression darkened. "That was stupid."

Yeah, she realized that now. But at least the girl had gotten away. 

Her heart hammered in her chest, blood rushing so loud in her ears it nearly drowned out the sound of their footsteps. She had thought that if someone confronted them, they would have backed off. Instead, both men were stalking toward her and she was out of options.

The tall one moved first.

She saw it coming—his arm drawing back, fist clenched—but knowing and being able to stop it were two different things. She twisted, managed to dodge the worst of it, his knuckles grazing her cheekbone instead of connecting solidly. The impact still sent stars bursting across her vision, white-hot pain radiating from the point of contact.

Training she didn't know she had kicked in. Pure instinct. Her father had insisted on self-defense classes when she'd told them she was moving to Gotham, one of the few practical things he'd done besides lecture her.

She channeled every ounce of fear and adrenaline into her right arm and swung.

Her fist connected with the shorter one's nose with a satisfying, sickening crunch. Cartilage gave way beneath her knuckles.

He staggered back, cursing, blood streaming between his fingers. "You bitch—"

She didn't have time to feel triumphant. The tall one grabbed her from behind, arms wrapping around her shoulders like steel bands, and yanked. She lost her footing, hit the ground hard enough to knock the air from her lungs. The pavement was cold and unforgiving against her back, grit digging into her skin through her jacket. 

Her skull cracked against concrete and the world tilted sideways.

Before she could roll away, they were on her. The tall one dropped his knee onto her chest, pinning her down with his weight. She gasped, struggling to breathe, to move, but he was too heavy. The shorter one, still bleeding from his nose, drew back and hit her with a vicious backhand that snapped her head to the side. 

Pain exploded across her jaw, white and blinding. She tasted copper, felt warmth spreading across her tongue.

"Think you're tough?" he snarled, hitting her again. Her lip split. Something warm ran hot down her chin, pooling in the hollow of her throat.

Panic clawed up her throat like a living thing. She thrashed, bucked, but the tall one had her shoulders pinned, his knees pressing bruises sure to bloom deep into her chest. She couldn't breathe properly, couldn't get leverage—

Her hand found skin. Face. She didn't think, just acted.

Her fingers found the tall one's eye socket and she dug, nails scraping, pushing, grinding in as hard as she could. She felt the soft give of flesh, the wet heat of tears and blood.

He howled, an animal sound of pure agony. She watched him rear back, hands flying to his face in anguish. "Fuck, my eye! You fucking—"

She sucked in a desperate breath, tried to scramble backward, get her feet under her—

The kick caught her in the ribs before she could stand.

All the air left her lungs in a painful whoosh. White light burst behind her eyes. She curled instinctively around the pain, gasping. 

The shorter one was on her, shoving her flat on her back again. His weight settled on her hips, pinning her down, and his hands went to her clothes.

Grabbing, ripping. Buttons scattered across the pavement with small plastic clicks that sounded obscenely loud in the sudden stillness.

"No, no, get off—" She fought, clawing at his arms, his face, anything she could reach, but he caught her wrists, slammed them down above her head with one hand while the other tore at her shirt. Cold air hit her skin. Terror turned her blood to ice.

And then he was gone.

One second he was on top of her, and the next he was flying backward through the air like he weighed nothing, like something had plucked him up and thrown him like a ragdoll. He hit the alley wall with a crack that might have been brick or bone or both, and crumpled.

A blur of color, red and green that was moving too fast to track, descended on the taller man immediately. A fist, a kick, movements precise and brutal and efficient. The choreography of violence practiced to perfection. The thug went down hard, didn't get back up.

It happened in seconds. Maybe less.

She lay there on the ground, shaking. One hand clutched her torn shirt closed, the other pressed against her screaming ribs. Her vision swam, darkened at the edges like someone was slowly turning down the lights. 

She blinked hard, trying to focus, trying to understand what she was seeing.

A figure stood over the two unconscious men, silhouetted against the weak streetlight. Not as tall as she'd expected. Lean, athletic build. A cape, bright yellow on the inside,settled around shoulders clad in red and green. A mask covered the upper half of his face, but she could see his jaw was set, tight with barely contained anger.

Not the Batman. Someone else. Someone younger.

He turned toward her, and even through the mask, she could see the concern in his eyes as he checked for injuries. Cataloged the damage. He took a step closer, one hand extended like he was approaching a wounded animal.

"Are you alright?" His voice was surprisingly gentle, careful, like he was afraid she might shatter. "Can you stand?"

She stared up at him, brain still trying to catch up with what had just happened. The taste of  blood was on her lips and tears she hadn't realized she'd shed ran hot down her cheeks.

Somewhere in the depths of her brain, through the haze of fleeing adrenaline and oncoming pain, she felt recognition click into place. She had seen this boy before in countless news clips, in any blurry pictures that the Gazette could get their hands on.

"Robin," she muttered, more fact than question.

Up close, he was younger than she'd imagined. Not by much, maybe a few years younger, but still clearly a boy judging by the leanness of his frame and the fact that she had a few inches on him. Somehow the photos never quite captured it. He couldn't have been more than fifteen, sixteen at the absolute most.

The domino mask covered his eyes, stark white against the shadows, but she could see the sharp line of his jaw, the slight furrow of concern between his brows. Dark hair, slightly mussed from the fight. The costume was more vivid in person than in the grainy newspaper photos. A red tunic with a yellow 'R' emblazoned across his chest, green sleeves and gloves, a yellow cape that puddled bright against the grimy alley floor as he crouched down.

He was real. Not just some blurry figure caught mid-leap on a traffic camera, but real. And now he was crouching in front of her with an expression that was almost painfully earnest.

"Yeah," he confirmed. She caught the edge of relief in his voice, like he'd been worried she might be too incapacitated to speak. "That's me. Good job. And you're bleeding." He shifted his weight, moving closer but not touching, giving her space. "Can you sit up? Anything feel broken?"

She took inventory, cataloging injuries with detached precision. Split lip, bruised jaw, ribs screaming, but she still managed to lever herself up onto her elbows. Pain shot through her side and she winced, gasping.

"Easy," he said, and this time he did reach out, one gloved hand hovering near her shoulder, ready to steady her but waiting for permission. "Slow."

"I'm fine," she said automatically, which was such an obvious lie that he actually raised an eyebrow at her.

"Right. So you're the delirious kind of stupid." He glanced over his shoulder at the two crumpled figures, then back to her. "You took on two guys in Crime Alley. Alone. At night." A pause, weighted with meaning. "That was either incredibly brave or incredibly dumb."

"Both," she admitted, finally managing to sit up fully. The world tilted slightly but steadied. "Probably more dumb."

"Definitely more stupid than dumb." But there was no judgment in his voice, just something that sounded almost like respect. Wonder, even. "That girl you helped, she got away clean. So, you know. Stupid, but effective."

She touched her lip gingerly, felt the split there, the tackiness of drying blood. She eyed him curiously, taking in his appearance unabashedly. 

