Seated across from Jason at the small, softly lit table, Li looked far more composed than anyone in her position had a right to be. Half-eaten dishes sat between them, the rich aroma of the meal still lingering in the air, while two glasses of red wine caught the dim glow of the restaurant lights, their surfaces reflecting faint flickers like quiet embers.
She didn't seem as shaken as she should have been. There was a subtle tightness around her eyes, a lingering trace of exhaustion beneath her calm demeanor, but she smiled faintly when he spoke, indulging him, allowing herself to be pulled—if only briefly—away from everything that had happened.
Jason had made sure of that.
After dealing with Black Mask, after ensuring that particular chapter had been closed in the most final way possible, he had brought her here. The same restaurant he had stepped into once before, alone, making a quiet promise to himself that next time wouldn't be. That he'd bring her. It was a strange thing, holding onto something so normal in the middle of everything else, but Jason had always been a man of contradictions.
He hadn't given her much room to refuse. Every excuse she tried to offer, about her boss, about the chaos the city found itself in, about how wrong it felt to sit and eat while everything was still unsettled—he dismantled with an ease that felt almost unfair.
Worrying wouldn't bring her boss back. Panic wouldn't change the outcome. And more than anything, she was alive. That was the point he drove home firmly enough that it stuck. She could have died in that building. Could have been another name in the aftermath. Instead, she was here, breathing, sitting across from him. That had to count for something.
He told her it didn't make sense to step into a new year weighed down by grief and fear, not when she had been given the chance to keep going.
There was something almost grounding in the way he said it—not sounding overly sentimental or soft, but real. Accept what you have. Be grateful for it. Move forward. Somehow, through sheer persistence and that blunt, unyielding logic of his, he got her to agree. Not fully convinced, not entirely free of the shadows trailing her thoughts, but enough to sit here, to try.
And so they did.
They ate, and they talked. Jason kept the conversation light, steering it away from anything that even hinted at the night before. He leaned back in his chair like a man without a care in the world, his posture relaxed, his tone easy, as if he hadn't spent hours hunting a man through the city, as if his hands weren't still carrying the memory of the things he had done to him.
He made dry comments, slipped in sarcasm at just the right moments, and watched as Li's composure slowly cracked from laughter.
It started small. A reluctant smile. A quiet exhale through her nose. But then it built, her shoulders loosening, her guard dropping piece by piece until she was actually laughing—head tilting slightly, her eyes narrowing as she looked at him like she was trying to figure out whether he was always like this or if tonight was something different.
And Jason—Jason played his part perfectly.
Because across from her sat a man who looked entirely at ease, sharing a meal, trading words, raising a glass under soft lights. Not the same man who had spent the night dragging a crime lord through fear and pain, who had ended it slowly, deliberately, making sure there was more than enough pain to accompany him to the world of the dead.
That version of him didn't exist here.
Not in his expression, not in his voice, not in the way he met her gaze and smirked like this was just another night.
And if there was any weight from what he had done, any lingering echo of it in his mind—it didn't show.
"I don't mean to be insensitive—since Roman was your boss and all—but on the bright side, Gotham is down one tyrant." Jason's tone was even, almost casual, as though he were commenting on something distant, something that didn't quite touch either of them.
Across the table, Li paused mid-bite, her fork hovering just slightly above her plate. The soft clink of cutlery and low murmur of other diners filled the brief silence that followed. Slowly, she lifted her gaze to him, her expression tightening in quiet scrutiny, like she was turning his words over, testing them.
"Why do you speak of him in the past tense?" she asked, her voice sounding controlled and measured as usual. And just as calmly as she spoke, she resumed eating.
Jason didn't answer immediately. He took his time, bringing the glass of red wine to his lips and taking a slow sip, his eyes lowering briefly as if considering the question—even though the answer came far too easily. When he set the glass down, it touched the table with a soft, deliberate sound. His fingers shifted to his fork with unhurried pace, his posture still relaxed, shoulders loose, as if the conversation hadn't just edged into something heavier.
"I mean… you don't expect him to still be alive, right?" he replied, glancing up at her with a look that bordered on mild curiosity, though there was something steadier beneath it, that didn't seem to waver.
Li didn't respond verbally this time. Instead, she held his gaze, her expression speaking for her in a way words didn't need to. It was a look that said everything plainly—exactly. A silent acknowledgment that his reasoning was sound, even if she hadn't wanted to be the one to say it aloud.
Jason continued, unfazed by the quiet exchange. "His company was blown up—two explosions, both targeting him, at least from what the news is saying. His attacker finally got their hands on him." He gave a slight tilt of his head, as if the conclusion was obvious. "You really think they'd just kick back after that and call it a night? Watch a movie, maybe?"
