Barbara didn’t alter her gaze when The Hood came to sit beside her, still staring straight up. She didn’t want him to know she was more than a little intimidated by him or confused or any of the other plethora of emotions that were probably plastered on her face. The Red Hood Gang sounded vaguely familiar, her father probably spoke of them when she was a child, but Gotham was overrun with gang activity, even back then.
This conversation was too humanizing. This Hood was supposed to be some violent killing machine, not someone she could have ever pictured as being small and helpless. Let alone a victim. Assumptions, Barbara, make an ass out of everyone. Wasn’t that how the saying went?
“Why are you telling me all this?”
He sat in silence for a long moment, letting the question hang in the air. Then;
“Because behind every mask is a broken kid who wanted to reshape the world to fix their pain.”
With that, he was up and standing, one foot up on the raised edge of brick and mortar. Drawing his grappler from its holster on his belt, he aimed it across Lyons Avenue and fired. He looked back at Batgirl as the cable flew through the air.
“See ya around, Batsie.”
And then he was gone.
Ten minutes later he was seated on his bike, engine rumbling as he crossed the Narrows Bridge back to the Complex. He’d have time to overthink making a new…friend? Uneasy ally? Enemy? Later. For now, it was almost dawn, and the pinks and oranges of first light were shooting through the dusky blues and purples of the night sky. Gotham would soon awake, and that meant it was time to grab an hour or five of sleep before starting the routine over again. Still, as the motor stopped, Jason couldn’t get the images of the freckles around her mouth out of his head, or the way she’d so carelessly tossed her copper hair over her shoulder. Focus, Todd. You’ve got more important things to do than swoon over a Bat-Brat.
Shaking his head to clear away the ghost of her smile, he opened the door to the basement, tossing the Hood carelessly onto a padded table. His guns and belt were next, then his knives and other weaponry. Finally, the armor and suit were discarded, leaving him only in a skinsuit. With long steps, he reached the lift, keying in the code for the penthouse floor. A shower could wait. As his head hit the pillow, he was already asleep, visions of red and black and gold dancing through wisps of fantasy.
and all of this will never be the same again 