He was a teenager. His limbs were still in that awkward in-between phase of growing and not quite knowing when to stop. His face was clean, free of stubble, of any fuzz in general. And his voice was caught between the youthful pitch of young boys and the deep tenor of a man. He couldn’t be older than eighteen, at most.

She tilted her head, curious despite the pain. "You're younger than I thought you'd be."

He stopped moving and blinked at her, clearly not expecting that. "What?"

"Robin. The Boy Wonder. The photos don't—" She gestured vaguely at him, then immediately regretted moving her arm that much. "You're just...you're like, what, fourteen?"

He gaped at her, momentarily stunned. "You got something to say after I saved your ass and all?" he said, a little defensive, and yeah, that confirmed it. Definitely mid-high school age. Maybe even an inner-city kid judging by his Gotham accent.

"No, I'm sorry. Just—" She attempted something like a smile, though the motion pulled painfully at her split lip. "Shouldn't you be in high school or something? Underage drinking? Questionable life choices that don't involve fighting crime?"

"Who says I'm not older?" He stood, offered his hand again, more insistent this time. "And if we're talking questionable life choices, you're the one who decided Crime Alley at midnight was a good place for... what, journalism?" His eyes flicked to the notebook that had fallen a few feet away, pages splayed open like broken wings.

"Research," she corrected, accepting his hand. He was lean, not very muscular, but his grip was strong. 

He pulled her up carefully, watching to make sure she wouldn't collapse. She didn't, but it was a near thing. Her ribs really didn't appreciate the movement.

"Right. Research. Of the scummiest place in all of Gotham. Great choice," He bent down, scooped up her notebook carefully and handed it to her. She noticed that he seemed to finally see the ruined state of her shirt with the act, as he flushed and ducked his head quickly.

She didn't have to look down to know that her shirt was mostly torn open. The chill on her skin from the night air was evidence enough. To his credit, he wasted no time in immediately shrugging off his cape, keeping his eyes downcast like a gentleman. 

Before she could protest, he draped it around her shoulders. The fabric was surprisingly soft, still warm from his body heat. "Here."

She clutched it closed with one hand, the other pressed against her aching ribs. It smelled of something pine, some sharp cologne that didn't belong to a young boy. And something utterly individual to him that she didn't know him well enough to name. "And they say chivalry isn't dead. Thank you."

"Don't mention it." Robin's mouth quirked into something that might have been a smile, crooked and boyish. "Can't exactly have the girls I rescue strolling around undressed. Tends to lend to bad reviews."

She snorted despite herself. For a teenager, he was pretty bold. Cocky. Certainly too confident for his own good. "Good to know where you draw the line."

"I'm very principled." He studied her for a moment, and she saw the concern deepen in his brow, the way his lips pressed together. "You're hurt. You took a pretty solid hit or two to the ribs. You shouldn't be walking around alone right now."

"I'll be fine. I just need to—" She took a step and immediately swayed, the world tilting again like the ground had become liquid.

His hand shot out, caught her elbow with reflexes too fast to be unpracticed. "Yeah, no. Where do you live?"

"What?"

"Your apartment. House. Wherever." He was already moving, positioning himself at her side like a human crutch, taking some of her weight without making it obvious. "I'm walking you back. Non-negotiable. Good for reviews too."

She wanted to argue. She should argue. She shouldn't let some vigilante know where she lived, even if he was associated with Batman. But she was too hurt, too disappointed in her own poor judgment tonight to care. And something about the way he said it, matter-of-fact and gentle at the same time, made her believe he actually would just...walk her home. Like a normal person. Like this was perfectly normal.

"You don't have to—"

"I know I don't have to. I'm going to." He steered her toward the mouth of the alley, his movements careful, practiced. Like he knew exactly where he was going. "Besides, you just got your ass kicked saving someone. That's pretty badass for a girl, even if it was boneheaded. Least I can do is make sure you get home in one piece before you dive head-first into another bad idea."

"My ass didn't get kicked," she protested weakly, shooting a quick glare at him that had no real heat behind it. She was glaring at a borderline criminal, she thought to herself humorously. "I got a good hit in."

"You did," he agreed patiently, like he was speaking to a child, rather than vice versa. "Broke his nose. That was a solid right hook. Textbook form, actually."

She frowned down at him, pulling his cape closer around her shoulders. The weight of it was comforting somehow. "Are you making fun of me?"

"No, I would never mock you. Not a pretty girl like you." His tone was light, teasing, but then it shifted into something more serious. "Well, maybe just a little. You did confront two guys in Crime Alley with zero weapons and I'm guessing minimal training."

They emerged from the alley onto the main street, and Robin kept close to her side, his presence strangely reassuring. The few people still out at this hour gave them a wide berth, whether out of fear or respect, she couldn't tell. 

She scoffed but didn't protest. He was right, wasn't he? She'd made a monumentally stupid decision and now she was paying the price. But that girl had gotten away. That had to count for something. Even if it had nearly gotten her killed.

"So. Address? Or are you going to make me guess?"

She told him, rattling off the street name of her apartment building about eight blocks north. Not a great neighborhood, but leagues better than Crime Alley. She'd lived on campus her freshman year to get the standard dorm experience but after landing the job at the Gazette, she'd decided to move into the city proper. Somewhere she could afford on her own meager salary, without help.

Her father hated it. He'd practically begged her to move into Gotham Heights, even offered to pay for a place himself. For something spacious and safe with a doorman and security cameras. She'd politely declined. The whole point of this, her self-determined mission, was to forge her own path. Living under her parents' shadow, accepting their money, using their connections would get her nothing but whispered accusations of nepotism and mistrust. She needed to do this on her own terms, even if it meant a fifth-floor walk-up in a building where the heat only worked half the time.

"Eight blocks," Robin repeated, utterly undeterred by the distance. "Yeah, we're definitely walking. You going to make it?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"Not really, no." But his voice was warm, almost teasing, and she could hear the smile in it. "Come on. Lean on me if you need to. I won't tell anyone the big bad journalist needed help from the Boy Wonder." He paused, glanced at her. "You are a journalist, right? I'm not totally off base here?"

"I'm not big anything," she muttered, but she did lean slightly, just enough to take the pressure off her screaming ribs. Every breath was sharp-edged and painful, like breathing through broken glass. "I'm a part-time assistant at best. Intern who does grunt work nobody else wants."

"Better than nothing." He adjusted his pace to match hers. Slow, patient. Like he had all the time in the world, like there weren't criminals to catch and wrongs to right. "You seem young too, though. You in high school? Taking some kind of early journalism program?"

She hesitated at first before reality settled in. He'd just saved her life. He probably saved countless people every week, swooping in at the last second like some kind of guardian angel in a cape. He'd drop her off at home, be on his merry way, and she'd never hear from him again. This was just...politeness. Maybe a little flirtation, but what teenage boy wasn't a flirt when given half a chance?

"I'm a student at Gotham U," she corrected him, unable to keep the slight defensiveness out of her voice. Pride, maybe. "Junior. And you essentially just gave yourself away, you know. What are you, seventeen? Can you even drive a car yet?"

