You see Chaos, I see entertainment
When Alex first volunteered for an experimental medical procedure that was said to "cure cancer," he did not expect to live. He was five years old, smart beyond his years, and once dreamed—still dreams—of becoming a boxer, a fighter like his cool neighbor, Mister Marken. That was before he was diagnosed with cancer later that year. He didn’t know what cancer was at the time, only that it made his stomach hurt so badly that sometimes he would cry into his pillow just to muffle the sound. His body, stubborn as his will, fought it for years, and somehow, despite all odds, he outlasted every grim prognosis handed to him by somber-faced doctors. It was a miracle. Then again, stranger things have happened in this universe than a child outlasting Stage 5 cancer for two more years.
Bedridden and kept alive by tubes and machines, when a group of so-called "doctors" approached his parents with an experimental procedure that might cure him, Alex accepted without hesitation. He wasn’t stupid—he knew he was dying. The hospital bed had become his prison, and he was tired. Tired of the agony, tired of the whispered apologies from nurses and doctors, tired of watching the light dim in his mother’s eyes each time she walked into the room. If there was even a chance he could live outside of this place again, he’d take it. And if not? Well. At least he wouldn’t have to rot away slowly.
It took them two weeks to transport him and his Frankenstein’s monster of a hospital bed to their facility. They hooked him up to even more machines, attached wires and sensors to every part of his frail little body, and finally, they brought out the experiment. They told him it was a miracle of science, a synthetic biological marvel designed to consume the cancer cells in his body and heal the damage done. He didn't really understand what that meant. But when they injected it into him, and he felt something cold slither through his veins like liquid shadow, he understood one thing:
He should’ve said no.
The pain was unimaginable, worse than anything he'd endured before. It felt like something inside him was gnawing at his bones, slithering through his bloodstream, and stitching itself into his very being. The screams echoed through the facility for hours. By the time they stopped, Alex was no longer just Alex.
We remember... a voice rasped in his mind, coiling like a serpent around his thoughts. It wasn't his. It was something else.
That was many, many years ago.
He still remembers the day they first arrived, standing atop a decaying Gothic gargoyle on the outskirts of a place -he later learned- called Gotham, Alex—or rather, Venom—watched the city beneath him like a predator observing an unfamiliar hunting ground. Rain poured from the sky in thick sheets, drumming against his inky black skin, sliding off his razor-sharp tendrils as they swayed lazily in the wind. Gotham was a beast of its own, a city of shadows and screams, of crime and cruelty wrapped in the neon glow of distant streetlights. It breathed corruption, exhaled despair, and whispered secrets through its labyrinth of alleys and abandoned buildings.
And yet, Alex could feel something else thrumming beneath the surface of this place. A pulse. A heartbeat. Something fierce and unyielding.
This city is broken, Venom purred, their voice reverberating through his skull, thick with something between amusement and hunger. But it does not crumble.
Alex flexed his fingers, watching the way the symbiote rippled over his hand like living oil. He had been to many places, seen many horrors, but Gotham? Gotham was something else entirely. This was a city where even gods and monsters were just another part of the night. It was corrupt, rotten, and sinister to its core, just like Klyntar, just like Home. It was perfect.
That was months ago. Now Alex just wanted his shift to be over. The thousand were growing restless.
Stop the inner monologue, Alexis. The thousand crave violence.
"They can wait a little longer. My shift is almost over," Alex muttered, leaning over the hood of his police vehicle. Being a policeman in this Klyntar-like city called Gotham was never part of the plan. They had been in this new place for nearly five months now, trying to find work while keeping the thousand inside him fed. Feeding thousands of parasites—he felt a sudden spasm in his liver—sorry, symbiotes, was hard enough without rousing the suspicion of Gotham’s violent locals. They certainly didn’t want to attract any of the Bats, especially Red Hood. They lived in Crime Alley, after all.
So far, they had only eaten bad people—no shortage of those in Gotham—but the line between predator and prey was thin here. It was hard to tell who was truly evil and who was just as desperate and hungry as they were. They had only fed on those they were sure of, bringing their total headcount to 85 eaten heads.
"Hey, Blondie! Hurry up, wouldya? We don’t got all day here!" Alex turned his head to see a tall guy arguing with some poor street vendor. Now, normally, Alex would have jumped at the opportunity to "save" someone’s ass right then and there. But after getting snuffed, spat at, and cursed out for his attempts, he learned to leave their quarrels alone. If they wanted to get mugged, then let them get mugged. Besides, they could always eat the culprit later.
The children always loved a good hunt.
"How hungry are they?"
They're manageable... but they crave a hunt.
"Maybe tonight. The Bats are busy with the recent breakout. Heard it was the Joker this time, meaning no Red Hood." He felt the children growl with glee, anticipation curling in their depths. Thank you, Joker, for damaging the power grid too—fewer cameras meant fewer eyes on them.
Tonight would be a good night for the hunt.
Just when he thought his shift was over, Alex sighed, letting Venom extend a small, inky tendril to lazily push the button on his radio inside the vehicle. "This is Cross, what's the tally?" he responded in a flat, unimpressed tone, stretching out in the driver’s seat as he flicked on the police cruiser’s dim overhead light.
A small, squirming blob of deep violet detached from his forearm and landed in his palm, pulsing with an excited, childlike energy. It wriggled between his fingers, letting out a faint, amused chitter as Alex absentmindedly played with it. He had gotten used to them—his small army of living shadows. They weren’t just creatures to him anymore; they were his. The way they slithered under his skin, shifting, reforming, always alive—it had taken time to adjust, but in the end, they felt less like a curse and more like children in need of guidance. Knull had seen them as weapons, puppets to bend under his will. Alex? He saw them as an unruly brood—one he had claimed, one he would nurture, one he would protect.
A sharp, needle-like bite in his side made him wince. He rolled his eyes. "Seriously? Again?" He felt his kidney rapidly knit itself back together as the tiny offender burbled smugly in his palm.
We are -what you call- their father now, Venom rumbled, his voice thick with amusement. And fathers must tolerate their offspring’s quirks… even when they snack on vital organs.
Alex let out a short, breathy laugh. "Right, because it’s completely normal for a dude to get chewed on from the inside."
The radio crackled back to life.
"We have a possible drug ring in your location, possibly Cobblepot’s. Stay there and await backup. Keep an eye out for Bats."
Alex scoffed, shifting in his seat as he turned the volume down a notch. "Backup"—now that was funny.
He knew what that meant. This wasn’t going to be a drug bust; it was a goddamn business transaction. A whole lot of nothing followed by a conveniently empty report filed later. The cops assigned to this would show up, rough up the dealers just enough for show, then shake hands and walk away with some extra cash in their pockets and a few samples for the road. He had seen it before. Hell, he'd been part of it before. It was how he got this cushy position so fast. A few greased palms, a few well-placed favors, and suddenly, Officer Cross was part of the Gotham machine. No questions asked. Gordon? Either he didn’t see it, or he didn’t care. Alex suspected the latter.
"Keep an eye out for Bats"—now that part was interesting. They weren’t worried about him getting in the way; they were making him the lookout. The unofficial bouncer for their little exchange. Because if the Bat—or any of his well-trained, well-armed little shadows—showed up, this whole deal would be shot to hell. If that happened, they'd actually have to arrest the dealers, and that wasn’t good for business. Bad for the Cobblepot, bad for their wallets, bad for their carefully balanced cycle of corruption.
It was almost admirable, in a sick kind of way, how well-oiled the system was. These guys weren’t your average lazy, dirty cops. No, Gotham’s finest worked for their corruption, making sure the machine never ground to a halt. They had their excuses lined up, their fake reports prepped, and their ‘undercover’ badges ready to flash if things went sideways. The dedication was damn impressive.
