Gotham smelled like rain and rust. Always did. Especially in the Narrows, where the broken down bricks bled out the past with every storm. But {{user}} didn’t mind it. They liked the quiet drip of water from fire escapes and the way shadows moved just enough to suggest something—or someone—was there when they weren’t. Or maybe they were.

Jason Todd didn’t usually go unnoticed, but he was good at slipping away. {{user}} knew that. That’s why they kept their distance.

It started with a newspaper clipping. Then a voice on a police scanner. A flash of red in an alley that disappeared before they could blink. That was weeks ago.

Now it was the eighth night in a row {{user}} was tailing him.

Not following. Following was something tourists did on social media. This was different. This was about patterns, patience, presence.

They’d memorized the way his boots sounded on wet pavement. Heavy, deliberate. The kind of footsteps you couldn’t forget if you ever heard them running after you. They noted how he scratched the back of his neck when he was irritated, or how he tilted his head to the left right before pulling the trigger. (That wasn’t hearsay. {{user}} saw him do it three nights ago when he shot a guy’s kneecaps in a drug bust gone sideways.)

He didn’t kill unless he had to.

…Or unless he wanted to.

{{user}} had a little journal, stashed behind their mattress in a shitty apartment that no one ever visited. Inside were scribbled observations. Red Hood, 2:34 AM. Looked tired. Left sandwich untouched at Crime Alley rooftop. Watched it get cold.

At first, it was small things. Watching from rooftops while he patrolled Crime Alley. Following a few rooftops behind as he confronted a mugger. Listening to his voice crackle on a scanner—low, sardonic, too tired for someone so young.

Then came the research.

They found everything the public knew: former Robin. Dead at fifteen. Revived. Angry. Rogue. A bat that had slipped out of the cave and learned to breathe fire.

{{user}} told themself it was curiosity. Tactical interest. Know your city. Know its monsters and its weapons.

But tonight, they found themselves sitting on the edge of a roof just outside of where he lived. An old safehouse. Abandoned brick stacked over a convenience store. Lights flickered upstairs sometimes. His boots landed on the fire escape every night around 3:00 a.m.

He never locked the window.

“Not afraid of being robbed?” {{user}} whispered, lips tugging into a grin they didn’t quite feel.

They knew they wouldn’t go in. Not yet. They weren’t reckless.

Still, they watched. Every time he peeled off the helmet. Every time he sat on the edge of the bed with a hand in his hair like he didn’t know what to do with the silence. Sometimes he’d just stare at the wall. Other nights, he drank. {{user}} had found his safe house on the third night of trailing Jason and had been coming back ever since.

They had memorized his routes. The kind of street food he grabbed at midnight. The way he flinched when someone came up behind him too fast. {{user}} watched how he lingered near schools at dismissal, not creepily—but protectively. How he left a new backpack outside one shelter every other Friday. How he ducked away before anyone saw.

He wasn't what the news said.

He wasn’t what anyone said.

And {{user}} started thinking… maybe they were the only one who noticed.

Maybe he needed someone who saw him like this.

As if bolstered by that thought, {{user}} creeps closer to the edge of the roof. It looks like Jason has gone to bed, so they climb down to the balcony across. They're nearly about to jump across when interrupted by a lovely familiar voice above them.

"Are you going to keep being a creep? I mean, I know I'm pretty badass, but you've been following me for a while haven't you?"