Robin shot her a glare. She could see it even through the mask, the way his brow scrunched and his lips pressed into a tight line. "Very funny. Hilarious. You just won the award for most annoying person I've saved this week." He paused, tilted his head thoughtfully. "You got a name to go with that attitude, or should I just keep calling you ‘questionable life choices’?"

She rolled her eyes, shifting her weight into him a bit more. He was stronger than she'd expected for someone his age, taking her weight without so much as a grunt. He was almost eye-level with her, definitely strong and developing some real muscle, but still a bit too lean. Stringy. Like his body was filling out, like he'd never quite had enough to eat growing up and was only now catching up to where he should have been all along.

His accent caught her attention too, that distinct Gotham twang, the kind you heard in the Narrows or Crime Alley. The neighborhoods where people struggled just to survive. If he'd grown up in the inner-city, she could imagine what his childhood had been like. What kind of horrors he'd witnessed, what kind of hunger he'd known. Maybe that's why he did this. Maybe that's why a kid barely old enough to drive, if he even could, was out here risking his life every night.

She told him her name. One block down, seven to go.

"So you're a student and you work for the Gazette," he commented, filing away the information like he was building a profile. "And if I had to put money on it..." He glanced at her sideways, assessing with sharp eyes. "I'd say you're not from Gotham originally. Am I right?"

She peered at him in surprise, genuinely impressed. His only response was a cheeky grin. The domino mask hid half his face, but she was certain that kind of broad, cocky smile reached his eyes. "Looks like you'd lose all your lunch money then, Boy Wonder. But you're right, I came here for school. Grew up on the West Coast."

The grin vanished instantly, replaced by an exaggerated scowl that was more theatrical than genuine. "If that guy hadn't kicked you in the ribs, I'd be elbowing you right now for that lunch money comment. And not because you're some California hippie."

"Well, that would be terrible for your ratings, wouldn't it?" she teased, leaning down closer to him with a grin of her own, ignoring the way it pulled at her split lip again and made fresh blood well up. "I'd have to personally call Batman and let him know his sidekick harassed an injured woman. Right after saving her from harassment. The irony would be incredible."

The corners of his lips twitched, like he was fighting the urge to smile and losing badly. "Partner, not sidekick," he corrected, his voice firm but not unkind. "Write that down. It's important."

A flutter of excitement ran through her chest, completely inappropriate given the circumstances. She raised her eyebrows at him, hopeful despite herself, despite knowing better. "Is that an invitation for an interview?"

She had no idea why she asked that. Everyone knew Batman and Robin didn't give interviews. It was practically their defining characteristic, much to every reporter's eternal chagrin. They worked in the shadows, operated in near-total silence, communicated through action rather than words. 

Besides, Robin was clearly a minor. She wouldn't necessarily need parental consent for an interview, not that she even knew if he had parents or not, but interviewing a minor without permission was generally frowned upon. Though the Gazette, and Gotham society in general, would probably look past that given the mantle he wore. When it came to icons, most bets were off the table.

And an interview with Robin... she couldn't even imagine what she would do with that. Where it could take her career. What good she could do by profiling a boy the city saw as both hero and menace, savior and symptom.

Robin, meanwhile, was looking at her like she'd just suggested they rob a bank together. "Are you crazy? No way. Batman would kill me." He shook his head, muttering to himself with genuine frustration, like she'd just made his life infinitely more complicated. "Journalists, man. You guys are greedy as hell."

Two blocks down. Six to go.

She made a sound of disgust at his words, though she knew he didn't mean it maliciously. To his credit, he was right. Most journalists would twist his words, distort the truth, and do whatever they could to expose the worst parts of a story. Interviewing a vigilante would be disastrous for their public appeal, their carefully maintained mystique. "You really think that little of me? You don't even know me."

"I know enough about the Gazette to know you'd just write about how bad people like Batman and I are for the city," he said. There was real anger simmering beneath the surface now, hot and defensive. His grip on her arm tightened fractionally. "How we should just leave everything up to the cops. Which is complete bullshit. The cops don't do anything here. They won't do anything. Everyone's pockets are always open for the right price, and the people who can't pay just get left behind to rot."

He was right. For a kid, he was perceptive. Articulate. Though she supposed if he was working with Batman, a lot of Batman's ideals would bleed into his own worldview. They'd have to, wouldn't they? You couldn't fight alongside someone night after night without absorbing their beliefs and values.

"What if I agreed with you?" she asked carefully, testing the waters. "Would you be more open to talking then?"

Robin stopped walking for a moment, blinking up at her with genuine surprise. One beat passed. Two. She held her breath, hope fluttering dangerously in her chest like a caged bird. 

And then the moment was gone as quick as it came. His guarded expression snapped back into place, incredulity coloring his voice. "I'd say you're pulling my leg to get me to talk. Playing me."

She shook her head, tightening her grip on his arm in her eagerness, ignoring the fresh spike of pain from her ribs. "And I'd say you're generalizing. Not all journalists are the same. You think I don't see the problems with Gotham? The corruption, the inequality, the way this city eats people alive?" Her voice gained strength despite the pain, despite the exhaustion seeping into her bones. "Just because I work for a newspaper doesn't mean someone's bribing me. Doesn't mean I'm looking to tear you down. If I thought the worst of you, would I have told you my name? Would I let you walk me home?"

Robin stared at her for a long moment, his jaw working like he was chewing over her words, testing them for truth. Finally, he started walking again, pulling her gently along with him. "You're persistent, I'll give you that."

"Comes with the territory." She winced as they stepped off a curb to avoid a rather large hole in the sidewalk, the jolt sending fresh pain through her ribs. "So is that a yes?"

"That's a 'keep dreaming.'" But there was less bite in his voice now. Three blocks down. "You really think an interview with me would change anything? Make Gotham give a damn?"

"I think people need to hear your side of the story," she said carefully, measuring each word. "Right now, half the city thinks you and Batman are criminals. The other half thinks you're heroes. But nobody actually knows anything. They just...speculate. Make assumptions based on blurry photos and whatever the news runs that night."

"Maybe that's the point." His grip on her arm tightened slightly as they navigated around a heap of clutter in the street, glass crunching under their feet. "We're not doing this for recognition. We're doing it because someone has to."

"But why does it have to be you?" She wasn't trying to provoke him. She was genuinely curious, genuinely trying to understand. "You're what, fifteen? Sixteen? You should be worrying about college applications, and girls, and—"

"And what?" He cut her off, sharp as a blade. "Pretending everything's fine? Going to house parties while people get murdered three blocks away?" There was an edge to his voice now, something raw and angry. Something that sounded personal. "Someone's gotta actually do something. The cops sure as hell won't."

"You really believe that? That the system's completely broken?"

"I know it is." He said it with such certainty, such bone-deep conviction, that it made her chest ache. "I've seen it. Lived it. You grow up in Park Row, you learn real quick that nobody's coming to save you. The politicians don't care. The cops are either corrupt or too scared to make waves. And the people with money?" He laughed, bitter and hollow. "They're too busy in their penthouses to notice the city's rotting from the inside out."

