The news reported that Cheetah was gunned down by a yet to be identified gunman, but it wasn't a far stretch for them to point it all at the Red Hood.
He might not be leaving evidence behind during his purge of criminals he deemed deserving of death, but it wasn't a far stretch if the public pointed their fingers at the Red Hood, especially since his theatrical display with Black Mask's corpse.
The matter regarding Red Hood and his actions over the past two weeks had left Gotham in a state of deep division. A clash of opinion swept through the city like an endless storm, as though the people themselves had been dragged into a heated debate between order and morality, justice and fear.
Every street corner, news station, and crowded diner carried the same argument in different forms, with citizens divided on whether Red Hood was the solution Gotham desperately needed or simply another monster born from its endless decay.
Some believed Red Hood's methods—while undeniably extreme—were the very furnace the city needed to finally burn away the corruption rotting it from the inside out. To them, Gotham had spent decades drowning beneath the weight of crime, crooked officials, and revolving-door justice that never truly solved anything.
Red Hood, brutal as he was, represented results. Criminal empires were collapsing overnight, traffickers and murderers were vanishing from the streets, and fear had begun shifting away from innocent civilians and back onto the predators who stalked them. In the eyes of many, his violence was not cruelty, but a necessary purge. The kind of ruthless force required if order was ever going to be imposed on a city as diseased as Gotham.
Others, however, saw something far more dangerous beneath the results. While even they couldn't deny the impact Red Hood's campaign had made, they argued that he was nothing more than a violent psychopath operating without restraint or accountability.
They questioned what would happen once the criminals and so-called "evil doers" were gone. What line would remain after someone became so accustomed to killing in the name of justice? If innocents happened to stand in the wrong place at the wrong time, would Red Hood's wrath eventually fall upon them too? To those people, the issue was never whether his methods worked, but the terrifying reality that his actions existed completely outside the boundaries of law, morality, and human restraint. Gotham had seen men like that before, and history had never ended kindly.
Within the walls of Wayne Manor, the situation had also left Damian trapped in a quiet internal conflict of his own. Damian was hyper-pragmatic by nature, someone who viewed violence as the most direct and efficient solution to most problems. Ruthlessness came naturally to him, sharpened by years under the League of Assassins and further reinforced by Gotham itself.
Yet beneath the arrogance, defiance, and constant rebelliousness he used as armor, there remained a far deeper need he rarely allowed anyone to see: the desire for Bruce's approval. It was a need Damian buried beneath sharp words and stubborn pride, masking it behind the image of someone who refused to care what others thought.
But even he couldn't deny the conflict brewing inside him now. Part of him understood Red Hood's methods far more than he wanted to admit, perhaps even agreed with aspects of them. The other part knew Bruce would never truly accept that path, and that realization left Damian caught between the instincts he inherited from one father and the ideals demanded by the other.
As much as his father had spent years trying to instill his ideals into him—teaching restraint over extremity and morality over ruthless efficiency beneath the banner of justice—Damian still found himself believing that Red Hood's actions were, to some degree, justified.
Gotham was changing because of him. Criminals were afraid again, truly afraid, and the streets reflected that fear in ways Batman's endless cycle of arrests never fully managed to accomplish.
Damian understood why Bruce opposed Jason's methods, but understanding did not necessarily mean agreement. There was a part of him, buried beneath all the lessons and discipline, that could not completely reject the effectiveness of Red Hood's sense of finality.
As much as Damian respected Jason's willingness to weaponize fear and admired the long-term deterrence his brutality created, there were still aspects of Red Hood's methods he personally disagreed with.
Jason didn't simply kill criminals alone like it might seem to a vast majority of the public, he turned some of their deaths into theatrical spectacles. Every scene carried an almost deliberate sense of theater, carefully crafted psychological warfare designed to send a message to Gotham's underworld. Damian understood the strategy behind it, perhaps better than most, but he himself would never have gone to such lengths to dramatize the act.
To him, violence was a tool, clean and efficient when necessary. Red Hood, however, wielded it like a berserker on crack.
The matter had already been discussed multiple times amongst the family and the team. In the end, they had collectively agreed that Red Hood's calculated brutality stood against everything they claimed to represent, and for the past two weeks they had actively attempted to track and capture him.