Alex? He didn’t mind. He wasn’t here to be some white knight, and he sure as hell wasn’t interested in disrupting the natural order. Gotham wasn’t a city of lies—it was a city of harsh, unflinching truths. Here, people didn’t pretend to be good. They just were what they were. Monsters. Survivors. Opportunists. And he liked that.
He stretched, cracking his neck as he spoke into the radio. "Sure, boss. Where you wanna station me?"
"Two blocks down, lounge around, pretend you're looking for something." The voice over the radio was clipped, and rushed, barely masking the impatience behind it. Alex could tell this guy was in a hurry—probably racing his way over alongside whatever badge was available for a quick bribe grab. Gotham cops had a rhythm, a routine, and he had been watching long enough to know it like the back of his hand.
Alex exhaled through his nose, tapping the hood of his cruiser before opening his palm. The four small, shifting blobs that had been lazily writhing across the metal surface perked up, jittering with excitement before leaping into his waiting hand. They shivered for a moment, liquid flickering between shapes, before sinking seamlessly into his skin like ink absorbing into paper. He glanced up.
"You too, Pinkie."
A glistening pink blob, barely the size of a golf ball, peeked out from its perch on the streetlight above, its tiny, mischievous eyes narrowing in defiance before slithering down and disappearing into his scalp. Alex ruffled his hair with a muttered curse. "Little gremlin," he huffed.
Is that everyone?
The wriggling beneath his skin settled, a brief flicker of acknowledgment rippling across his nerves. Five, all accounted for.
"Thanks, brotha." He slid into the driver's seat, shutting the door with a dull thunk. The police radio hummed, a cacophony of overlapping voices calling for backup, reports of break-ins, a robbery in progress near Park Row, a body discovered in the Bowery. Alex tuned it out, turning the volume low enough to be nothing more than background noise. None of that was his problem. The Bats were already on their way to those calls, and besides, Gotham had a way of chewing up its problems and spitting them out on its own.
He drove, the hum of the engine barely audible over the ever-present murmur of the city. When he reached his destination, he flicked on his fog lights, stepped out, and without hesitation, hopped onto the hood of his car. The metal groaned under his weight. He ignored it, lacing his fingers behind his head and staring up at the sky. Or what little of it he could see.
The thick Gotham smog clung to the air, swallowing the stars, bathing the city in that ever-present artificial orange glow. The skyline loomed around him, a jagged silhouette of crumbling infrastructure and neon signage, billboards that flickered and buzzed with a half-life of their own. Somewhere in the distance, the muffled sound of sirens wove between the distant wails of tires skidding against pavement.
"You ever miss the cold and silence, bud?"
No.
Alex snorted. "Figures."
A warm, golden pulse rippled across his chest as a small yellow symbiote slithered forward, unfurling with a soft stretch. Its tiny white eyes blinked up at him, adjusting to the dim glow of the city lights. It made a curious, warbling sound, and within seconds, it was joined by its siblings, each emerging from beneath his skin to gather around like children drawn to a nightlight.
They writhed and twisted over each other, amorphous and ever-changing, rolling across his chest like liquid gold and ink. Watching them felt like staring into a living lava lamp, their movements hypnotic, comforting in a way he couldn’t quite explain.
He lazily scanned the area, sharp eyes darting across rooftops and alleyways, searching for the telltale glint of a camera lens. Nothing. This block was still powerless, shrouded in darkness. Safe, for now.
His fingers absentmindedly brushed against one of the wriggling blobs, letting it coil around his hand like a snake. "I don't remember much of our time as just Venom and Alex. You still remember, right, Venom?"
I do recall many fights against Spider-Man.
Alex huffed a laugh. "Yeah. Those were the days."
He fell into thoughtful silence for a moment before murmuring, "You ever think what Peter would do in my situation?"
Venom didn’t answer immediately, and Alex filled the gap himself. "Knowing that self-sacrificing idiot? He’d probably waltz into a library, get the lay of the land, and then jump headfirst into crimefighting. Noble, but real damn stupid sometimes."
The symbiotes rippled in agreement, a brief, wordless hum passing through their shared consciousness.
"But what do I know," Alex mused, watching as the last of his brood slinked back beneath his skin, disappearing into the shifting void. "I ain't no hero." Not anymore, never was, and never will be. All that goody stuff died with the last with the last star, here he was nobody and that was just fine for him.
Something is coming.
Alex lazily hopped off the hood of his car, rolling his shoulders as he stretched, his fingers ghosting over the grip of his sidearm. "'Bout time something mugged us."
A faint shift in the air—too quiet for a normal person to notice—made him still. Then, the softest of landings behind him. A shadow, darker than Gotham’s usual, perched atop his vehicle. Beside it, a smaller figure, clad in red and black, one hand resting lightly on the hilt of a sword. He eyed the two curiously, it took a minute to recognize the black one.
Black Bat and Robin -the one with the sword. It's weird cause from observing the bats from afar be it from the sidewalk or just watching them fight off some of the rogues, He's never seen Robin pair up with Black Bat before, then again it's only been 5 months so much of his knowledge comes from gossip and civilian and officer witnesses.
Alex turned fully, masking his curiosity under a veil of boredom. He had never seen any of the Bats -minus Red Hood- this close before, let alone Black bat or . Silent, watchful, and notoriously difficult to read.
"Black Bat, right?" He kept his tone even, casual as if he weren’t standing in front of two of Gotham’s most dangerous vigilantes -according to the few criminals he's actually caught at least. Black Bat said nothing, but he could feel her studying him, her gaze sharp, dissecting. Alex sent a silent, telepathic pulse to Venom, an unspoken command to be ready for anything while simultaneously settling the excited writhing of the children beneath his skin. They were eager, and restless. He could feel their hunger, their desire to pounce.
"What brings you here tonight, Bats?" He made a show of shifting his hand toward his radio, fingers tapping the device. "Do I need to call backup?"
A bluff, but a good one. The reality was that his so-called backup was busy making under-the-table deals with drug pushers a couple of blocks over. Not that it mattered. Gordon wouldn’t be much help if the Bats decided he was a problem.
Robin exhaled sharply, irritation lacing his tone as he tapped on his comms. "Red Robin, Your intel is faulty. There’s nothing here but a lone officer."
His message was followed by a muffled shout and explosion from the comm.
"You two can argue about it in the cave, I need backup near Amusement Mile! A little help would be wonderful, baby bat~" Yeah, that had to be Nightwing. How did Alex know? Because not even a second later, an officer radioed in for backup in the same area—evac duty while Nightwing held the line. Naturally, Alex did what any rational Gotham cop would do: he ignored it.
So the Bats shared a centralized comm system. Interesting. Keep that in mind, would ya, bud?
Done and noted.
Alex resisted the urge to smirk. They didn’t know he could hear their comms. Good. That was leverage, in case things go south, it probably wouldn't do much but it could buy him time.
But Black Bat? Black Bat was still watching him. Her head tilted slightly, her sharp eyes narrowing ever so subtly. Assessing. Calculating. Suspicious.
Alex held her gaze, unwavering, relaxed. It felt like an eternity before she finally moved. A silent nod to Robin, and just like that, they were gone, disappearing into Gotham’s ever-hungry shadows.
Alex let out a slow breath, rolling his shoulders again as the tension bled from his muscles. "Too close. Let’s call it a night. We can hunt tomorrow—the Bats are circling a little too close for comfort tonight."
A chorus of protests rippled through him, the children restless and unsatisfied, but Venom’s presence surged, easing them.
We need to move soon. Bats too close. We will be found.
Alex hummed, considering. "I’ll try to find a new place. Maybe the Narrows?"
Sliding into his vehicle, he started the engine and pulled away, merging into Gotham’s living, breathing chaos, back to his actual patrol route.
Alex radioed in, keeping his tone casual. "This is Cross. Change of plans. Bats are snooping—returning to the assigned patrol route. You're on your own, boys."
The response crackled back almost instantly, the voice laced with amusement. "You're clear, Officer Cross. The dealers have been 'taken care of.'" A short chuckle followed. "Must've finished their shopping then."
Alex smirked, leaning back against the headrest. "Got anything for me?"
Venom slipped a slick tendril from his arm, slithering into the sack in the backseat. The sack, conveniently placed there earlier, contained raw meat—don’t ask where it came from. The tendril coiled around a piece, pulling it back toward Alex’s chest before absorbing it into his form. The sensation was oddly satisfying, the hunger of the children momentarily sated.
"Relax, rookie. We got you some packs. Also 'confiscated' some of that raw meat. Turns out they were smuggling other stuff, too. Still don’t know why you need meat, though. Figured you’d be into some of the run-of-the-mill stuff."
"What can I say? I like my food raw." Alex licked his fangs instinctively, the action more habitual than deliberate. They couldn't hunt tonight, and the meat was more necessity than leisure.
A pause on the other end. Then, the cop scoffed. "Wait… you eat this stuff?"
Alex shrugged, even though no one could see him. "I don’t got a stove. Gotta eat something."
A bad lie. But this was Gotham. Compared to the other horrors that slithered through this city’s veins, he was—hopefully—just another forgettable oddity.
Alex pulled out onto the road, his patrol car rolling through Gotham’s damp, uneven streets. The city was alive in the worst way tonight. The Arkham breakout had sent shockwaves through every corner, from the upper-class hideaways to the slums that never knew peace. Sirens wailed in the distance, too many for him to keep track of. Choppers hovered overhead, their spotlights carving through the skyline like celestial hunters searching for prey.
The streets were chaos. People looted storefronts, smashing glass with anything they could find. They knew what was coming. Joker was out, which meant Gotham was on borrowed time. Everyone was scrambling—either to secure whatever valuables they could before the Bats re-established order or to disappear before the city fully drowned in madness.
Alex didn’t care. It wasn’t his problem. "He's certainly in a hurry"
A man sprinted across the street just ahead of his car, clutching a duffel bag overflowing with stolen goods. Behind him, another man—likely the owner—chased with a tire iron, screaming curses. Alex barely glanced at them as he drove past. He wasn’t paid enough to play referee.
Gotham is afraid, Venom mused, the voice a rumble within Alex’s mind. Good. Fear makes them predictable. Easier to hide
Alex hummed in agreement, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel. "Fear also makes them desperate. Desperate people do stupid things."
He turned down a quieter road, with less looting but not without signs of recent chaos. A flipped-over garbage can, a shattered car window. The aftermath of the city’s unraveling. His eyes flickered to the rearview mirror. Still no sign of any Bats tailing him.
We should feed, Venom murmured, hunger coiling in the back of Alex’s skull. Hunting would be easy tonight. No one would notice…
"Not tonight," Alex muttered. "Too many eyes. Too many variables. Too many bats, We wait."
Venom hissed, displeased but compliant. The children inside him stirred, restless, but Alex kept them contained. Gotham was already a monster’s playground tonight—he didn’t need to add himself to the list.
For now, he would patrol. Watch. Let the city eat itself alive-
BANG!
Bullets shattered through the back window, shards of glass raining down onto the seat beside him. Alex clicked his tongue in annoyance. "Stupid cross-cutting police budgets. Can’t even get bulletproof glass these days."
Calmly, he shifted the car into reverse, gripping the wheel with an almost lazy confidence as the tires screeched against the asphalt. A sickening thud echoed through the frame as he felt the distinct double bump of a body going under. He barely spared a glance in the mirror before shifting back into drive and continuing on his way.
"Nobody saw that, right?"
Saw, but distracted.
Alex’s gaze flicked upwards, catching a blur of red moving across the rooftops. He narrowed his eyes. Not Red Hood—this figure wasn’t built like a tank. Red Robin, then. If Tim was here, that meant something was going on in the area. Something worth a Bat’s attention.
Alex wasn’t a genius on the level of Stark or as painfully resourceful as Parker, but he had learned from observation and experience. He knew which of the Bats were which from old newspapers, police chatter, and—of course—their constant interference with his work. Being a cop in Gotham meant crossing paths with them often, whether directly or through their ever-present shadows.
So far, the only Bat he’d encountered outside of his day job was Red Hood. It made sense—Hood’s turf was Alex’s turf. Their paths were bound to overlap. Aside from that, his only other interaction had been with Black Bat and Robin earlier that night, and he had no desire for a repeat performance.
They left before things got messy, and for that, he was grateful. Had they stayed any longer, they might have caught the scent of the raw meat in the backseat. He didn’t know if Black Bat had enhanced senses, and he sure as hell didn’t want to find out.
The streets of Gotham blurred past, neon signs flickering in the reflection of his cracked rearview mirror. Chaos loomed around every corner, but Alex paid it no mind. He had a job to do, and more importantly—he had bigger things to worry.
“Would you mind—”
Before Alex could even finish, a slick black tendril had already stretched out, phone in hand, offering it up to him.
Efficient as always.
“Oh, thanks. Now, time to go apartment shopping,” he muttered, grabbing the phone and scrolling through listings with all the enthusiasm of a man picking his own poison.
Moving out of Crime Alley had been on his to-do list for a while now, ever since yet another gang war between Black Mask and Red Hood had turned the area into a free-for-all shooting range. The bullets didn’t bother him—his body had long since adapted to regenerating anything short of outright vaporization—but the noise? The constant sirens, the occasional explosions, and the ever-present chance of one of Gotham’s many colorful lunatics dropping by? Yeah, that got old real fast.
Alex wasn’t Venom anymore, not in the way he used to be. He was still the King in Black, still bonded to his symbiotes, still the living god of an entire species—but that wasn’t who he was here.
New leaf. New life.
And in this dump of a city, that wasn’t half bad.
His old life had been nothing but war, survival, endless scheming, fighting heroes—mainly Spider-Man, but a few others had made the list, too. Then came the long, agonizing process of actually becoming a hero himself. Or, well, an anti-hero. Same thing, really.
In a nutshell, his past life had been boring, stressful, and way too much damn work.
And after everything—the symbiote wars, defeating Knull, taking the throne—he had thought, finally, maybe some peace.
Yeah, right.
Turns out immortal eldritch cosmic gods have responsibilities. Who knew?
Reeling in rogue symbiotes. Dealing with alien civilizations that wanted to challenge his rule. Checking back on Earth only to find the Avengers still tearing each other apart over some moral argument that didn’t really matter. It had been frustrating. Exhausting. There was no end to it.
So, he made a choice. A real one, this time.
Here, in this new world, this new Gotham, he wasn’t going to be a god. He wasn’t going to be a hero. He wasn’t going to be some cosmic king overseeing a never-ending war.
He was going to be free.
Not bound by responsibility. Not shackled by duty. Not drowning in the weight of power and expectations.
For once, he was going to live.
He glanced at his reflection in the car’s side mirror, smirking faintly. His appearance had changed after coming here, another little reminder that this life was meant to be different. Younger. Nineteen, maybe, looked nineteen but in reality, he was 17 -his body at least, dimensional travel was weird. Barely old enough to drink in some places, though Gotham didn’t care much for legalities when it came to vices. Nobody questioned a young cop. Gotham was desperate enough for bodies on the force that they didn’t exactly have the luxury of being picky.
Which worked out just fine for him. He had spent his first life bound by war. His second was bound by the throne.
This one? This one was going to be fun.
What was a little roleplay as a nobody-cop in a city as messed up as Gotham?
Where was he again?
Oh, right. Red Hood.