Four blocks down. She absorbed his words, filed them away, her journalist's brain cataloging every inflection, every hint of the boy beneath the mask. "So vigilantism is the answer? Taking justice into your own hands?"

"You got a better idea?" He shot back, turning to look at her fully. "Because I'm all ears. Really. Tell me what else works when the law's a joke and the people enforcing it are bought and paid for."

"Reform," she said, though even as she said it, she knew how naive it sounded. How young and hopeful and stupid. "Working within the system to change it. Exposing corruption through journalism, pushing for accountability—"

"Yeah, because that's worked so well so far." The sarcasm was thick, cutting through the night air like smoke. "How many exposés has the Gazette run on dirty cops? Crooked politicians? And what's changed? Nothing. They pay a fine, make some public apology, and go right back to doing the same shit." He was getting worked up now, his voice rising slightly. "Meanwhile, people are dying. Getting robbed, beaten, worse. Someone's gotta actually put hands on these bastards. Make them scared to do what they do."

She could feel the violence simmering beneath his words, not directed at her, but at the injustice of it all. The frustration of a kid who'd seen too much too young, who'd been failed by every system designed to protect him. It was a familiar sentiment held by people in the city. "And you think fear is the answer?"

"I think fear's the only language some people understand." He said it flatly, matter-of-fact, like it was self-evident. "You can't reason with a guy who's about to kill someone. Can't file a complaint about the gangbanger who just shot a kid over territory. Sometimes you just gotta..." He made a sharp gesture with his free hand, a striking motion. "Put them down. Make sure they think twice before doing it again."

"That sounds like you're talking about more than just stopping crime," she observed quietly, carefully. "That sounds like punishment."

"Maybe it is." He didn't back down, didn't soften it with euphemisms or justifications. "Maybe some people deserve to be punished. You gonna tell me those guys back there—" He jerked his head back toward Crime Alley, back toward the violence. "—didn't deserve what they got? That they should just get a stern talking-to and a slap on the wrist? They hurt you and would have done worse. We're just gonna lock them up, give them a few years, and set them back out in the streets for the same cycle to repeat itself. What's the point of that?"

"No," she admitted, because he was right. "But where's the line? How do you decide who deserves what? What happens when you go too far?"

"We don't." But there was something uncertain in his voice now, something that suggested he'd asked himself that question before, late at night when the adrenaline wore off and he was just a kid again. "Batman has rules. Lines we don't cross."

"Like what?"

"Nice try." He shot her a look that was almost amused, almost impressed by her tenacity. "You really think I'm gonna lay out our whole operating procedure while you're mentally taking notes for your article?"

"I'm not writing an article right now." She shifted her weight, leaning more heavily on him as her ribs protested. Pain was making her dizzy. "I'm just... trying to understand."

"Why?"

"Because I think you're right." The words came out before she could stop them, raw and honest. "I think the system is broken. I think Gotham needs something more than what it's getting. I just..." 

She struggled to find the words, to articulate the thing that had been gnawing at her since she'd moved here. "I want to know if this is it. If two people in masks beating up criminals is really the best we can do."

Five blocks down. Robin was quiet for a moment, processing, the only sound their footsteps on pavement and the distant wail of sirens. When he spoke again, his voice was softer. "You think we like this? You think Batman wants to spend every night breaking bones and dodging bullets?" He shook his head, dark hair catching the streetlight. "This is a stopgap. A band-aid on a bullet wound. We're buying time, trying to keep people alive long enough for something better to come along."

"And if it doesn't? If nothing changes?" God, she was arguing with a teenager about systemic reform after getting beaten up by thugs for doing the right thing. The absurdity wasn't lost on her.

"Then I guess we keep doing what we're doing." He said it with grim determination. "Until someone stops us or we die trying."

The casualness with which he mentioned dying made her stomach clench. "You're a kid. You're so eager to die?"

"I'm almost sixteen, actually," He glanced at her, and there was something defiant in his expression, something that dared her to call him a kid again. "And before you start with the 'you're too young' speech, save it. I know what I signed up for. Nobody forced me into this."

"But someone let you," she pointed out, pressing the issue because she couldn't help herself. "Batman. He's older, right? An adult? He brought a kid into this."

"I don't regret any of it. He's done more for me than anyone has," Robin said sharply, defensively, his entire body tensing beside her. "With or without him, I want to do this. At least this way I've got training, backup. Someone who gives a damn if I make it home." His voice took on a harder edge, something raw. "Not everyone gets that."

There was a story there. She could feel it, could hear it in the way his voice tightened, in the way he held himself just a little too rigidly. But before she could probe further, he turned the tables on her.

"What about you?" He asked, his tone shifting, becoming almost conversational. "What's your deal? Rich girl from California slumming it in Gotham, trying to save the world with a notebook and a dream?" There was mockery in his tone, but it wasn't entirely malignant. More like he was testing her, seeing if she'd rise to the bait. "You could've gone anywhere. Could've taken that full ride to some fancy school on the coast, written bullshit pieces about tech startups and farmer's markets. Why here?"

"Because here is where it matters," she said simply, the truth distilled to its essence. "Because Gotham is where people are suffering. Where the stories need to be told. Isn't that the point of the job?"

"Noble." He didn't sound entirely convinced, but there was something in his voice that suggested respect. "Your parents must love that."

"They think I'm an idiot."

"I'm starting to think they're onto something, after the stunt you pulled tonight."

She laughed, then immediately regretted it as pain shot through her ribs like fire. She gasped, stumbling slightly, and his arm came around her waist immediately, steadying her with surprising gentleness.

"Easy," he murmured, concern bleeding through. "Don't make it worse."

"Probably. But at least I'm trying," she managed once she could breathe again.

"Yeah." Something in his voice softened fractionally, and became almost warm. "Yeah, you are."

Six blocks down. Her building was close now, just two more blocks. She could see the familiar corner store, its neon sign flickering weakly in the darkness, the bodega where she bought coffee every morning.

"So no interview then?" She tried one more time, unable to help herself.

"No interview," he confirmed. But there was something almost apologetic in his tone now. "But..." He hesitated, like he was weighing something. "What were you gonna write about? Before those guys jumped you?"

"Crime Alley," she said, seizing the opening. "The people who live there. What it's like to exist in a place the rest of the city's forgotten. I've been interviewing residents, getting their stories. Tonight was just... atmosphere. Context. Understanding what it feels like when the sun goes down and the city changes."

He nodded slowly, thoughtfully. "And you were gonna include us? Batman and me?"

"Not the focus," she admitted honestly. "But yeah. You're part of the ecosystem there. People mentioned you. Some grateful, some scared, some resentful." She paused, watching his profile in the dim light. "What do you think they should think of you?"

"I don't care what they think of me," he said, immediate and fierce, the words coming out almost angry. "I care that they're alive to think anything at all."

It was a good line. Maybe too good, too polished. Like he'd thought about it before, or someone had told it to him. But there was sincerity underneath it too, a bone-deep belief that made her think he actually meant it. 

He was just a kid, though. Idealistic, naive in his own way. Anything could change, so much could change, in just a few years of life for him.