There was a faint edge of dry humor in his voice, but it didn't quite soften the implication. If anything, it made it more grounded and real.
"Let's be logical," he went on, his tone steady, almost instructive but not overbearing. "Holding on to some vague, incoherent hope doesn't change the outcome. If anything, it just drags things out." His fork moved idly across his plate as he spoke, more a gesture than an action.
"Someone like him? In a situation like that? He'd be killed. And from what people say about him…" He trailed slightly, as if recalling the whispers that circulated through Gotham's underbelly. "If Red Hood lives up to even half of what's rumored, then it wouldn't be quick either."
He let the words settle after that, not pressing further, and without filling the silence that followed. Instead, he leaned back just slightly, giving Li the space to process it, to arrive at the conclusion on her own terms—even though he had already guided her there.
For a moment, she said nothing. Her gaze dropped back to her plate, but her focus wasn't on the food anymore.
"You're right," she admitted at last. "I wasn't expecting him to still be alive… especially knowing what Red Hood is capable of." Her fingers tightened slightly around her fork before relaxing again. "But Roman…" She exhaled softly, a hint of something almost reluctant crossing her face. "He has a way of slipping through situations that should have ended him. Like an eel, always finding a way out when there shouldn't be one."
As she spoke, Jason's attention drifted in a subtle fashion, his eyes naturally shifting past her to the large screen mounted along the wall of the restaurant.
From where he sat, it was easy to watch without turning his head fully, his expression remaining composed, unreadable, as though whatever held his attention there was just another passing distraction.
"I guess he's run out of luck… and his karma finally caught up to him." Jason spoke almost absently, his voice low and threaded with a quiet finality that didn't quite invite disagreement. His gaze had already drifted past Li, settling on the large screen mounted behind her, the shifting light from the broadcast reflecting faintly in his eyes.
'And the role of executioner fell to me'—a thought that never made it past his lips, yet seemed to settle comfortably behind them. Instead, he gave a small motion with his chin, subtle but deliberate.
"Look."
Li hesitated for only a fraction of a second before turning in her seat, her brows knitting slightly as she followed his cue. The ambient noise of the restaurant—the quiet clinking of glasses, the low hum of conversations—seemed to dull at the edges as her attention fixed on the screen.
The broadcast had shifted to a breaking update, the tone of the reporter carrying that familiar mix of urgency and restrained shock. Across the screen, the headline told the story before the words even fully registered: Roman Sionis, a.k.a Black Mask—found dead.
The footage that followed was partially obscured, blurred enough to meet broadcast standards, yet not enough to mask the weight of what had been discovered.
The report detailed it in careful and with deliberate language, but the imagery still bled through in implication alone. His body had been found hanging in an alleyway deep within the Narrows, positioned in a place where discovery wasn't a matter of chance, but certainty.
A statement location. Somewhere the people would see first, long before the authorities could arrive to contain it, to sanitize it, to hide just how grotesque the end had truly been.
The camera cut between distant shots of the alley, police barricades, and glimpses of officers moving in controlled urgency, but the narration did the rest.
It described the condition of the body in terms that tried to remain clinical, though there was an unmistakable tension in the reporter's voice. And while the official broadcast kept its distance, the reality had already spilled beyond it. Social media, as always, had no such restraint.
Civilians had recorded, posted, shared—images and videos spreading faster than they could be taken down, some platforms scrambling to censor what others had already made impossible to ignore.
Li's expression remained neutral as she watched. Her lips pressed together, her eyes narrowing slightly—certainly not out of disbelief, but from the weight of confirmation.
The report continued, moving on to the detail that seemed to linger longest—the message. According to the authorities, words had been written at the scene, scrawled onto the wall beside the body using what was presumed to be the victim's own blood. The camera didn't show it directly, but the reporter recited it clearly enough:
"Poke your nose where it doesn't belong, your greed will certainly be the end of you. Ending up worse than this."
The words hung in the air even after they were spoken, carrying a weight that extended beyond the corpse itself. It clearly wasn't random or seeming chaotic. It was intentional, directed.
The news anchor speculated aloud, questioning whether this was meant for the public, a declaration from a self-proclaimed vigilante seeking to instill fear or assert control. Or if it was something far more targeted—meant for a specific group, a warning disguised as a spectacle.
Behind her, Jason remained still, his posture unchanged, his expression unreadable as the light from the screen flickered across his face. There was no visible reaction, no shift that would betray anything deeper than passive interest. If anything, he looked like just another bystander absorbing the news as it unfolded.
The calm in his gaze, the way his attention lingered just a second too long—it all sat beneath the surface, like something already settled long before the rest of the world had caught up. 'Nice one, Madam Reporter,' Jason thought dryly. 'Really spicing things up.'
Li's attention lingered on the screen for only a moment longer before she seemed to reach her limit. The report kept talking, the images kept flashing, but she had already seen enough.
Slowly, she turned back toward Jason, her expression smoothed over into one that seemed almost detached. "I guess his karma did catch up to him," she said with an even tone, carrying no real weight of grief or surprise.
Her fingers curled lightly around the stem of her wine glass as she began to swirl the deep red liquid inside, watching it move in slow circles as though the motion itself helped her organize her thoughts.
'With Roman gone, I'd be stepping into the new year at the top—officially this time. Not that it really changes anything. I've already been the one running his empire anyway.' Her gaze stayed on the slow swirl of wine in her glass, the thought settling in like it had always belonged there.
Jason studied her quietly for a beat, his gaze steady and assessing. "Are you okay?" he asked, the concern in his voice was thoughtful and deliberate, crafted just right. It wasn't overdone, nor dramatic—just enough to sound genuine. Enough to fit the role he was playing. The attentive boyfriend. The one checking in after something like this.
"Sure… why wouldn't I be?" she replied, though her eyes drifted briefly to the side rather than holding his. She lifted her hand slightly, catching the attention of a passing waiter with a practiced ease, gesturing for a refill without missing a beat.
"People live, and they die. That's just the natural order of things." She said to him.
"True," Jason echoed with a neutral tone, giving nothing away.
The waiter arrived moments later, seeming polite and unobtrusive, carrying a chilled bottle nestled in a bucket of ice. The faint clink of glass and soft scrape of metal against the table slipped into the background of their conversation as he poured, the deep crimson liquid flowing smoothly into their glasses. The cold mist from the bucket lingered faintly in the air, catching the low light of the restaurant.
As the glasses filled, Jason's gaze shifted again—almost idly—back to the screen behind Li. The report had moved on from the discovery itself and was now circling the larger narrative, the name that had already begun to eclipse the victim.
Red Hood.
Images and clips flashed across the screen—grainy footage, phone recordings, snippets pulled from across the city and beyond.
The report highlighted reactions from the public, drawing from social media posts that ranged from cautious approval to outright praise. The tone had shifted from shock to something more complicated, seeming closer to fascination.
Many were calling him exactly what Gotham had always flirted with but never fully embraced—a necessary force. A form of vengeance the city had been too broken, or too restrained, to enact on its own.
The narrative practically wrote itself: first the Joker, now Black Mask. Two of Gotham's most infamous figures are gone, not into the system, but gone permanently.
The language used wasn't subtle. Some called him a liberator, a man cutting down the worst of the city like a blade through rot. Others likened it to something more symbolic—severing the heads of venomous snakes poisoning Gotham from within. And beneath all of it was the unspoken question of who—or what—might be next.
Jason watched it all in silence, his expression unchanged as the faint glow of the screen reflected in his eyes. To anyone else, he looked like just another observer, passively taking in the unfolding narrative.
The narrative on the screen continued to evolve, shifting from reporting into something closer to public sentiment laid bare. Images flickered across the display—walls sprayed with fresh graffiti, a crude but unmistakable symbol painted in bold red: a bat, stylized and aggressive, bleeding into the concrete like a mark of ownership.
It was likely vandalism, but to some it was endorsement. A declaration. The people were starting to talk, and more dangerously, they were starting to agree. Red Hood wasn't being whispered about in fear alone anymore—he was being accepted. In some corners, even praised.
To them, he had proven himself yet again, someone willing to go where the system hesitated, to do what the police either couldn't or wouldn't. The message was simple, almost disturbingly so: if justice wouldn't act, then something else would.
At the table, the soft glow from the screen danced faintly across Li's face as she listened without turning back this time. Her fingers still circled the stem of her wine glass, though the motion had slowed, grown more absent-minded. Jason, on the other hand, remained still, his attention fixed just enough to follow every word without appearing overly invested.
The report shifted again, drawing comparisons that needed no embellishment. The Joker's name surfaced, as it always did, dragging with it the weight of every cycle Gotham had endured. The footage accompanying it showed old clips—grainy, chaotic, familiar.
A man who had turned incarceration into something almost routine. A revolving door. In and out, again and again, as if Arkham itself was nothing more than a temporary inconvenience. A place to cool off. To reset. And each time he returned, it was worse. The destruction escalated, the body count climbed, and yet somehow, the system persisted in containing rather than ending it.
The reporter's voice broke cleanly through the imagery, posing the question that now seemed unavoidable. Should Red Hood be condemned as a dangerous criminal—another violent force adding to Gotham's chaos—or accepted as something else entirely? Something necessary.
The word "vaccine" was used, and it lingered, provocative in its simplicity. A cure by way of destruction. A solution that didn't heal the system, but bypassed it altogether.
Around them, the restaurant carried on as if untouched, but there were subtle shifts. A glance here. A murmur there. The screen had captured more than just attention, and had stirred something. Even Li, for all her composed indifference, had gone quieter, her earlier detachment now threaded with thought rather than dismissal. Her eyes lowered briefly to her glass, watching the wine settle as if searching for clarity in its stillness.
And yet, not all of it leaned toward approval.
The report didn't ignore the other side—the quieter, less visible current running beneath the surface. Fear. Uncertainty. Because if someone like Black Mask could be taken down so publicly, so decisively, then the question wasn't just who deserved it—it was who decided that.
Red Hood's warning echoed in the background of the coverage, portrayed not only as a message left behind, but as a promise. Or a threat. Depending on who was listening.
Outside, the city edged closer to midnight, the distant sounds of New Year celebrations beginning to rise—fireworks cracking faintly somewhere far off, laughter bleeding into the streets. But beneath it all, there was something else building. Something less certain.
A tension in the air that celebration couldn't quite drown out.
Because while some welcomed what Red Hood represented, others could already feel the shift. The sense that Gotham wasn't calming down.
It was bracing itself for what's to come.
- - -
After the date wound down and the night stretched deeper into quiet, Jason took Li somewhere more private—an apartment tucked away in one of the better parts of the city.
It was clean, carefully maintained, and deliberately empty of anything that tied back to who he truly was. No weapons hidden in plain sight, no lingering traces of violence or identity. No Jason Todd. No Red Hood. Just a space crafted with intention, built to support the version of himself Li knew.
Randy.
The name fits the place the same way the place fits the lie—comfortable, believable, and just detached enough from reality to hold together under scrutiny.
They arrived still carrying the warmth of the evening with them, the faint haze of wine softening the edges of their movements and words. The city's distant noise faded behind closed doors, replaced by a quieter, more intimate atmosphere.
Time blurred, moments slipping into one another until the world outside no longer mattered, leaving only the dim light of the room and the shared presence between them.
Hours later, the apartment had fallen into silence.
Jason lay on his side, the sheets loosely draped, his breathing slow and even in the heavy stillness of sleep. The faint glow of the city filtered through the curtains, casting soft, shifting patterns across the room. Somewhere in that quiet, he stirred. A subtle shift at first—barely noticeable.
His body turned slightly against the mattress, muscles reacting before his mind fully caught up. His eyes flickered open, unfocused, vision blurred by the remnants of sleep. For a moment, everything felt distant, unreal. He blinked slowly, once… twice… forcing clarity to return.
Beside him, Li slept undisturbed.
Her breathing was steady and with a relaxed posture, completely unaware of the shift occurring just inches away. For a brief second, the sight grounded him, something normal to anchor to as his senses recalibrated. But that moment didn't last.
Because when his vision finally settled—truly settled—it landed on something else.
One that didn't belong.
Li was gone, and in her place, a figure lay just inches away, facing him.
It wore a black leather jacket, the material catching what little light there was with a dull sheen. Its presence alone felt wrong, out of place in a way that instinctively set every nerve on edge.
Its head, its face—its arms—were wrapped tightly in aged bandages, layered and suffocating, as though concealing something that should never be seen. Only one part of it remained exposed.
Its mouth.
The lips were burned, twisted, stretched unnaturally thin into a grotesque mockery of a smile. And within that smile—those teeth. Silver. Shark like and uniformed. Too many. They gleamed faintly in the dark, like something predatory lurking just beneath the surface.
Jason didn't hesitate.
The reaction was immediate, instinct overriding thought. His body snapped into motion, leg folding and driving forward in an abrupt but controlled kick aimed straight at the figure's center mass. The force behind it was meant to send whatever laid there, flying off.
But there was no impact.
Momentum carried him through anyway, his body already transitioning, rolling off the bed in one fluid motion. He hit the ground and immediately pushed himself up, muscles tightening as his senses snapped into full alert.
And everything stopped.
The room was gone.
No bed. No walls. And definitely, no Li.
The apartment had vanished as if it had never existed.
In its place was a sight far worse.
The space around him stretched into a vast, suffocating nothingness—dark, endless, and oppressive in a way that pressed against him from all sides.
He knew this place.
Not from memory alone, but from experience carved into him in ways that never truly faded.
It was the same void. The same purgatorial expanse where time had once lost all meaning. Where he had been broken down, piece by piece, forced to relive every failure, every mistake, every moment of pain from his life on an endless loop. A place that didn't just punish alone—it understood exactly how to.
And now—
He was back.
Jason refused to let the panic take hold—not this time. The first surge hit him hard, sharp and instinctive, clawing its way up from somewhere deep in his chest, but he clamped down on it before it could spread. His breathing steadied through sheer force of will, slow and controlled, making each inhale deliberate, and each exhale measured.
He grounded himself the only way he knew how—logically. 'It's the same as last time… some kind of dream.' The thought came as fragments of memory surfaced. Being buried alive. Suffocating.
That same presence descended on him, tearing through his sanity until he'd woken up gasping, drowning in his own bathtub. It felt real then. Too real. Just like this.
The ground before him fractured without warning.
A jagged crack split through the dark surface, spreading outward in sharp, uneven lines as though something beneath it was forcing its way through.
Then, suddenly—violently—an arm shot upward from below. The motion was abrupt, unnatural in both speed and angle, fingers clawing at the surface as if reality itself were something it could tear open.
Jason's breath hitched despite himself, his chest tightening as something colder than fear settled in his gut. He watched, unable to look away, as the rest of it followed.
The demon pulled itself free in a way that made no sense.
Its movements were too smooth in some places, too broken in others, like its joints didn't quite follow the rules they were meant to. It twisted and bent as it rose, its limbs adjusting in jerks and slow, dragging motions that clashed with one another, as though it were learning how to move in real time.
The bandages that wrapped its form shifted and tightened with each motion, revealing just enough of that burned, stretched mouth to maintain that same horrific smile. And the teeth—those unnatural, silver rows—caught the dim light of the void, gleaming faintly with every slight tilt of its head.
The space around them solidified into something more defined, yet no less oppressive.
What had once been an endless void now resembled a fractured, nightmarish landscape—dark, uneven ground stretching into a horizon that didn't feel like it should exist.
Black flames licked across the surface in scattered patches, rising and falling without heat, without sound, casting shifting shadows that moved in ways they shouldn't. The air itself felt thick, suffocating, pressing in from all sides.
It wasn't just the environment, it was the presence within it. The demon didn't simply exist there as it dominated the space, like a predator in its den, every inch of that place bending subtly around it.
Jason felt a brief, suffocating flicker of powerlessness.
It crept in quietly, slipping past the defenses he had forced into place, coiling around his spine before he could fully suppress it. This wasn't a normal fight. This wasn't something he could outmaneuver with skill or outthink with strategy. The realization settled in the back of his mind, unwelcome but undeniable.
The demon moved again.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
Each step it took seemed slightly off, its limbs adjusting in ways that didn't match the rhythm of natural motion. It was as if the body it wore wasn't its own—like a disembodied being wearing meat-suit for the first time.
And yet, despite its pace—despite the fact that it barely seemed to be trying—Jason couldn't gain distance.
He turned and ran.
The decision came fast, his instinct overriding pride. His boots struck against the uneven ground as he pushed forward, muscles firing, breath steady but sharp as he tried to put space between them. But no matter how fast he moved, no matter how hard he pushed, the distance refused to stretch. It stayed the same. Constant. Unchanging.
Behind him, he could feel its presence closing in without actually speeding up, like the space itself was betraying him, folding in on itself to keep them locked within the same proximity.
Then it spoke.
"There's…" The voice dragged itself into existence, hoarse and uneven, like something forcing sound through a throat that didn't quite work the way it should. Each word stretched, elongated unnaturally, the pauses between them was thick and quite deliberate.
"...There's nowhere to run…"
Jason's steps faltered for the briefest second, not from exhaustion, but from the weight of the sound which didn't just reach his ears—it pressed against his mind, sinking in deeper than it should have.
"And as you can see…" the voice continued, slow, almost curious, "…there are definitely no hiding places around."
Jason turned just enough to catch it in his peripheral vision.
The demon had stopped walking.
Its head tilted sharply to one side, then further, bending at an angle no human neck should allow.
Its body followed in a slow, twisting motion, joints shifting, spine curving unnaturally as it leaned forward slightly. The movement resembled something blind—something that relied on more than sight. It inhaled deeply with a rough and uneven sound, as though tasting the air itself.
And the way its smile widened—just slightly—made it clear.
He had Jason right where he wanted him.
- - -
A/N:—
This week's schedule would be three—maybe four chapters, depending on how motivated I feel.
Read more of Patrn.