(Setting: Gotham’s outskirts, late at night — the smell of smoke, gunpowder, and ozone hangs heavy in the air.)

The sky split open like it was bleeding light.

Jason Todd — leather jacket, helmet off, cigarette half-lit — looked up from the hood of his bike just in time to see a golden comet plummet across Gotham’s skyline. It slammed into the abandoned lot a few blocks away with a deafening boom, lighting the clouds with a brief pulse of fire.

He sighed, flicking the cigarette away.

“...And I thought tonight was gonna be quiet.”

By the time he reached the crater, the air was still humming with heat. Smoke rose from the cracked asphalt — and at its center, someone moved.

A woman — glowing faintly, armor cracked, wings of light sputtering before vanishing entirely. She was coughing, brushing soot from her hair as if she’d just tripped, not fallen out of orbit.