The silence in the Batcave was thick—almost sacred—as the screen flickered between images of Jason Todd then and Red Hood. Red Hood’s mask stared back like a mirror that Bruce had long avoided.

But not anymore.

Bruce stepped away from the chair, his cape trailing slightly behind him as he walked over to the central platform. His hands were already moving—pulling up surveillance footage, recent crime scene data, known weapons caches in Gotham, old safe houses, League intel files. The Batcomputer whirred to life, processing as fast as he was thinking.

He needed a plan.

A pattern.

Something to anticipate Jason’s next move before he pushed things past the point of no return.

“Jason’s not just attacking criminals,” Bruce muttered as if thinking aloud. “He’s making statements. Leaving clues. The crowbar on the docks, the coordinated hit on Sionis’ men… He’s targeting our enemies—but not like we would. He wants fear. Shock.”

“If he truly is Jason, then he wants you to notice,” Alfred added pointedly. “Every act so far has been tailor-made to send a message. Not to the city. To you, and to Sionis, Master Bruce.”

Bruce’s jaw tightened.

“That’s why we have to stay ahead of him,” he replied, voice cool, almost methodical now. “If he’s using League tactics, he’ll have fallback routes. Habits. I need to revisit his old Robin patrol maps and cross-reference them with our current threat activity. He’s likely operating from somewhere familiar—somewhere personal.”

Damian stepped forward, arms crossed, his voice cutting in sharp. “Then I want in.”

Bruce turned slightly, one eyebrow raised. “No.”

Damian frowned. “Mother said Jason was dead or thought he was. And we have no confirmation or any evidence that proves he is actually the Red Hood.” He stepped forward.

“You just said it yourself—he’s one of the most dangerous threats Gotham’s faced. You’ll need backup.”

“I said no,” Bruce repeated. “This isn’t a game. Jason doesn’t hold back. You heard what you just said about him, Damian. You wouldn’t survive that fight.”

Damian’s hands clenched into fists at his sides. “So what? I’m just supposed to sit this out while he parades around with your symbol, twisting it into some weapon for his crusade?”

Bruce didn’t answer.

“Don’t forget,” Damian added bitterly, “he’s not the only one trained by the League. I know how he thinks too.”

Bruce stepped forward, tone cold. “He was trained by Ra’s personally. Fought Deathstroke. He’s lived through death. You haven’t. That makes all the difference.”

The tension hung thick in the air.

But then, Alfred stepped forward—his voice gentler but more cutting than either of theirs.

“Forgive me, sirs. But this has gone far enough.”

Both Wayne men paused.

Alfred walked to Bruce’s side, not with judgment—but a heaviness in his posture that silenced them both. His gaze was on Bruce, steady and filled with something deeper than frustration. It was weariness… and heartbreak.

“You’re treating this like a mission. Another file. Another criminal to map out, corner, and clean up. But Jason isn’t Clayface. He isn’t Riddler. He’s not even Slade. He’s your son.”

Bruce didn’t flinch—but he also didn’t argue.

“You’re walking headlong into a fight,” Alfred continued, “but you haven’t taken a moment to acknowledge what’s really happening. That boy you took in—the one who used to sneak cookies from the pantry when he thought I wasn’t looking—he’s not just Red Hood. He’s Jason.”

Bruce’s expression was unreadable, his shoulders rising and falling slowly with each breath.

“I know who he is,” he said at last, voice low. “And that’s the problem.”

“No, sir,” Alfred replied. “The problem is that you’ve already started mourning him again—only this time, while he’s still alive.”

That struck something deep.

Damian, now quiet, looked between the two of them, his earlier anger starting to fade beneath a more complicated emotion—confusion. Maybe even guilt.

Alfred stepped away, moving to the console and slowly sitting in the chair Bruce had just left.

“You built this place to fight crime,” he said softly, gesturing around them, “but sometimes… sometimes what we’re up against isn’t a villain. Sometimes, it’s family. And I fear this is the kind of battle that can’t be won with strategy and brute force.”

Bruce looked up at the screen again.

On the left, Jason’s eyes—young, defiant, alive.

On the right, the blank mask of Red Hood—silent, armored, concealing everything.

He exhaled through his nose and whispered, almost to himself, “Then I’ll have to find another way.”

Alfred rose again. “Find a way that doesn’t break him further—or destroy what’s left of you in the process.”

No one said anything after that.

Damian stepped back into the shadows, his mind already racing with thoughts he couldn’t fully voice. Alfred turned away, heading toward the elevator in silence, hands once again clasped behind his back.

And Bruce stood still, beneath the pale glow of the monitors—haunted, calculating, grieving—and finally, beginning to accept; The mission had changed.

As much as it pulled on his heart strings, it wasn’t just about stopping Red Hood. It has become a mission to saving Jason Todd.