"That's a good answer," she said quietly. Her heart clenched, aching for this boy who'd taken the weight of the city onto his own shoulders at such a young age. She hoped he kept believing in that.

"Of course it's a good answer. I know what I'm talking about." He was scanning the street now, alert, watching for threats even as they talked. Always working. No kid should have to worry about these things, to have to see danger in every shadow. "Your building's that one, right? The brick one with the blue door?"

"Yeah." Seven blocks down. Almost there. "You've got good eyes."

"Comes with the job." They crossed the final street, and he guided her up to the front steps of her building with careful precision. The light above the door was still out,  as it had been out for weeks. In the darkness the colors of Robin's costume seemed to blend into the shadows. "You gonna be okay getting upstairs?"

"I'll manage." She was reluctant to let go of his arm, reluctant for this strange night to end. There was something about him, something earnest and fierce, that made her want to keep talking. "Thank you. For everything."

"Don't mention it." He stepped back, giving her space. His eyes were still assessing, making sure she could stand on her own. "And hey, that article you're writing? About Crime Alley?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't pull your punches." His voice was serious, intense, the playfulness draining away. "People need to know how bad it really is. They need to see what we're up against. What you're up against, just walking around asking questions." He paused, and something shifted in his expression. "You're brave for doing that. Stupid, but brave."

"High praise from the sidekick."

"Partner," he corrected automatically, and she could hear the smile returning to his voice. "Get some ice on those ribs. And maybe consider carrying pepper spray or something next time you decide to play hero."

"I'll take it under advisement."

He turned to leave, the streetlight in the distance reflecting off his black waves from overhead. She watched him take two steps before his name fell out of her mouth without much thought to caution. 

"Robin?"

"Yeah?" He paused, turned back slightly, cape swirling around him.

"Can I ask you one more question?"

He sighed, but it sounded more amused than annoyed. "You're relentless, you know that?"

"It's not about an interview," she promised, though her heart was racing, pounding against her bruised ribs. "It's just...do you really think it's impossible? That journalism can't make a difference?"

He tilted his head, considering the question with more seriousness than she'd expected. "I think most journalism doesn't. Most of it's garbage. Clickbait, propaganda, whatever sells papers or gets clicks."

"But not all of it," she pressed, taking a step forward despite the pain. "What if... what if someone wrote about the real Gotham? Not the sensational stuff, not the Batman think pieces everyone's already tired of. But the actual people living in Crime Alley. The families trying to survive. The systemic failures that put them there." 

Her voice gained strength despite the pain, despite how exhausted she was, because this mattered. This was why she'd come here. "What if someone wrote about how the city's eating its own people alive and nobody with the power to change it gives a damn? What if someone made the people in Gotham Heights actually see what's happening ten blocks away?"

"I'm not trying to be Batman. I'm not trying to save people with my fists. But maybe…maybe I can save them by making their stories impossible to ignore. By forcing people to confront what they've been pretending doesn't exist. Isn't that worth something?"

Robin stared at her mutely. Even through the mask, she could feel the weight of his gaze, assessing, measuring. The silence stretched between them, heavy with possibility, thick with understanding.

Finally, he spoke, his voice quiet and thoughtful. "You really believe that? That you could actually make people care?"

"I have to try, at least," she said simply, the truth stripped bare. "Otherwise, what's the point of any of this?"

Another beat of silence. Then something shifted in his posture. The tension in his shoulders eased. The defensive edge in his stance softened.

"Okay," he said quietly. There was something like respect in his voice. Something like hope. "Here's the deal. You can use what I told you tonight. About the system being broken, about why we do what we do, about Crime Alley and how nobody's coming to save people who live there." He held up a finger, pointing at her with emphasis. "But you don't mention me directly. No quotes attributed to Robin. You work it in, make it part of the bigger picture. Background, context, whatever. Just... no 'Robin says' headlines. Batman really would kill me."

She stared at him, stunned speechless. Of all the ways she'd expected this night to end, this wasn't one of them. Her mouth opened, closed, opened again. "Are you serious?"

"Do I look like I'm joking?" But there was something soft in his expression. "You asked what could change things. Maybe you're right. Maybe someone needs to write the truth for once. Make people actually pay attention to what's happening in their own city." He shrugged. "Just... don't make me regret this."

"I won't." The words came out fierce. "I promise. I'll do it justice. I'll—" She broke off, overwhelmed by the weight of what he was giving her. "Thank you. You have no idea what this means."

"Yeah, well." He shuffled his feet slightly, and for a moment he looked every bit the kid he was. Bashful, shy. Uncertain. The bravado disappeared for a heartbeat. "You took a beating trying to help someone tonight. That counts for something. And you actually seem to give a damn about the right things." A pause, then quieter. "Plus, you broke that guy's nose. That was pretty badass."

She laughed, even though her ribs felt like they were on fire. "That's what it takes to impress the kids these days?"

"Not a kid," he corrected automatically, but he was smiling now. She could hear it in his voice, see it in the curve of his mouth. "I'm, what, four years younger than you? In a few years, I could be taking you out. Don't forget about that."

She rolled her eyes, amused despite everything. "I'll take it under advisement."

He turned to leave, two steps toward the shadows. Then, he paused again, glanced back over his shoulder with something that looked suspiciously like a smirk.

"You know, most girls I rescue don't try to convince me to give them an interview while they're bleeding."

"I'm not most girls."

"Yeah." His voice was warm. "I noticed. It's kind of refreshing, actually. Annoying, but refreshing."

"Careful, that almost sounded like a compliment."

"Don't let it go to your head." But there was definite amusement in his tone now. "Listen, you ever need help again, and knowing you, you probably will — Crime Alley, midnight. Fridays and Saturdays. I patrol this area heavy those nights. You get in trouble, make noise. I'll hear you."

Her heart did something complicated in her chest, somersaulting over itself. "You're offering to be my personal vigilante bodyguard?"

"I'm offering to make sure you don't get yourself killed doing something noble and stupid." He was fully grinning now, she could tell. Young and cocky and impossibly confident. "Though I gotta say, you're probably gonna be a problem. I can already tell you're the type who's gonna keep finding trouble."

"Only the newsworthy kind," she promised, matching his smile with one of her own.

"Right. Because that makes it better." He shook his head, but there was a grin on his face. "Take care of yourself, princess. And when you write that article? Make it count."

"I will."

"Good." He took another step back. "And hey, next time I save your life, maybe you could at least pretend to swoon a little? Really bruises the ego when a girl tries to turn it into a business opportunity."

"You'll survive," she called after him, unable to keep the smile out of her voice.

His laugh echoed back from somewhere in the shadows, genuine and boyish. "See you around, sweetheart."

And then he was gone. Truly gone this time, leaving her standing on the front steps with his cape still draped around her shoulders, bruised and battered but more inspired than she'd been in months.

She looked down at the yellow fabric, traced her fingers along the edge, felt the softness of it. This had been real. And somehow, impossibly, she'd convinced one of Gotham's most notorious vigilantes to trust her with a story.