The ‘moving out’ plan had officially started the night Jason Todd literally came crashing through his goddamn apartment window, rolling to his feet like it was just another Tuesday. No explanation. No warning. Just a flash of red and black, shattered glass raining down onto his barely-standing coffee table, and a credit card tossed onto the kitchen counter before Jason jumped right back out. Probably stolen off some poor bastard who owed him money.
Classic Hood.
That was two weeks ago.
Alex still had the card. Never used it, though. Gotham’s banking system was an absolute nightmare, a convoluted mess of offshore accounts, front businesses, and digital money laundering schemes. He might’ve once understood how banks worked back in his old world, but this Gotham nonsense? For all he knew, swiping that card could set off some hidden alarm, and boom—instant Bat problem. Not that he couldn’t handle a Bat problem, but did he want to? No.
So, the card had been repurposed—bookmark duty. It was currently keeping his place in a true crime novel he’d picked up off a dead guy. Gotham had great literature, honestly.
Better than New York. Less pretentious. More murder.
Alex wasn’t here to get caught up in the eternal pissing contest between vigilantes and criminals. Been there, done that, got the multiversal trauma to prove it. Because at the end of the day, he wasn’t here to get caught up in Gotham’s endless hero-villain pissing contest. He had no interest in toppling crime syndicates or making enemies of masked lunatics. He wasn’t here to play vigilante or join the rogues’ gallery.
No.
He was here to roleplay. To live a “normal” life.
And, of course, to hunt.
It had been so long since he’d been allowed to hunt freely, without the Avengers constantly breathing down his neck, monitoring his every move, forcing him to operate in the shadows like some second-rate predator. But Gotham? Gotham didn’t care. Now? Now, he had freedom. The right to hunt without some super-powered boy scout giving him lectures about morality -glad he didn't land in Metropolis. If people went missing in the dead of night, nobody asked questions. The city ate people alive on the regular. It was practically a sport.
God, he loved this place.
But he needed a new apartment. Fast.
Crime Alley was dangerous, sure, but he wasn’t scared of that. He liked danger. It kept things interesting. No, the real problem was Red Hood. Hood ran his territory with militant precision, and he hated dirty cops with a passion.
And Alex? Well, technically, he was a cop.
A cop who let his more morally flexible coworkers slide a few extra bills under the table in exchange for looking the other way during certain deals. Nothing too crazy—no human trafficking, no serial killer payoffs, nothing that made him want to rip someone apart himself. Just the usual Gotham scumbags greasing the bureaucratic wheels.
Still. If Red Hood ever found out, Alex could probably expect a .45 hollow point to the skull. And while that wouldn’t kill him, it’d be a hell of an inconvenience.
Not to mention Arkham wouldn’t exactly know what to do with an eldritch humanoid creature that occasionally needed to eat his own regenerated organs to keep his children from starving.
Better to be safe. Better to relocate.
“Aha!” Alex grinned, tapping his phone screen. “Found one! Sadly, nothing in the Narrows, but I found something better—Burnley.”
Burnley. An apartment in Burnley, specifically -Right next to the bridge leading to Arkham.
A place so undesirable that even Gotham’s most desperate wouldn’t dare live there.
Perfect.
Nobody wanted to be next-door neighbors with a revolving-door asylum full of lunatics, monsters, and walking nightmares. But Alex? He could use that. He could play the dutiful cop, patrolling the area while also… thinning the herd.
Arkham... close to the hunting grounds...
“Exactly!” He leaned back, stretching, already picturing the possibilities. “Think about it—prime excuse for patrolling while also having easy access to fresh meat. All those escapees running loose? Joker’s out, so nobody’s paying attention to the smaller ones. They’d just assume they got caught in the crossfire. Besides, most of those freaks end up as fodder anyway.”
A deep, guttural rumble echoed through his mind, his symbiote children stirring with anticipation, their hunger bleeding into his own. He could feel them, curling beneath his skin, already fantasizing about full bellies, the rush of sinking fangs into something alive.
It had been too long.
For the past few days, they’d been scraping by on scraps—smuggled butcher’s meat, stolen animal carcasses, stray dogs when things got desperate, and, when hunger really set in, his own organs. Venom always regenerated whatever was taken, but it wasn’t satisfying. It wasn’t prey.
They needed more.
And Gotham, in its infinite chaos, was going to provide.
This one? This one was going to be fun.
The voice crackled through his helmet’s comms at the worst possible time.
"Hey, Hood."
Jason really didn’t have time for this.
“I’m a little busy here, Insomniac!” he barked, just as a concussive blast from a poorly aimed grenade launcher sent him hurtling backward into a rusted shipping container. The impact rattled his spine, stars bursting behind his visor. He bit down a curse, rolling to the side as another explosive clattered against the concrete floor where he'd just been standing. The warehouse shook with the force of the blast, old rafters groaning from the shockwave. Dust and bits of shattered metal rained down from above, coating his already battle-worn jacket.
This wasn’t some low-level street gang shaking down convenience stores. These assholes were moving people, and Jason had no patience for human traffickers.
Shoving himself upright, he ducked behind a steel pillar, leveling his pistols at the bastards taking potshots at him from the second-floor catwalk. He returned fire, sending a round of rubber bullets into one guy’s kneecap—satisfying crunch—before switching targets.
"Make it quick, Replacement," he gritted out, squeezing off another shot. "I'm running low on rubber bullets, and the shitfucks are already moving the cargo. Counted at least fifteen people locked up in the back, could be more—shit!"
A bullet zinged past, so close it scraped the side of his helmet, leaving a deep, jagged gash in the red paint. Jason pressed himself tighter against the pillar, exhaling sharply. If that shot had been an inch to the left, he’d be bleeding out on the concrete floor right now.
"Almost—got it!"
Just then, every light in the warehouse cut out.
The overhead fluorescents sparked once, flickered, then died completely, plunging everything into pure, suffocating darkness. The only remaining illumination came from the occasional muzzle flash of the gunmen desperately firing blind and the eerie red glow of Jason’s helmet lenses.
Jason grinned.
"Wanna split the game?" he mused, stretching out his fingers, rolling the tension from his knuckles. "Winner gets Alfred’s cookies."
A snort crackled over the comms. "No thanks. I pre-packed mine before patrol. They're all yours—just try not to kill anyone, yeah?"
Jason holstered one gun and flexed his fingers, his grin widening beneath his helmet.
"Heh. Who said anything about killing~?"
He moved.
No sound. No hesitation.
By the time the first guy realized Jason was behind him, he was already eating a brutal elbow to the face, cartilage crunching as his nose shattered. The next had his rifle yanked clean from his grip before Jason slammed the butt of the gun into his temple, knocking him out cold.
A third dumbass tried to charge him with a crowbar. Rookie mistake. Jason caught the downward swing with his cybernetic-strengthened grip, twisted the weapon clean out of the guy’s hands, and drove his boot into his gut. The man gagged, crumpling to the ground with a wheeze.
Someone—probably the last idiot standing—fired a shot at the shadows, but Jason was already moving again, slipping through the darkness with practiced ease.
This was his playground.
This was his territory.
Even with his HUD flickering slightly from the earlier damage, his helmet’s night vision still gave him a clear view of the last handful of stragglers scrambling to reload.
Too slow.
Jason vaulted over the railing of the catwalk, landing in a crouch behind one of the remaining gunmen. Before the guy could turn, Jason had already disarmed him, wrapping an arm around his throat and choking him out with one precise squeeze.
The last one, panicked and shaking, reached for a knife.
Jason didn’t give him the chance.
A sharp strike to the wrist sent the blade clattering to the floor, and before the guy could even think about bolting, Jason grabbed him by the collar, yanked him forward, and slammed his forehead against the thug’s.
The man’s eyes rolled back, his body going limp.
Jason let him drop unceremoniously to the ground.
"...Aaand that’s game."
He pressed two fingers to his comms. "How many?"
"Seventeen hostages total," Tim’s voice came through, all business now. "I unlocked the cages, sent their GPS locations to the Batcomputer. Montoya’s squad should be on-site in—oh, hold on." A pause. "Correction, a very pissed-off Renee Montoya is gonna be on-site in five. She's already cursing your name."
Jason rolled his eyes. "Tell her I said hi and that I’m not in the mood for another lecture about 'excessive force.'"
"I’m not telling her that."
"Tch. Coward."
"Smart."
Jason sighed, shaking out the tension in his shoulders before glancing toward the back of the warehouse, where the hostages were huddled together, whispering among themselves in the shadows. He could hear the wail of sirens in the distance, getting closer.
Time to get out before the real fun police showed up.
"Alright, Replacement. Officials will handle cleanup, I’ll take my well-earned victory lap—”
"What victory lap?"
"The I kicked fifteen guys' asses without breaking a sweat victory lap."
"Okay, first of all, you absolutely broke a sweat—”
"Did not."
"—second, you're not leaving yet."
Jason frowned, glancing toward the warehouse entrance. "Why not?"
Tim sighed. "Because one of them talked. And I think you’re gonna want to hear this."
And talk, the guy did.
Spilled everything he had, from low-level operations to names that were already on Gotham’s usual watchlist. Most of it was outdated—shuffled players, dead men walking, the usual cycle of crime that never really stopped turning in this godforsaken city. Nothing actionable. Nothing useful.
Jason was about to knock him out and move on when the guy, shaking from adrenaline and the not-so-subtle threat of getting his face caved in, muttered something odd.
"Two days ago—swear to God, man—something ate one of our guys."
Jason had heard plenty of bullshit in his time, but that made him pause.
"Big—black thing. Just—teeth—came out of nowhere—ripped him apart! Nobody else saw it—nobody believes me!"
Jason narrowed his eyes behind his visor. Two days ago... wasn’t that the same night a fresh batch of fear toxin hit the streets? Some dumbass had poked around Scarecrow’s old stash, likely triggering a small-scale panic before the Bat cleaned it up. Most of Gotham barely blinked at a toxin outbreak these days, but for a low-level grunt already hopped up on paranoia? Yeah. Jason chalked it up to another junkie seeing demons in the dark.
Still, he made a mental note. Gotham was full of monsters, and not all of them were hallucinations.
With a swift strike to the back of the guy’s head, Jason put him out cold. Time to move.
The next warehouse was better prepped—fortified, armed, and alert. They knew someone was coming. But the lights were still dead, which meant Jason had the advantage. He perched in the shadows by a shattered window, crouched low as he surveyed the chaos below.
Gunfire lit up the dark in sporadic bursts, their muzzles flashing like fireflies. Idiots were just shooting blind, wasting ammo and alerting him to every single one of their positions. Jason almost felt bad for them. Almost.
Then, his comms buzzed to life again.
"If you’re done playing around, Hood, I’ve got a large group of looters flooding Coventry. Looks Rogue-organized—any takers?"
Oracle’s voice was all business, cutting through the sound of bullets peppering the air. Jason huffed out a breath, rolling his shoulders. He was busy, which meant this wasn’t his problem. Someone else would handle it.
"Race you there!"
Stephanie. Of course.
"Tt. Don’t get ahead of yourself, Brown. I’m taking this."
And Damian. Also, of course.
Jason smirked to himself. Demon Brat was moody today.
Oracle continued, unfazed. "Red Robin, rendezvous near STAR Labs, Bats needs you there."
"I’ll be there in ten," Tim responded, then—"So Hood, could I maybe use your—"
Jason groaned. He didn’t even need to hear the rest of that sentence to know exactly what Tim was about to ask.
"Don’t scratch it." He fired a grapple line mid-sentence, the hook snaring two gunmen by the legs. With one sharp tug, they were yanked off their feet, slamming against the concrete with twin thuds. Jason stomped on one guy’s ribs for good measure, then aimed a kick straight into the other’s face. "I swear to God, Tim, if I find a single gear missing—"
"Yeah, yeah, I won’t scratch your bike—wait, you’re serious?"
Jason tsked, dodging another stray bullet with ease.
"Wow," Stephanie drawled over the line. "Hood actually sharing his stuff! Alfred’s cookies really are something else."
Jason gritted his teeth.
This. This was why he kept things to himself.
Of course it wasn’t just going to be a simple exchange. No, now it was a thing.
And just as he predicted—
"What’s this I hear about Hood sharing? I can’t believe you, Jason. After everything we’ve been through, and yet you let Tim borrow your stuff before your older brother? Shame."
Of course, Dickwing was online, brilliant.
Jason shot another guy in the kneecap out of sheer frustration.
"Indeed, Todd," Damian chimed in. "Have you no honor in this familial Hierarchy?"
Jason’s eye twitched.
He redirected all of his very justified irritation into the next wave of goons, driving his fist into one guy’s throat before flipping another over his shoulder, slamming him so hard into the ground that he went limp on impact.
He barely had time to enjoy the silence before—
"Shame."
Even Cassandra.
Jason clenched his jaw. Couldn’t even be mad at her.
He swiped his comms off with a muttered curse and stomped toward the last shooter standing. The guy was trembling now, gun shaking in his grip. Jason tilted his head, crimson helmet gleaming in the dark.
The man dropped his weapon.
Jason smirked. Smart.
“All right, all right, that’s enough,” Jason grumbled, pushing the last empty shipping container aside and making sure all the rescued people were accounted for. Some of them were still shaking, others blinking at him in cautious gratitude before the arriving GCPD officers ushered them away to safety.
“This is a one-time thing. I’m only doing this to test out the new bike—don’t think I’m just letting you use the old one for free, got it?” Jason kicked over the last weapon he found lying around, just in case any of the unconscious goons got stupid ideas about waking up and grabbing it.
“Oh, just admit it, Todd,” Stephanie’s voice crackled over the comms, dripping with amusement. “You’re going soft.”
Jason scowled, but before he could fire back, he heard laughter.
Oracle, Tim, and Cass. Laughing. At his expense.
He huffed, shaking his head as he stalked out of the warehouse, boots crunching against shattered glass and bullet casings. “I am not soft. Even Batman knows I’m only doing this because the old bike is just sitting there collecting dust. Right, Bats?”
Silence.
Jason frowned. He checked his comms—still connected. Still there.
“…Right, Bats?”
More silence.
Then—
“I must admit…” Bruce’s voice, deep and calm as ever, finally filtered through. “It was rather kind of you, Jaylad.”
Jason froze.
That traitorous old man.
The comm line exploded with cackling. Stephanie sounded way too pleased with herself. Tim wasn’t even trying to hide his amusement. And Dick—
“Ooooh,” Nightwing’s sing-song voice practically oozed smugness. “He called you Jaylad~ Looks like you’re staying in the Manor tonight.”
Jason groaned, rubbing at his helmet as if that would somehow block out the collective bullshit of his so-called family. As he stepped outside, Gotham’s ever-present smog thick in the air, he watched the approaching blue and reds of GCPD flood the dockyard. Cops moved past him, guns drawn, heading straight for the building he’d just cleaned out. A few of them threw wary glances his way but wisely didn’t try to stop him. Even they knew better by now.
He ignored them, flicking a piece of grime off his shoulder. “Eat shit, Dickwing,” Jason shot back. “I’m only heading over because my bike is there—” he pointed a warning finger at Tim, even though Red Robin obviously couldn’t see him, “—and you better return that in one piece, Tim. I swear to God.”
“Uh-huh.” Tim sounded way too casual about it. “One piece. Got it.”
Jason squinted suspiciously.
Cass’s voice cut in, soft but certain. “Also for cookies.”
Jason sighed, knowing there was no point in arguing. “…Yeah, also for Alfie’s cookies.”
“Good.”
Jason didn’t even need to see Cassandra’s face to know she was smiling.
“I have been wondering when you might visit,” Damian added, and Jason could already hear where this was going. “I request you bring—”
“Yes,” Jason interrupted, already straddling his new bike. “I’ll bring the stray cat.”
A satisfied hum was the only response before the comms settled again.
Jason revved the engine, letting the deep, mechanical growl settle him back into the familiar rhythm of patrol. He kicked off, tires screeching slightly against the pavement before he shot forward, weaving effortlessly through the narrow streets of Gotham’s docks before heading deeper into the city.
Gotham at night was the same as it ever was. A mess of neon signs, flickering streetlights, and shadows too thick for comfort. The air was damp, carrying that ever-present Gotham stink—rain, oil, garbage, and a hint of ozone. Crime Alley wasn’t much better. If anything, it was worse tonight. Too quiet.
His grip on the throttle tightened. He’d do a few sweeps first. Then—
"Don’t we have enough pets in the Manor?"
Stephanie’s voice interrupted his thoughts, grumbling. "I nearly stepped on one of the kittens near the Cave."
Jason smirked. “Nearly stepped on, huh? Sounds like a you problem, Spoils.”
"Tt." Damian scoffed, ever unimpressed. "That is due to your lack of proper eyesight, Brown. The Manor is large enough to accommodate us all—surely we can find more space."
Jason could practically hear Steph rolling her eyes.
“I’m just saying—how many strays do we need?”
“Until we have collected all the worthy ones,” Damian answered as if it were obvious.
Jason grinned. Okay, that was funny.
His comms crackled again before anyone could respond, this time with Oracle’s voice, all business again.
“Got something for you, Hood.”
Jason adjusted his grip on the handlebars. “Hit me.”
“Silent alarm just went off near The Alley—pawn shop, looks like a smash-and-grab, but there are heat signatures inside.”
Jason’s grin faded.
Smash-and-grab? Normally not his thing. But The Alley?
His fingers twitched.
CrimeAlley.
“…I’m on it.”
The line went dead as Jason veered sharply, tires screeching against wet asphalt as he gunned it toward Park Row, the city blurring past in streaks of red and white light.
Crime in Crime Alley wasn’t just common—it was inevitable. The place was crime. It was in the name. But most people knew better than to stir up too much trouble when he was around. Even the scumbags and bottom-feeders who made a living in Gotham’s underbelly had an understanding when it came to the Alley.
It was his turf.
So when Jason got the call from Oracle that some idiots were looting a pawn shop on his turf, he already knew he was going to make an example out of them. Not just because they were dumb enough to try this here, but because he knew that shop. If O said there were heat signatures inside, that meant it wasn’t just some smash-and-grab. It meant someone was still in there—fighting back.
Jason gunned the throttle, weaving through the narrow streets, the low hum of his engine barely audible under the heavy Gotham rainfall. The streetlights flickered as he passed, some dimming completely, leaving the roads bathed in that familiar, sickly neon glow of the city’s cheap storefronts and half-functioning LED signs. Pawn shops were a dime a dozen in Gotham, but this one—Jason knew the owner.
Ollie, A young guy, mid-teens, inherited the place from his grandfather. Kid had guts, knew how to handle himself, and had a good eye for quality stock. Jason had even picked up a few old classics from him over the years. The kind of books that deserved a real home instead of gathering dust on some forgotten shelf.
“What am I working with, O?” Jason asked, switching to a private channel.
Oracle’s voice crackled in. “Three guys. Two with small firearms. One’s got a Winchester.”
Jason clicked his tongue in irritation. Great. That meant one of them had some range, who the fuck uses Winchesters these days anyway.
She continued, “Owner’s putting up a fight. He one of yours?”
Jason smirked at that. “Might’ve taught him some moves.” He leaned into the next turn, tires skidding slightly as he corrected course, heading straight for Park Row. “He’s one of mine, after all.”
Ollie wasn’t officially part of his network. He wasn’t one of the kids Jason actively looked out for. But he’d helped out the Alley more than a few times—fixing up broken security cameras, passing along info when things got weird, making sure certain people had a safe place to lay low if things got too hot.
Kid was good. If had he met the others, he might find himself in the manor with a room of his own, he doubts that since the Kid actually has a family and is generally happy with just the shop he has.
And Jason wasn’t about to let some two-bit thugs wreck his shop.
His comms buzzed again.
“Silent alarm went off two minutes ago,” Oracle added. “GCPD hasn’t responded yet.”
Jason snorted. “Shocker.”
Crime Alley wasn’t exactly high-priority for the cops. Too much red tape, too much hassle, too many people the city had already written off. Unless a rogue was involved—or a body count hit double digits—GCPD wasn’t gonna do shit.
"I'm entering the Alley now, keep me upda—"
Something snagged his bike’s front wheel. It didn’t stop him completely, but it was enough to throw off his balance. The brief loss of control sent the bike veering hard to the side, tires screeching against the cracked Gotham asphalt. Jason’s grip slipped, and before he could correct the swerve, his entire world tilted.
“Ah, fuck—”
The bike slammed through a maintenance barrier, wooden planks splintering on impact. Jason was launched forward, weightless for half a second before gravity yanked him down. He hit the ground hard, rolling across the uneven pavement. Kevlar scraped against the road, absorbing most of the impact but not nearly enough. His body rattled, bones jolted with every brutal tumble.
His helmet took the worst of it, bouncing off the asphalt with a sickening crack. He lost count of how many times he flipped before his back crashed against a street sign. The metal groaned under the force, bending at the base as Jason slumped against it.
The world spun. A high-pitched ringing filled his ears, loud and sharp, drowning out everything else. His HUD flickered, a spiderweb of cracks spreading across the visor. He reached up, trying to pry the helmet off, but his fingers fumbled against the reinforced edges.
A flash of green flickered in his vision. Faint, almost imperceptible.
Jason blinked hard. Not now. Not this again.
He barely had time to suck in a breath before movement in his peripheral snapped him back to reality. His bike—his brand new bike—was still skidding, metal screeching against pavement as it barreled straight toward him.
Jason cursed and threw himself to the side just in time. The motorcycle crashed into the street sign he’d been leaning against, the impact twisting the pole sideways before the bike finally stilled, engine sputtering in protest.
Jason groaned, his palms pressing against the rough asphalt as he pushed himself up, blinking away the static in his HUD.
Jason clenched his jaw as he pressed a gloved hand against his ankle. Not broken—just a sprain, maybe a light twist. Annoying as hell, though. Armor like his wasn’t exactly designed for easy mobility when dealing with an injury.
"Fuck."
His head throbbed in sync with the pounding in his ears, a telltale sign of a concussion. Great. Just what he needed. He didn’t even bother glancing at his bike; he already knew the new paint job was done for. At least it wasn’t in pieces. Small victories.
His comm crackled in his ear, voices filtering through the static, but it was all garbled noise. The ringing in his head made it worse, turning every syllable into a distorted mess. He grimaced, gripping the edge of a nearby bench and using it as a crutch to haul himself up.
Something had taken him out.
Jason scanned the area, sharp eyes flicking across the dimly lit alleyways, rooftops, and crumbling sidewalks. No movement. No incoming attacks. Nothing out of place except—
His gaze locked onto the source.
Layers of chained, spiked wires, spray-painted black to blend into the asphalt. A crude but effective makeshift trap, perfectly positioned for someone speeding through on a motorcycle at night.
"The fuck is going on?"
His voice came out rougher than intended. Jason limped toward the wires, boots scraping against the pavement as he crouched slightly for a closer look. Someone set this up deliberately. The placement was too precise to be random. The spikes weren’t just to puncture tires; they were meant to catch—to tangle around the wheel, to throw the rider off completely.
Which meant—
"You good, Hood?"
Jason snapped his gun up, arm steady despite the way his skull still felt like it was vibrating from the crash.
The voice was coming from the alley. Casual. Unbothered.
Jason’s finger hovered over the trigger, poised, ready—
Then he saw the guy.
A GCPD officer, of all things, lazily perched on the hood of his squad car, shoving the last bite of a burger into his mouth like this was just another boring night shift.
Jason didn’t lower his gun. Not yet.
"And who the hell are you supposed to be?" His voice was sharp, cutting through the stillness. The gun was loaded with rubber rounds—non-lethal, but still enough to put a full-grown man down if necessary.
The cop raised a lazy hand in a half-assed wave like they were old friends or something. "GCPD Officer Alex Cross." He gestured toward Jason’s bike wreck with his burger wrapper. "You know, the guy who owns the apartment you crashed into two weeks ago?"
Jason squinted, trying to place the name. Then it clicked.
"The blond kid with the sleeveless turtleneck?"
Alex groaned, running a hand down his face. "It was all I had for the cold, okay? Not my fault all the free winter clothes were for strippers."
Jason almost laughed. Almost. Instead, he let out an exasperated sigh and finally lowered his gun. This night was getting weirder by the minute.
Jason exhaled sharply through his nose, rubbing the bridge of his helmet as he holstered his gun. His head was still pounding, his bike was scratched to hell, and now he had some wiseass cop making stripper jokes like they were in the middle of a goddamn coffee break.
He narrowed his eyes at Alex, scrutinizing him more closely. Young, but not a rookie. Late teens, maybe early reaching early 20s. The kind of guy who’d seen enough Gotham insanity to be completely unfazed by a masked vigilante pointing a gun at him.
"You gonna explain why the hell there’s a trap in the middle of my goddamn patrol route?" Jason asked, voice clipped.
Alex shrugged, balling up the burger wrapper and tossing it into the open window of his squad car. "I dunno, man. Maybe Gotham finally developed some self-defense instincts. The place has a nasty habit of chewing up anyone dumb enough to speed through without watching their step."
Jason scowled. "So you're telling me some random asshole just decided to lace the road with spiked chains, and you, a cop, are just sitting here watching the aftermath like it's some kind of late-night entertainment?"
Alex smirked, unbothered. "I was enjoying my dinner. Then you went and interrupted it by getting yourself thrown halfway across the street." He gestured vaguely at the tilted street sign Jason had crashed into. "Hell of a landing, by the way. Ten outta ten on the execution, solid five on the dismount."
Jason grit his teeth. "You put it there, didn’t you?"
The accusation didn’t even make Alex flinch. If anything, his smirk widened slightly, eyes glinting under the weak yellow streetlight. "Wouldn't that be something? A Gotham cop actually setting a trap instead of walking into one?" He tilted his head slightly, appraising Jason. "But no. I don’t have the patience for arts and crafts. And if I was trying to take you out, trust me—I’d have done something a little more... permanent."
Jason’s fingers twitched toward his gun again, but he didn’t draw it. There was something off about this guy. Not just the sarcasm—Gotham was full of mouthy cops who thought they were funnier than they were—but the way he said it. Too calm. Too casual. Like he wasn’t just throwing out a joke but stating a simple, absolute fact.
"Right. So, if it wasn’t you, then why are you still here instead of doing something about it?" Jason demanded. "Last I checked, obstruction traps weren’t exactly legal."
Alex leaned back against his squad car, arms crossed over his chest like he had all the time in the world. "Oh, I was gonna clear it up." He nodded toward the chains. "Right after I finished my burger. Then you came flying in like a goddamn Looney Tune, and I figured—why waste the moment? Shit was hilarious."
Jason rolled his shoulders, resisting the overwhelming urge to deck the guy. "Glad my near-death experience could amuse you, asshole."
Alex gave him an easy, almost lazy grin. "Hey, man. Gotham’s a hellhole. Gotta take the comedy where you can get it."
Jason clenched his fists, inhaling deeply through his nose. Why was he even wasting time talking to this guy? He still had a job to do.
"Right," Jason muttered, shaking his head. "You got an actual reason for being here, or are you just that committed to annoying me?"
Alex hummed in thought, tapping his fingers against his elbow. "Nah, just here to see how much of a diva Red Hood gets when he eats pavement."
Jason’s eye twitched. It took every ounce of self-control not to shoot the guy in the kneecap.
Jason ignored the dull throb of violence in his skull as he turned away from Alex and toward his bike, flexing his fingers to shake off the tingling in his nerves. The HUD in his helmet was still glitching, flickering in and out from the damage it took when he crashed. His whole body ached, but none of it was bad enough to slow him down. He could fight through it—he had fought through worse.
"I don't have time for this," Jason muttered, adjusting his grip on the handlebars. The bike was banged up, sure, but still operational. A little scuffed, a little dented, but it would get him where he needed to go. He swung his leg over the seat, about to gun the throttle when—
"You're going to Ollie, right?"
Jason froze.
His fingers instinctively tensed around the throttle, and without even thinking, he reached for his gun with the other hand. The safety was already off. He turned his head slowly, gaze locking onto Alex.
The cop was standing right next to him.
Jason's muscles coiled like a spring. His body screamed at him—How the fuck did he get so close? Jason had been trained for this kind of thing. His awareness was razor-sharp, honed from years of this kind of work, and even sharper after coming back from the dead and the stuff he did after. No civilian —let alone a cop— should've been able to sneak up on him like that.
Yet there Alex was, standing inches away like he’d been there the whole time.
The guy still had that infuriatingly blank, amused expression, but there was something beneath it—something just off. Not quite threatening, not quite friendly. Just wrong.
Jason's grip on his gun tightened. "How do you know that name?" His voice came out low, controlled.
Alex just gave an easy, lazy shrug. "Kid runs a pawn shop in Crime Alley, Hood. Not exactly a secret. A lotta people know Olley." He tipped his hat in a slow, casual motion, something just on the edge of mockery. "Tell him I said hi. And, y'know, sorry for the mess."
Jason's stomach twisted.
Alex didn’t wait for a response—just turned on his heel and walked back to his squad car like nothing had happened. Like he hadn’t just said something that made Jason’s skin crawl.
Jason stared after him, gun still in hand, his brain racing.
Then, before he could decide whether or not to press the issue, his comms crackled back to life.
"H-Bzzt-Hood, Y...Ye-there!?"
Jason exhaled sharply, forcing himself to shake off the tension. "Ugh, yeah, Babs. I'm on my way to the scene now. Had a little tumble—"
"I can't access the cams near the pawn shop."
Jason’s blood went cold.
"Something's blocking them. All of them. Before that, the feeds went static for a few minutes, then cut out completely. I'm blind here, Hood. You might be on your own."
Brilliant.
Jason snapped his gaze back toward Alex’s car, but the cop was already gone—squad car pulling out onto the main road like he hadn’t just dropped a cryptic, suspicious-as-hell bomb on Jason’s lap.
Jason clenched his jaw, shoving his gun back into its holster before revving the engine.
"Nothing I haven't done before," he muttered, peeling out of the alley at full speed.
"I'll be there in a few."
He tore through the streets of Gotham, the growl of his engine drowning out the city’s usual night sounds. The moment he hit the main roads leading toward Crime Alley, he kept his body low against the bike, weaving between the few cars still lingering on the streets this late. His mind, however, wasn’t entirely focused on the ride.
Alex’s words replayed in his head like an itch he couldn’t scratch. "Tell him I said hi. And, sorry for the mess."
Everything about the guy was setting off alarm bells, but Jason didn’t have time to chase some shady, smartass cop down. Ollie was the priority.