– – –

I spent the entire day holed up in a scrapyard, the kind of place where the smell of rust clings to your lungs and the air hums with the faint echo of old metal groaning in the wind.

Rows of twisted steel and gutted cars stretched like a graveyard for machines, their jagged edges catching the last rays of daylight. It’s not exactly a glamorous training ground, but it works. 

Between the stacks of crushed sedans and the carcasses of buses, I pushed myself—speed drills, strength tests, anything to get a read on what my body can do.

Here’s the thing that messes with me; I just…know how to do this stuff. Regulating my strength, timing my strikes, controlling my balance—it all feels second nature. But I have zero recollection of actually learning any of it. No images. No flashes. Nothing from before I became the Hood.

Which means either my body remembers what my mind doesn’t… or someone, somewhere, decided I didn’t need to know how I got here.

And that thought—it sticks. Because there’s this gaping black hole where three years of my life should be. Three years gone. Vanished. I have no idea where I was, what I was doing, or who the hell I even was during that time.

Yeah. Amnesia. It’s a real bitch. She packs up the most important bits of your life, walks right out the door, and never even bothers leaving a forwarding address. Kind of like your ex-girlfriend who “accidentally” took your favorite sweatshirt home and mysteriously never brought it back.

And here’s the kicker—it’s not even my first time dealing with this crap. I remember waking up at the League once, staring at people I didn’t know, not even aware of my own name or why the hell I was there. My mind was a blank slate, and they just… filled it how they saw fit.

Having it happen again? Yeah, it’s wild. And annoying. And dangerous. But I can’t afford to sit in the corner piecing together my sob story, no matter how much it claws at me in the quiet moments. If I let it, it’ll eat me alive.

Besides, right now I’ve got more important things to focus on—like the fact that I just sent a car skidding sideways and into a dead stop with a single kick from my boots.

The sound echoed through the scrapyard, metal screaming and glass shattering as the vehicle lurched against a pile of junked parts. The vibrations traveled up my leg like a slow, satisfying reminder of what I’m capable of. I’m starting to think my strength might rival Deathstroke’s… maybe even surpass he’s.

It’s the same raw power I felt that night I kicked the door off my Mustang while dodging Bruce. I didn’t stop to think about how insane it was. I just did it, like it was the most natural reaction in the world. Only later did it hit me; normal people don’t tear cars apart mid-escape without breaking a sweat.

So do I need those missing three years back? Yeah. I want them. I want to know what I’ve been doing, where I’ve been, and—most of all—who pulled me out of the soul-claiming waters of the China Sea.

Those questions hang in the back of my mind every damn day, like a ticking clock I can’t read. But I’ve got no clues. Not even a fragment to work from.

I can’t control the amnesia. But I can control what I do with the time I have now—and that’s where things get interesting. Control. Such a simple word, but men kill for it, manipulate for it. Doesn’t matter if it’s control over a person, a city, or an entire system.

Bruce is no exception, no matter what image he likes to project. He thrives on control. He controls Gotham’s criminals through fear, making them think twice before stepping out of line. They see the Bat, and their hearts stop for just long enough to change their plans.

Me? I’m aiming for something different. I want criminals to breathe easier at dawn because they survived another night without running into me. I want the ones who do run into me to pray for Batman to show up—because compared to me, he’s mercy.

And to get that level of control in Gotham, Black Mask has to go. But not yet. Not until he delivers Joker to me on a silver platter.

The thought of the Joker… it lights something in me. I won’t lie, the anticipation borders on obsessive. Might even sound like a twisted fetish if I said it out loud, but I don’t care. Bruce failed me, and he’s been failing this city for decades. So I’m going to break his heart in the process of fixing what he never could.

That means playing it smart with Roman Sionis. Steering him toward Joker without tipping my hand. I’ve been keeping the pressure on him, subtle but relentless.

Every move I make pushes him closer to giving me what I want. Like a row of dominoes, each action knocks over the next. I set them all up the day I became his personal nightmare, and now all I have to do is keep them falling.

I bet when Roman closes his eyes at night, he sees the red gleam of my helmet and wakes up sweating. They say everyone wakes from their nightmares eventually, but I’m not planning to give him the chance. He’ll die in this one.

He hasn’t answered my last move yet. His reaction—which his paranoid ass would give—will dictate my next step. Eventually, there’ll be a face-to-face. I can already picture it. The arrogant tilt of his chin replaced by wide-eyed panic. The desperation in his voice as he begs for a life that’s already over.

And I have to admit… I’m going to enjoy every damn second of it.

– – –

[Gotham City Police Department, late evening]

The hum of the overhead lights mixed with the faint scent of burnt coffee and damp paper files that had seen far too many years in storage. Rain tapped lazily against the tall windows of Commissioner Gordon’s office, but inside, the atmosphere was anything but calm.