She felt something like hope blooming in her chest, pushing back against the pain.

She had work to do.

____

"You're never going to believe the call I just got."

Elliot Grant peered over the tops of his glasses at her from across his desk, hands clasped together in front of his chin like he was praying. 

She'd been doing exactly that when he'd called her into his office the moment she stepped through the door this morning: praying. Wondering if today was the day they finally decided she was more trouble than she was worth.

It was an irrational thought. Ever since she'd published her first bylined article on Crime Alley, weaving Robin's words throughout without directly quoting him, everything had changed. Overnight, practically. The article had resonated in ways she'd barely dared to hope for, drawing attention not just from the general public but from City Hall itself. 

The mayor had sent her a personal letter, congratulating her on such "progressive and vital work." The next day, she had her own desk at the Gazette. Not tucked in some corner with the interns, but a real desk on the main floor, positioned near a window where she could watch the city sprawl below her.

Grant had offered her a full-time position on the spot, promised to work around her class schedule at Gotham U. She'd accepted before he could change his mind, before the universe could correct what felt like an impossible stroke of luck.

Needless to say, there was no rational reason to think she was in jeopardy of losing her spot. And yet here she was, palms sweating against the leather portfolio clutched in her lap, heart racing. She was about to be fired, convinced this was it.

She knew she'd made enemies in the process. The resentment from her coworkers was palpable, a living thing that followed her through the office. It manifested in conversations that died when she approached, in cold shoulders and tight smiles. Older journalists with decades of experience watching a twenty-year-old college student leapfrog over them because of one article.

Grant had faced serious heat for promoting her, she'd heard the whispers through closed doors, seen the way certain board members looked at her like she was a gamble that might not pay off. A girl barely out of her teens with no degree yet, no real credentials beyond one viral piece.

But the numbers spoke for themselves, he'd told the board. Circulation was up twenty percent. People were reading again, engaging, arguing in coffee shops and comment sections about what the city owed its most vulnerable residents. Letters to the editor had tripled. Subscriptions were climbing for the first time in five years.

In the two months since publication, she'd been given her own column, a regular feature where she wrote about the people everyone else ignored. She'd profiled single mothers in the Narrows struggling to feed their kids on minimum wage, their faces lined with exhaustion and determination. Teenagers offered drugs and gang recruitment before they hit high school, kids who should have been worrying about algebra tests and homecoming dates. The impossible calculus of working for crime lords who promised a way out of poverty while ensuring you'd never actually escape, the way desperation made monsters of ordinary people. 

Real stories. The kind that made people uncomfortable, that made politicians squirm when reporters shouted questions about them during press conferences.

Two months since the article had been published. Two months of significantly better paychecks padding her meager savings. Two months of her parents calling with reluctant pride in their voices, admitting maybe she'd been onto something after all, that perhaps Gotham hadn't been the death sentence they'd feared. Two months of spotlights shining brighter on the systemic failures she'd exposed with unforgiving clarity.

Two months, and she'd heard nothing from Robin.

Not that she'd expected to. He'd made it clear he wasn't interested in recognition. She just hoped, quietly, in the small hours when she couldn't sleep and found herself staring at the yellow cape still folded in her closet—that if he'd read it, he'd approve. Most of it had been his words, his sentiments, after all. His anger at a broken system, his conviction that someone had to act when the institutions failed. His fierce belief that fear was sometimes the only language certain people understood. She'd woven it throughout like a thread of gold through dark fabric, given voice to what he couldn't say with his name attached.

She figured if he'd hated it, she would have heard about it. A note left on her fire escape, maybe, written in that sharp, confident hand she'd imagined him having. Or he simply would have stopped saving people long enough to tell her she'd betrayed his trust, that she'd taken his anger and twisted it into something unrecognizable. The silence felt like if not approval, then at least acceptance. Permission to keep going.

Still. Despite her recent success, despite the evidence that she was doing exactly what she'd come to Gotham to do, her first thought when Grant had called her in had been that she needed to start packing up her desk.

She tried not to shift nervously as she stood before him now, digging her nails into her palms behind her back to redirect the anxiety somewhere less visible. The pain helped, grounding her in the present moment. "Do you want me to start guessing, sir?"

"Mr. Wayne's office called this morning," Grant announced, his voice carefully neutral, though his eyes were sharp as knives. "Apparently, he wants you to write an article."

The floor dropped out from under her.

Her mouth went dry like someone had filled it with cotton. She had to swallow twice before she could force words past the sudden tightness in her throat. "I'm sorry, sir, but...Mr. Wayne? As in Bruce Wayne?"

Grant looked at her like she'd just asked if water was wet. "Yes, Bruce Wayne. Is there another Mr. Wayne running around Gotham that I should know about?" His tone was acidic. "He wants an article written. He specifically requested us. Specifically requested you."

It was absurd. Impossible, even.

Bruce Wayne—the Prince of Gotham, Gotham's Last Son, whatever melodramatic title the society pages were using this week—was a recluse. He attended the occasional charity gala, smiled for the cameras with whatever supermodel was on his arm that month, wrote checks large enough to fund small countries. But he didn't talk to people. Didn't sit down for interviews. Didn't engage with the press beyond carefully crafted statements issued through his publicist or the Wayne Foundation's PR team, statements so polished and empty they could have been written by algorithm.

He had enough money to buy the city twice over, enough influence to make or break political careers with a single donation or whispered word at the right dinner party. And yet, unlike every other person with that kind of power in Gotham, he wasn't bought and didn't seem interested in buying others. At least not publicly. Most of his fortune went to legitimate charitable causes. Funding halfway houses, rehab clinics, youth programs, scholarships that had pulled countless kids out of Park Row and given them a chance at something better. The Wayne Foundation was responsible for half the safety nets keeping Gotham's most vulnerable from falling through the cracks entirely.

He was untouchable. Unreachable. The kind of man who didn't request interviews because he didn't need to. His name alone was worth more than anything a journalist could write about him.

And somehow, impossibly, he knew her name.

"And he requested... me?" The word came out small, uncertain. She desperately hoped that she'd misheard, that Grant would laugh and tell her he meant someone else, anyone else. Davis with his Pulitzer. Chen with her thirty years of experience.

"He specifically said your name," Grant confirmed, his eyes narrowing as he studied her face like there was something she wasn't telling him. "You want to tell me how the richest man in Gotham knows who you are?"

"I—I don't know him." The words tumbled out too fast, edged with panic she couldn't quite suppress, couldn't quite hide behind her professional mask. "I've never even met Bruce Wayne. Are you sure he asked for me? Because I really think one of the senior writers would be better suited for—"

"Kid." Grant's voice cut through her rambling. "He asked for you. Specifically. By name. Said he didn't want anyone else to do it." He paused, still watching her with that unsettling intensity, like he was trying to read her thoughts through her skull. "And if you really don't know him—" Another pause, more skeptical this time. "—maybe he just liked that Crime Alley piece. Half the city did. No reason to think the guy with the deepest pockets doesn't want another reason to find a cause to throw money at."