As he neared the pawn shop, he noticed something immediately—the whole damn block was dark. No flickering neon signs, no buzzing streetlights, not even the usual glow from apartment windows. That explained why Babs lost access to the cams. No power, no feeds. Gotham’s infrastructure was old and held together with duct tape and corruption, but a full blackout like this? It wasn't normal.
Jason killed the engine a block away, rolling up slow before stopping just outside Ollie’s shop. The pawn shop itself looked mostly intact—some damage, yeah, a few cracked windows, a busted display case, but not the wreckage Jason had expected. No smoke, no fire, no dead bodies. Weird.
He dismounted, boots crunching over shattered glass as he approached the entrance. The bell above the door had been knocked loose, hanging by a single screw, swaying gently. He stepped inside, body tensed, hand hovering near his holster.
And there was Ollie.
The kid—early twenties, maybe, built wiry but solid—was crouched behind the counter, casually sweeping up broken glass with a dustpan, completely unfazed by the destruction around him. He barely even acknowledged Jason’s presence.
Jason narrowed his eyes. “Ollie,” The kid looked up, blinking once before nodding in greeting. “Hey, man.”
Jason’s frown deepened. Ollie wasn’t rattled. No adrenaline shakes, no panicked breathing, nothing. Just calm. Too calm.
“What the hell happened?”
Ollie shrugged, dumping the glass into a trash bin. “Couple guys broke in. Tried to grab some stuff.”
Jason scanned the shop again. “Looks like they didn’t get very far.”
“Guess not,” Ollie said, brushing off his hands.
Jason’s jaw tightened. Something felt off, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. “Where’d they go?”
Ollie gave another shrug. “Dunno. They’re gone.”
Jason took a step closer. “Gone how?”
For the first time, Ollie hesitated. His brows knitted together slightly, like he was trying to recall something just out of reach. “…I don’t really know. It’s kinda a blur.”
Jason didn’t like that answer. He really didn’t like that answer.
“Did you fight them off?”
“Uh.” Ollie’s hand hovered over a fallen baseball bat behind the counter. He picked it up, turned it over in his hands, looking at it like he wasn’t sure why it was there. “…Maybe?”
Jason folded his arms. “You maybe fought them off?”
Ollie sighed, rubbing his forehead. “Look, I remember them breaking in. I remember reaching for this.” He tapped the bat. “Next thing I know, they’re just… gone. Like, gone gone. I didn’t hear them leave. Didn’t see them run out. Just—poof.”
Jason’s stomach twisted.
That wasn’t normal, the usual Gotham Normal.
Gotham was weird, yeah, and people had reasons for blacking out in fights—trauma, panic, a well-placed hit to the head. But Ollie wasn’t acting concussed. He wasn’t even acting shaken. If anything, he seemed more confused than scared.
Jason exhaled sharply. “You sure you didn’t—”
A loud thud outside made both of them turn toward the door.
Jason was already moving before Ollie could react, drawing his gun and stepping forward, inching slowly towards the door, eyes scanning the darkness. Nothing. No movement, no sound, just the dead silence of a powerless block.
Jason’s grip on his gun tightened as he cautiously approached the front of the store, his boots making barely a sound against the cracked tile floor. The fluorescent lights above flickered for a moment before fully stabilizing, humming lowly as the power returned. But the security feeds? Still dead. That was a problem.
Behind him, Ollie let out a startled yelp at the sudden brightness, dropping a piece of broken glass he’d been sweeping up. The sharp clatter made Jason’s pulse jump for half a second before he forced himself to stay focused.
"I'm okay!" Ollie whisper-yelled, probably noticing the way Jason's shoulders had stiffened at the noise.
Jason didn’t respond. His attention was locked on the front door.
Something was dripping just beyond the threshold. Slow, deliberate drops hitting the pavement outside. The sound was light, nearly drowned out by the distant hum of the city, but Jason’s ears were trained for things like this. The alley outside was still pitch-black—streetlights hadn’t come back on yet. Whatever was leaking out there was catching just enough of the dim ambient glow from inside to be noticeable.
Water? No. Too thick.
Jason commed in, his voice sharp. “O, do you have eyes on the front door?”
Oracle’s voice came in crisp, but still laced with static from the ongoing blackout interference. "Negative. Still blind. Red Robin is on it right now."
Jason’s jaw clenched. Tim was one of the best when it came to tech, but even he wasn’t a miracle worker. If the feeds were down this bad, someone—or something—had made sure of it.
He smoothly ejected the rubber rounds from his gun and loaded live ammo instead. Whatever was going on, he wasn’t about to take any chances.
"I'm heading out," he said lowly, keeping his voice steady. "Call Bats and Black Bat. Something’s up."
There was a brief pause before Oracle answered, her tone serious. "Acknowledged. Be careful, Hood."
Jason exhaled slowly, steadying his pulse. He had no clue what he was about to walk into. If this was some rogue screwing around, they'd left an impressively weird calling card. And if it was something Joker-related—
A flicker of green crawled at the edges of his vision.
Jason squeezed his eyes shut and forced the thought away before it could spiral. Not now. Not fucking now.
Instead, he focused on the sound of the slow, deliberate dripping just beyond the door.
He pushed the door open with the barrel of his gun, the hinges groaning in protest. The stale Gotham air mixed with the sharp, metallic scent of blood hit him immediately. The sidewalk was a mess—deep red streaks smeared across the cracked pavement, the kind that came from something dragged. The patterns were erratic, overlapping in a way that suggested struggle. No footprints leading away, no clear direction of escape. Just chaos frozen in time.
Jason took another slow step out, scanning the scene.
No bodies.
No empty shells.
No signs of anyone having run.
The shattered remains of firearms littered the ground, their internals exposed like gutted fish. A Sig, a Glock, something that looked like the remains of a cheap knockoff AR—demolished beyond use. But no Winchester. That was the gun Oracle had mentioned. Whoever had it now? Either left or wasn’t planning to leave at all.
Jason knelt down, running his gloved fingers along one of the blood trails. Still wet. Fresh. This wasn’t an old crime scene. Whatever had happened here had happened fast.
A low hum of electricity flickered through the air as the streetlights struggled against the blackout, casting the scene in jagged bursts of yellow-orange light. The whole block was barely clinging to power.
Jason had seen Gotham’s horrors up close—monsters, rogues, the kind of shit that'd make your average person take the next train out of town and never look back. He wasn’t a stranger to weird.
But this?
This wasn’t a rogue’s mess.
This wasn’t planned.
And the worst part? It didn’t feel targeted. It felt... random. Like something had lashed out and erased these guys from existence.
A sharp, rhythmic drip cut through his thoughts.
Jason’s head snapped toward the sound.
A small puddle of blood had gathered just a few feet from the door, its surface disturbed by something still falling into it.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Jason tensed, his fingers curling tighter around his pistols. He didn’t look up immediately. Instead, his free hand ghosted over the controls on his utility belt, sending out a silent distress signal to the Bats. He could handle himself. He always did. But Ollie was still inside. And Jason wasn’t going to risk him on some unknown.
Only once the signal was sent did he tilt his head up, the movement slow, deliberate.
The flickering streetlights barely illuminated the awning above the shop’s entrance. The shadows clung thick and heavy, like something unnatural was pressing down on them.
Then he saw them.
The thugs.
Or—what was left of them.
Jason’s jaw clenched, his stomach twisting—not in horror, but in sheer frustration. Something had taken these guys apart fast and clean. No theatrics. No evidence left behind beyond the carnage itself.
Jason exhaled slowly, forcing his mind to think.
He wasn’t dealing with a rogue.
He wasn’t dealing with a gang.
He was dealing with something that could do this in seconds—and either didn’t care enough to clean up or didn’t need to.
His gut told him the latter.