“What the hell do you mean we still don’t have a single lead on the Hood?” Gordon’s voice cut through the low murmur in the room, his tone not needing volume to carry the weight of frustration. He leaned forward over his desk, hands flat against the scattered case files, glaring at the assembled detectives like they were raw recruits who’d just botched a basic bust.

His gaze locked on the lead investigator. “Is the GCPD really that bad at doing its job? Our jobs.” His voice sharpened. “That one wasn’t rhetorical, Detective Madina.”

Madina swallowed, adjusting the crease in his jacket as though that would help deflect Gordon’s glare. “Sir, it’s not that we’re bad at our jobs. He’s just… good at getting away clean.”

“He sure is,” Detective Ramireuze said from his spot by the window, his chair tipped back slightly. “We’ve started thinking of it as a talent. He’s so sneaky, so precise, you could almost put him on Batman’s level.” There was an unspoken admiration in his voice, though he quickly masked it behind a shrug.

Detective Carter, who had been tapping his pen against his notepad, finally spoke up. “Maybe he was trained by him. The only images we’ve got show that bat symbol on his chest. That can’t be a coincidence.”

“That could be a possibility,” Gordon admitted, his tone softening only slightly. “But right now, all we have is a blurry photo and that symbol. It’s not enough to back up a theory.”

Madina leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table. “Maybe Batman was the teacher, and Red Hood’s the student who went rogue. He kills, and we all know Batman doesn’t cross that line.”

Gordon grunted, the corner of his mouth twitching in what might have been annoyance. “Maybe. But if that’s the case, we’d have known about him the same way we know about the others. Red Hood just… appeared. No warning. No history.”

Another stack of photos was spread across the table—Roman Sionis, his Black Mask persona glaring from a mugshot; Big Lou; Sophia Falcone. 

Madina picked up Roman’s picture and pinned it to the corkboard along with the others, adding shots of crime scenes—blown-out warehouses, torched drug houses, and a handful of back-alley massacres. 

None of the lines on the board connected directly to Red Hood’s single photo at the top. That image, pulled from a security cam near the Bertinellis’ territory, was the only clear visual they had of him—a red helmet under dim streetlights, shoulders squared like he owned the night.

The only other recurring clue was the crowbar. It kept showing up at his crime scenes, sometimes slick with blood, sometimes sticking out of a body, and other times just resting like a calling card beside the bodies. The pattern was unmistakable, even if no one wanted to put it into words.

“We think he’s taken control over certain parts of Gotham’s underground drug trade,” Madina said, sliding his finger across a map with red ink circles marking specific districts. “Some drug dealers operate under his protection now. It’s not official, but it’s clear enough if you talk to the right people.”

Progress was slow—painfully slow. The Red Hood case was less an investigation and more a series of grim interruptions. Every few days, a new body would drop, each kill meticulous and violent, each scene unmistakably his handiwork.

And the GCPD had more than just him to worry about. The Falcones and Maronis had been circling each other for months, their feud bloody but strangely restrained.

Everyone in the room knew that kind of tension should have escalated to all-out war by now. The fact it hadn’t? That was its own kind of mystery.

But Gordon was almost certain—Red Hood was the reason.

Outside the commissioner’s office, in the bullpen, Deputy Valdez leaned toward the officer beside him. “Any idea why they all look like they’re about to chew glass in there?”

The other officer smirked without looking up from his paperwork. 

“You’re new, so I’ll clue you in. That’s the division tasked with bringing in Red Hood and monitoring shifts in the underworld. They’ve got the most stressful caseload in the building.”

Valdez raised a brow. “Oh, I’ve heard of him. Gotham’s new headache. Doesn’t go after civilians but makes criminals disappear if they step out of line. Ghosts in and out of places. Never seen.”

“Not entirely,” the officer said. “We know he wears that red helmet. That’s about it.”

Valdez glanced toward the investigation board across the bullpen. “Has anyone here actually seen him?”

“Nope. Not a single officer sighting. Not in person.”

Valdez gave a short, humorless laugh. “So we’ve got a guy who’s suspected in a dozen murders, keeps his face hidden, and hasn’t touched a single innocent life. Honestly… maybe we should leave him alone. Sounds like he’s doing some of our work for us.”

Another deputy, leaning back in his chair with a steaming mug of coffee, joined in. “No one sane wants to get close to that guy. You’ve seen what’s left of the thugs he’s dealt with.”

Valdez shook his head. “Gotham never runs out of crazies.”

“And they never run out of bodies,” the coffee drinker said, raising his mug before taking a sip.

Inside Gordon’s office, the rain picked up against the windows. No one spoke for a long moment. The Red Hood was no longer just a name in a file. 

He had become a presence, an invisible current running beneath Gotham’s streets, pulling at a faction of the city’s balance of power. And whether the GCPD liked it or not, he was changing the rules.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep