Oculus | J. Todd ✔

[01]

The dark streets of Gotham city were no different from how he had last seen despite the fact that years had lapsed since he had set foot into his native city. Five years had lapsed and even though nothing had changed apparently, for him everything was different.

Because in the eyes of the city he was dead, his funeral had been held and many had witnessed his coffin being lowered into the grave. A grave in the Wayne family's cemetery was marked with a tombstone on which his own epitaph was inscribed: 

Jason Peter Todd
1994-2012
Ally and Friend.

Yet there he was lurking in the shadowy alleys akin to a ghost that had come back from the dead to haunt his past. In all the time that had lapsed since the day he had met his end in the cold mountainous terrain of Bosnia, he had undergone a lot. 

From being revived by the Lazarus Pit and serving in the League of Shadows and then abandoning the League to set out on a tedious journey to perfect his skills from various mentors, he had finally returned to Gotham.

Because he had some unfinished business to tend to and its roots lay in the very city he was walking through.

The only reason behind his return was that Joker was still at large and unlike what he had expected, Batman had not put him down permanently. Ever since Jason's death, Joker had ruined several other lives as well and that fact was what he could not digest.

And so he had decided to deal with him by himself.

Batman could not take anyone's life, it was against his moral code. Even if the Joker had taken Jason, his fellow soldier and second Robin, away from him still he could not bring himself to avenge his death. 

Because Batman did not kill, Batman was the caped crusader who sought justice but went to all possible means to refrain from taking anyone's life in his crusade.

But Jason Todd was not Batman and in his perception he had every right to inflict the same pain on his tormentor that he had gone through. 

He had thought he would be the last person Batman would ever let Joker hurt, he had thought he would be the last to meet his gruesome end at the hands of the insane mass murderor, but he was wrong. 

And that feeling of being let down stabbed him akin to bitter betrayal.

He was not angry that Batman hadn't saved him that night but he was outraged that his loss had not been avenged. 

For even though he and Bruce had had their issues, he had tried his best to meet his expectations and had never hesitated to risk his life each night he stepped out of the Bat Cave in his Robin suit.

He knew he had not been the perfect son, he was far from that. But he had tried to prove himself worthy of the life Bruce Wayne had given him. He had been the only father figure in Jason's life, his sole mentor, his one ray of hope.

But after coming back from the dead, Jason had realized that perhaps he did not mean more than just a soldier sacrificed in a war to the caped crusader. Perhaps that was all he had ever been to him; a soldier, a weapon and finally a martyr.

And as he walked through the puddled streets of Gotham, enveloped in the dark so that no one could see him, his mind drifted off to the life he could never have again. Those movie nights with Dick Grayson, his elder brother and friend, those rough patrol nights alongside Bruce as Batman after which Alfred would tend to his injuries. 

They had been far from perfect but they had been a family.

A family from which he was taken away due to the Joker.

Over time his memories had mangled into a blurry heap from which he could not particularly distinguish faces anymore except for two faces that were engraved deep into his conscience. The first was the face of Bruce Wayne and the second was the face of the Joker.

One of them had given him a life worth living and the other had ripped it away from him.

He came to a halt in front of a small house stowed away in the corner of a darkened alley and fumbled in his pocket for the keys to the lock that was hanging from the door handle. He had chosen the place for his current retreat and as he stepped inside, he quickly shut the door behind him.

Gotham was no better than he had last seen and the influx of criminals was just as high as ever. His eyes landed upon a scarlet helmet he had been working on, placed on a table in the corner.

Cautiously he stepped towards the table and picked up the helmet. And as he turned it over in his hands, the red front of the helmet stared back at him blankly with no features to identify him from the rest.

But the helmet would become the identity in itself to a name that had circulated in the Gotham underworlds for even years before Jason was born but no one had known for certain who held that identity.

The Red Hood.

Over the years it had become a phantom existence but it was time to make the Red Hood rise again and that once with a terror that could not be matched by any of his predecessors.

Holding the scarlet helmet in his hands, Jason had decided to make that identity his own for he had been stripped of his previous one and if he returned as Jason Todd, the city would see him no worse than a ghost.

Unlike ghosts, he was not merely a thin wisp of air but every much as alive as the people that were rushing through the city streets outside, the noise of which he could hear clearly even in his dark hidden abode.

And unlike ghosts, he had no intention of fading in the background. Instead he meant to be a raging terror to all those who were polluting the city, he meant to be an everlasting doom to those who spread fear in the hearts of the innocent citizens.

But most of all he was going to be a constant peril for both Batman and the Joker.

The two men who he blamed for his untimely demise.

The two faces he could never erase from his mind.

***