Yet even then, Damian couldn't help but view Jason's methods less as mindless savagery and more as deliberate psychological warfare aimed at Gotham's criminal ecosystem. Every mutilated crime scene, every gruesome message left behind, every carefully orchestrated act of terror served a larger purpose beyond bloodshed alone. Red Hood did not appear as though he was merely killing criminals just because, but seemed to be conditioning them through fear.
Standing silently with his arms crossed as he leaned against the Batcave console, Damian let his thoughts settle before shifting his gaze toward his father. Batman stood motionless before the glowing monitors, eyes locked onto the endless stream of reports, surveillance footage, and dead-end leads.
Despite the calm and composed exterior he maintained, frustration bled through in subtle ways only someone close to him would notice—the slight narrowing of his eyes, the tension in his jaw, the near imperceptible stiffness in his posture. Of course he had every right to be frustrated. Red Hood had remained elusive for weeks while continuing his nightly executions unchecked, and there was likely an even deeper irritation festering beneath the surface.
Jason Todd, the son he had personally trained, had managed to disappear into Gotham's shadows while carrying out his own bloody crusade right beneath Batman's nose.
There had been moments where they came close. A glimpse across rooftops, a fleeting sight during a firefight, the roar of a motorcycle vanishing into Gotham's endless maze of streets. Each time they gave chase, Red Hood slipped through their grasp with infuriating ease. The bastard was more slippery than an eel dropped into a soap bath, always staying just far enough ahead to avoid capture while making sure they knew he had been there.
"What troubles you, father?" Damian finally asked, though he already knew the answer long before the words left his mouth. Still, hearing Batman speak his thoughts aloud carried value of its own. One could never fully understand what truly went on inside the mind of Bruce Wayne.
No… not Bruce Wayne.
Batman.
Because Batman was the real man beneath the mask, while Bruce Wayne had always been the disguise.
"It's Jason," Batman finally began, his voice came out low and heavy beneath the quiet hum of the Batcave. "He took everything I taught him—the morals, the values, the principles I tried to instill in him—and threw it back in my face." His eyes remained fixed on the glowing monitors ahead, though the frustration behind them was impossible to miss.
He wasn't simply speaking about Jason's violence, but the complete abandonment of the line Batman had spent years drilling into all of them. The needless brutality, the spontaneous executions, the complete disregard for due process or even the possibility of rehabilitation. Jason no longer bothered handing criminals over to the GCPD to disappear behind iron bars. He had chosen finality instead.
"Playing judge, jury, and executioner is something I made sure none of you would ever become." His gaze shifted briefly as another news report flashed across the screen, displaying a growing list of criminals suspected to have been killed by Red Hood within the past two weeks. The names scrolled endlessly like an obituary for Gotham's underworld. Batman's expression darkened slightly before he added in a quieter tone, "Or at least… I tried to."
The words lingered heavier than intended. Beneath the frustration was something Damian recognized immediately: guilt. Jason may have become Batman's greatest failure in his own eyes, but Bruce clearly blamed himself just as much for what Jason had turned into. Perhaps more.
"Your method is flawed, father," Damian said after a brief silence, his tone calm but unwavering. The moment the words left his mouth, Bruce's eyes drifted away from the monitors and settled on him fully, waiting in silence for Damian to continue.
There was no interruption, no immediate reprimand—only that familiar stare Batman used whenever he was carefully dissecting every word being spoken to him. Somewhere deep beneath the surface, Bruce likely already sensed where this conversation was heading, and perhaps even feared Jason's ideology was beginning to take root in Damian as well.
"You incapacitate them. You imprison them. And you continue hoping they will somehow change and abandon the lives they've chosen." Damian pushed himself away from the console as he spoke, slowly pacing forward while Batman listened in silence.
"And yet they always return." His voice remained steady, but there was a sharp conviction behind every word. "Again and again, history repeats itself. The same criminals escape, the same bodies pile up, and the same cycle continues as though Gotham itself refuses to learn."
He paused briefly, his expression tightening just slightly as his gaze sharpened.
"If that is not naivety, then I do not know what is."
The air in the Batcave seemed to grow heavier with each passing second. Damian stepped closer in a manner that didn't come off as aggressive, but with the quiet pressure of someone forcing another person to confront an uncomfortable truth they had spent years avoiding.