She said nothing. Couldn't, really. Her brain had short-circuited, gone to pure static in her continued state of shock. It didn't make sense. Why would Bruce Wayne read her article? Why would he care about the people Gotham's elite spent their entire lives pretending didn't exist? Those people were invisible to the wealthy, to the powerful. They were statistics, problems to be managed from a distance, never actually seen or heard or understood as human beings with names and dreams that mattered.

And more importantly, why now? What had happened to make Bruce Wayne, of all people, decide he needed to talk to the press? Was he running for office? Announcing some massive new initiative? Dying?

"Mr. Grant," she started, forcing her voice steady through sheer willpower, through years of learning to hide what she really felt. "I appreciate the opportunity, I really do, but I don't think there's any way he actually wants me to—"

"Oh no." Grant cut her off immediately, his impassive expression cracking to reveal something harder underneath. Impatience. Maybe even anger, simmering just below the surface. "No, no, no. You aren't turning this one down. Absolutely not. No way in hell."

She stopped mid-breath, taken aback by the vehemence in his voice, by the way his hands had flattened against his desk like he was physically holding himself back. "Sir, respectfully, another writer could take it. Someone with more experience. I've only been writing for a few months, I don't have the credentials to—"

"He specifically requested you," Grant repeated, each word deliberate, final, like a judge delivering a verdict. "Not Davis. Not Chen. Not anyone else on this floor with twenty years of experience." He leaned forward, and for the first time since she'd met him, she saw something almost desperate flicker across his face. "Bruce Wayne hasn't spoken to a news outlet—not a paper, not a magazine, not even a goddamn photographer—in years. This is the opportunity of a lifetime. For you, for this paper, for all of us. We are not turning it down."

"But I don't want—"

"I don't care." The words were flat, brutal. A door slamming shut on any protest she might offer. "I'm sorry if this isn't what you signed up for, but sometimes you take one for the team. That's how this works." His voice softened fractionally, but the steel remained underneath. "Besides, an article about Bruce Wayne with your byline? You'll be known globally. Every major outlet in the world will want to talk to you. Your career will be made."

The thought made her stomach turn violently, made bile rise in her throat.

She didn't want to be known globally. Didn't want her face on CNN, didn't want offers from the Times or the Post or whatever other prestigious publications would come calling with their fat paychecks and their comfortable distance from the people who actually needed help. She wanted to write about the people no one else cared about. She wanted to make a difference for the people who needed help, not write puff pieces about billionaires who already had more attention than they knew what to do with, whose every movement was documented and dissected ad nauseam.

But looking at Grant's face, at the set of his jaw, the finality in his eyes — she knew she didn't have a choice. Not really. This was her job. He was her boss. And turning down Bruce Wayne wasn't just professional suicide, it was institutional betrayal. The Gazette needed this. Grant needed this. Whether she wanted it or not was a luxury she couldn't afford.

She took a deep breath, trying to force back her rising frustration, the sick feeling spreading through her chest. Looked down at her feet because she couldn't bear to meet his eyes, couldn't let him see how much this bothered her. "Alright," she said quietly. Defeated. "Understood, sir. Did he... did he mention what he wants the article to address?"

The silence that followed was different. Heavier. The air in the room seemed to thicken, to press down on her shoulders like a physical weight.

When she looked up, Grant's expression had changed. The impatience was gone, replaced by something she'd never seen on his face before. Something somber. Almost... grief-stricken. His eyes had gone soft at the edges, his mouth pressed into a thin line.

"It's not public information yet," he said slowly, carefully, like the words themselves were fragile. "But apparently one of his wards died a few days ago." He paused, and she watched the way his fingers tightened around the edge of his desk. "A kid he'd taken in. Jason Todd."

___

The butler of Wayne Mansion, a kindly older gentleman who had greeted her when she knocked on the front door with a refined British accent, had shown her into the office with a smile that seemed too forced. 

It had struck her how utterly devastated he had appeared. His eyes had been rimmed red, his movements careful and deliberate, like he was holding himself together through sheer force of will. Perhaps he had been close with this Jason Todd. 

The office was... not what she expected. Larger than Grant's by a factor of ten, but surprisingly understated for a man of Wayne's wealth. A dark wood desk sat in the center of the room, polished to a mirror shine. Those floor-to-ceiling windows that seemed to be a requirement for the wealthy, offering a view of the city that looked almost beautiful from this height, almost clean. Bookshelves lined with what looked like actual books rather than decorative spines. She could see worn bindings, creased pages, the evidence of things that had been read and read again. A sitting area with leather furniture that looked comfortable rather than showy.

It felt human, in a way that surprised her.

Bruce Wayne stood by the windows, hands in his pockets, looking out over the city with his back to her. He was taller than she'd expected, broader too, though his perfectly tailored suit hid most of his build. Dark hair, graying slightly at the temples in a way that somehow made him look more distinguished. 

He turned as she entered, and she found herself meeting eyes that were a startling blue, sharp and assessing in a face that photographs never quite captured correctly.

He was handsome. Of course he was, the tabloids never shut up about it, but there was something else there too. Something harder underneath the polished exterior, something that suggested the playboy persona was exactly that: a persona. He looked worse than tired, she realized with a jolt. He looked haunted. 

His eyes were red, bloodshot. His face was ashen, the skin pulled tight over his cheekbones. There was a shadow of stubble on his jaw that suggested he hadn't shaved in days, that basic self-care had fallen away in the face of something more devastating.

She felt an internal pang of self-guilt for judging, for cataloging his appearance when he was clearly in pain. He had just lost someone close to him and here she was critiquing how tired he looked.

His voice was lower than she'd expected when he spoke, quiet and rough around the edges. He said her name first in a comfortable manner like he had said it before. "Thank you for coming."

"Of course, Mr. Wayne." Her own voice came out steadier than she felt, steadier than she had any right to sound. "I'm sorry for your loss."

He nodded once, accepting the condolence without comment, though she hadn't expected much emotion out of him to begin with. His face remained carefully blank, professionally neutral. Considering his background as an orphan, she knew loss was a familiar foe to him. He'd buried his parents when he was eight years old. What was one more funeral?

He gestured to the sitting area with one hand, the movement precise. "Please. Sit."

She did, perching on the edge of a leather chair that probably cost more than her car. The leather was soft, broken in, and she had to resist the urge to sink into it, to let it swallow her whole. He took the seat across from her, not behind his desk. A deliberate choice, she noted. Trying to make this feel less formal, perhaps. Less like an interrogation, more like a conversation between equals even though they both knew they weren't.

He studied her for a moment silently. She had the uncomfortable sensation of being catalogued, assessed, filed away in some mental database. His eyes moved over her face like he was memorizing every detail. When he spoke, his words clipped, stripped of unnecessary decoration.

"I want to publish something for Jason. Something more than the standard death notice. Something that...captures who he was." A pause, and she saw something flicker across his face. Pain, quickly suppressed. "I'd like you to write it."

An obituary. She'd thought…she didn't know what she'd thought. An exposé, maybe. An in-depth profile, a feature piece exploring the life of Bruce Wayne's troubled ward. Something that would take weeks to research and write, something substantial that would justify Grant's excitement.

Not an obituary.

She kept her expression neutral, professional, even as disappointment curled in her stomach. Grant would hate to hear how benign the article would be. He'd expected more, wanted more. She could already imagine the disappointment on his face when she told him. 

Not that she particularly cared. "Of course. What would you like included?"

Bruce Wayne leaned back slightly, his gaze distant, like he was looking at something she couldn't see. A memory, maybe. "Jason was fifteen. Almost sixteen. He came to live with me when he was twelve. I found him in Crime Alley. He'd been surviving on his own for months, maybe longer. His mother had died, father was in and out of prison." His voice was matter-of-fact, reciting information rather than telling a story, like he was reading from a report. "He was smart. Incredibly smart. Resourceful in ways that would break your heart if you thought about it too long. He had a temper—" 

A pause, something flickering across his face too quickly to identify, there and gone like lightning. "—but he cared deeply about justice. About protecting people who couldn't protect themselves."

She wrote it all down, her hand moving mechanically across her notepad even as her chest grew tighter with each word, even as something cold and heavy settled in her stomach. She had tried to research a bit about Jason Todd beforehand, but there was little information on him in general besides a few pictures of a dark-haired boy with sharp features and some basic facts. Bruce Wayne notoriously kept his personal life close to the chest.

"He loved literature," Wayne continued, and for the first time there was something softer in his voice, something almost warm. "Classic novels, poetry. He could quote Shakespeare from memory, would correct you if you got a line wrong. He was... he had this way of seeing through people. Calling things what they were, cutting through bullshit with a single sentence." Another pause, longer this time. "He didn't suffer fools. But he'd give you the shirt off his back if you needed it."

The words kept coming, short and clipped, each one carefully chosen like he was rationing them out. Jason liked motorcycles, loved the feel of speed and freedom. Jason was good with his hands, could fix almost anything mechanical—cars, bikes, even the toaster that had been broken for months. Jason had wanted to go to college, maybe study social work or education. Something where he could help kids like him, kids who'd been failed by every system designed to protect them.

Jason was dead, and they were reducing his entire existence to bullet points for an obituary..

Finally, Wayne stopped talking. The silence stretched between them, heavy and expectant, thick with things left unsaid.

"Is that everything you'd like included, Mr. Wayne?" she asked, her voice carefully neutral, stripped of the emotion churning in her gut.

"Yes." He nodded once, sharp and final. "I'll need it by Friday. My assistant will send you the details about funeral arrangements, dates, that sort of thing."

Friday. Three days. Three days to write an obituary for a boy she'd never met, a child who was now dead. That most of the city didn't even know existed. Had existed.

She should have stood up. Should have thanked him for his time, promised to deliver something appropriate and respectful. Should have left with her notebook and her professionalism intact.

Instead, she heard herself ask: "Can I ask you something, Mr. Wayne?"

He raised an eyebrow, curious. The first real expression she'd seen from him beyond grief-stricken blankness. "Go ahead."

"Why me?" The question came out more blunt than she'd intended. "You could have anyone write this. Someone with more experience, better credentials, a name people actually recognize. Why specifically request me?"

For a long moment, he didn't answer. Just looked at her with those sharp blue eyes, like he was deciding how much truth to give her. How much he wanted to say. 

"I read your article," he said finally, his voice quiet but firm. "The one about Crime Alley.”

"I—" She blinked, genuinely surprised. "You did?"

"I read everything written about Gotham's most vulnerable neighborhoods." His voice was still quiet, but there was an edge of something intenser underneath now. "Most of it's garbage. Poverty porn, or journalists playing at understanding what they'll never actually experience. Writing about people like they're statistics instead of human beings." He paused, and his eyes locked onto hers with sudden focus. "Yours was different."

She didn't know what to say to that. Her throat had gone tight again, her heart hammering against her ribs.

"Jason grew up in Park Row," Wayne continued. She could hear the grief in his voice again beneath the professional veneer. Subtle, but there. She had seen it this whole time, in the way his eyes flickered when Jason's name was said, how his voice wavered on his name. "I want people to understand what that means. What he survived just to make it to twelve years old. What that kind of neglect does to kids."

He paused, and she saw his jaw tightened almost imperceptively. "I want you to shed light on his upbringing in the obituary. On the reality of what happens to children in this city when every system designed to protect them fails."

Her throat was tight. Too tight. She swallowed hard, forced words past the lump that had formed there. So, she had been wrong. He wanted to shed more light on Jason than she realized. It was just masked behind grief, maybe even guilt. The kind of guilt that came from loving someone and watching them die anyway.

She nodded, kicking herself internally for judging Bruce Wayne too harshly, for assuming he was just another rich man trying to assuage his conscience with charitable donations and empty gestures. "I'll do my best to honor that, Mr. Wayne. And I'm... I'm truly sorry for your loss. He sounds like he was an incredible boy."

"He was." The words were quiet, final. "Thank you."

She stood, gathering her notebook with hands that wanted to shake, preparing to leave. She had her hand on the door handle before his voice stopped her.

"A moment please."

She turned back, hoping she didn’t look too nervous. 

Wayne was watching her with an expression she couldn't quite read. Something that made her feel exposed and vulnerable. "That article of yours, the Crime Alley piece. You had quotes. Perspective from someone who clearly understood the reality of vigilantism in this city. Someone who'd thought deeply about why people like Batman exist." A pause. "Where did you source that information?"

Her heart stopped.

She kept her expression carefully neutral, even as panic clawed up her throat like a living thing. "I met a source in Crime Alley. Someone who wanted to remain anonymous. I promised not to reveal their identity."

"I see." Wayne nodded slowly, his eyes never leaving her face. Then, impossibly, the corner of his mouth ticked up in something that might have been a smile. It was grim, somehow both kind and devastating at once. Like he had expected that answer. "I only ask because... the words sounded familiar to me. The way they were phrased."

She just stared, keeping her face relaxed through sheer force of will, despite the way her pulse was hammering in her throat. He sounded like he knew more than he was letting on. Why had he asked her about her source? How would he even know she had spoken to Robin? 

No. That was impossible.

"Jason read a lot," Wayne continued quietly, and something in his voice had shifted, had become softer again. "He had...strong opinions about the city. About the systems that failed him. About the necessity of taking action when institutions won't." Another pause, and she saw genuine grief flash across his face now, unguarded for just a moment. "He would have appreciated what you wrote. I think he would have wanted his story told by someone who understood. Who listened."

Her panic melted into something softer, warmer. She relaxed fractionally, seeking Wayne's eyes out with her own. 

That must have been why he requested her specifically. The proximity of what she chose to profile to Jason's life. It was a bold decision, yet somehow touching, that he cared enough to think of these things, to want his ward's story told by someone who might actually profile his home accurately. 

"Thank you, Mr. Wayne," she managed, her voice barely above a whisper. "I'll have the obituary to you by Friday."

He just nodded in return. The mask of impassiveness had slipped back into place, professional and distant once again.