"How many times did the clown escape?" he asked bluntly. "How many times have the others within your rogues gallery broken free and continued killing?" His eyes never left Bruce's. "How many graves have been filled because of your mercy?"
"You call it justice by handing them over to the police despite knowing they are completely unwilling to change," Damian said, his voice steady yet edged with restrained frustration. "I call it delaying the inevitable." His arms folded tighter across his chest as he continued. "Every time you let them live, you gamble with the lives of future victims. And eventually, innocent people end up paying the price for that mercy."
The words settled heavily within the Batcave before Bruce finally turned fully toward him. His brows tightened into a deep furrow, the exhaustion in his expression mixing with something sterner.
"Are you siding with your brother?" Batman asked quietly. "The same brother who has become a psychotic killer?"
Damian met his father's narrowed gaze without retreating, though the tension behind his composure was impossible to ignore. This wasn't simple defiance or rebelliousness speaking anymore. These were thoughts that had been festering within him for days, growing louder with every new body Red Hood left behind and every visible decrease in criminal activity across Gotham's streets.
He needed to say them aloud. Needed to challenge Bruce directly because a part of him desperately wanted his father to prove Jason wrong. Intellectually, Damian could understand the logic behind Jason's methods with uncomfortable clarity. Emotionally, however, he resisted it because accepting Jason's ideology felt dangerously close to rejecting everything Bruce had spent years trying to teach him.
"Jason has been targeting known figures responsible for spearheading crime throughout this city," Damian replied after a brief pause.
"Crime lords. Murderers. The kind of criminals bold enough to continue operating because the worst consequence they expect is imprisonment." His gaze lowered slightly as he spoke, unable to maintain eye contact for long whenever his words leaned toward defending Jason's actions. "Most of them only fear you enough to avoid pain and capture by you or the police. That's all."
He exhaled quietly before continuing.
"But with Red Hood breathing down their necks…" Damian's tone hardened slightly. "Now they understand that survival itself is the best outcome they can hope for. Being arrested has become preferable because Jason has consistently shown that he is willing to permanently eliminate those he believes deserve death."
This time, Damian forced himself to raise his eyes again and meet Bruce's stare directly.
Bruce remained silent for a moment. Despite the dangerous direction of the conversation, Bruce refused to respond with anger. Perhaps he was too exhausted, too mentally worn down by weeks of chasing Red Hood through Gotham's shadows to lash out the way he normally might have. Instead, he let out a long sigh and rubbed at his temples, the gesture betraying just how much strain he had been carrying beneath the cowl.
"I thought we had already moved past this," Bruce finally said, his voice came out quieter than before, though no less firm. "It is not our place to decide who deserves a second chance and who doesn't." His eyes settled heavily on Damian as he continued. "The moment we start making those choices, we stop being better than the people we fight."
"What Jason is doing is creating even more chaos while claiming to clean up this city," Bruce said, his voice carrying a restrained frustration beneath its calm surface. "And at the rate he's going, there's no telling where he stops. If he believes killing half the city is necessary to achieve his version of order, then I fear he may eventually convince himself it's justified."
Even as he spoke, Bruce tried to look at the situation through Damian's perspective rather than simply dismissing him outright. Damian was not like Dick. Nor was he like Jason. From the moment the boy could walk, he had likely been taught how to kill before he ever learned what it meant to simply live as a child.
The League of Assassins had shaped him from birth into a weapon meant to inherit Ra's al Ghul's legacy. Violence, pragmatism, and lethal efficiency had been woven into Damian's thinking long before Bruce had entered his life. In many ways, it was inevitable that Damian would struggle with concepts like mercy and rehabilitation when his earliest understanding of justice had always revolved around execution.
That was precisely why Bruce had spent years trying to approach Damian differently than he had with Dick or Jason. He had made mistakes with both of them—mistakes that still haunted him—and he refused to repeat them again. Bruce wanted Damian to become better than all of them, including himself.
One day, Damian would inherit the mantle, the symbol, and everything Batman stood for. Bruce needed him to understand why that line mattered before the weight of Gotham hardened him beyond saving.
"Jason's methods are chaotic," Damian admitted after a brief pause, "but Gotham itself is chaos." His tone remained calm, though there was a dangerous certainty behind his words. "In a city like this, I would argue his methods are the most efficient." He unfolded his arms and straightened slightly as he continued.
"These people only understand consequences when those consequences truly terrify them. Red Hood has forced Gotham's criminals to realize that continuing a life of crime may actually lead to their deaths if they cross his path." A faint edge entered his voice. "He has become Gotham's janitor—taking out the trash instead of endlessly throwing it into recycling and waiting for it to return."
Bruce said nothing immediately, but he could not entirely deny the uncomfortable logic hidden within Damian's argument. Worse still, there had once been a time—long ago, buried beneath years of discipline and restraint—when Bruce himself had entertained thoughts disturbingly similar to the ones Damian now voiced aloud.
"You trained me to recognize patterns," Damian continued, his gaze narrowed slightly as he held his father's stare. "This is one."
The words struck deeper than Damian likely intended. Bruce knew this path was wrong. He knew where it ultimately led because he had spent decades fighting against becoming that exact kind of man. Yet hearing Damian speak with such cold reasoning forced an ugly thought into the back of his mind—one he hated himself for even considering.
Had he wasted decades trying to do things the right way?
Had his refusal to cross the line truly changed Gotham… or merely preserved the endless cycle it remained trapped within?
"If the objective is a safer Gotham," Damian finally said, his voice quieter this time around but no less firm, "then Jason's approach is producing results." He let the statement settle heavily between them before adding, "Yours only sustains the cycle."
Silence filled the Batcave afterward as Damian waited to hear what Bruce would say in response.
"Don't you think that thought crosses my mind every single night for the past decades?" Bruce's voice rose enough to almost sound like a scolding, though it lacked true anger. Beneath the cognoscente was exhaustion. Conflict. One that stemmed from a man who had wrestled with the same question for years and still had not found peace with the answer.
"Yes, crime rates are dropping," he admitted, his tone lowering slightly as he gestured toward the glowing monitors displaying Gotham's latest reports. "But fear has reached an all-time high. This city is tense, unstable, and ready to snap at any moment. When people start believing death can come for them without warning, there's no telling what kind of chaos follows after that."
Bruce turned fully toward Damian now, his expression hardening—not out of cruelty, but out of concern. Genuine concern.
"I do not want you embracing that ideology," he said firmly. "Because the moment you cross that line and start deciding who lives and who dies, you become no different from a murderer." His voice carried the weight of years behind it, of lessons carved through pain, regret, and endless nights spent questioning himself.
"No matter the justification. No matter the circumstances. Unless you are acting under military authority in war, taking another person's life is still murder."
Damian remained silent as Bruce continued, the older man speaking less like Batman now and more like a father desperately trying to keep his son from walking down the same road Jason had taken.
"To the public—at least those capable of looking at this objectively—Red Hood is a serial killer." Bruce's jaw tightened slightly around the words, as though even saying them aloud pained him.
"The fact that his victims are criminals does not suddenly make execution acceptable. He has no legal authority to enforce death as punishment." His gaze sharpened as he added, "That responsibility belongs to the justice system. You let the law do its job instead of taking it upon yourself to decide whose life has value and whose doesn't."
The Batcave fell quiet afterward.
Bruce said nothing more, allowing his words to settle heavily between them. Damian stood motionless, neither agreeing nor openly disagreeing. His expression remained composed, but his silence alone revealed the storm brewing beneath the surface.
After a long moment, Bruce let out a tired sigh before turning away from the console and beginning to walk toward the cave's exit, leaving Damian alone with his thoughts and the endless glow of the monitors.
Damian remained where he stood, staring at nothing in particular as Bruce's words echoed inside his head.
He did not want Jason's methods to be the correct answer.
Yes, they were effective. Yes, they produced results Gotham had not seen in years. But effectiveness alone should not determine what was right. It shouldn't work that way.
Because if Jason was right…
Then Bruce was wrong.
And if Bruce was wrong, then everything Damian had been trying to become—everything Batman stood for, everything Damian had struggled to believe in despite his upbringing—began to crack apart at the foundation.
That was the part that unsettled him most.
For something so undeniably wrong… why did it feel so terrifyingly right?
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Ptrn/Da_suprememaverick