Chapter Text
Amy’s just watering her plants on the windowsill before bed, frowning at her zebra plant - it’s turning kinda reddish-brown around the edges and she can’t figure out why, she’s not really a plant person, but she moved to Gotham from Metropolis recently and the landlord told her she’s right on the edge of Poison Ivy’s territory so she figured she should try and make a good impression, or something? Who knows, she’s trying to try new things, these days - when she hears a knock at her window.
She frowns, looks up - and immediately freezes. Is that-?
There’s someone braced on the wall of her building, somehow hanging off the edge of it with one hand knocking a gun against her window pane. He’s got a - frankly atrocious - bright red motorcycle helmet on, beat-up brown leather jacket over black and grey body armor, holsters strapped down his thighs and across his chest.
Amy stares at him. Jesus Christ, is this one of those Gotham vigilantes she keeps hearing about? Is this how she dies? God, what did she even do she was just watering her plants-
He knocks again, motions with the pistol for her to open her window. Amy’s eyes dart down to the big red bat symbol splashed over his chest, then back to where his eyes would be, and she shakes her head violently.
He tilts his head - Amy can’t see his face, but she gets the sense he’s frowning - and motions again.
“Hell no,” Amy says vehemently. Still shaking her head, she takes a step back. The watering can in her hands, apparently still pouring, spills water all over the counter and she fumbles to set it down. Aw shit, her poor zebra plant- “No, nuh-uh. Go away.”
The vigilante’s shoulders shake, like he’s laughing, and he motions again, insistent this time. Amy gets the vibe he’s not going away until she opens the window.
Dread pooling in her stomach, she leans forward and unlocks it, staggers back to rest against her stovetop. It’s the furthest she can get from him in this little kitchen.
The man stares at the bottom of the window for a moment, then reaches and slides it up. It jams a little ways from the top, and he grunts as he shoves his shoulder into it to force it the rest of the way. The sound comes out mechanized, like he has a voice modulator in that helmet. Amy notices, finally, that he’s hanging by a grapple line attached to her roof. A million things run through her head at once, but one of the most prevalent is her marveling at how much strength that must take - he makes it look effortless .
He ducks in through the window, plants one foot on the window sill and detaches his grapple line so he can settle on that one heel. The other leg hangs out the window so he’s half in and half out, foot presumably pressing against the wall for stability.
A shiver of fear runs down Amy’s spine. The guy’s a lot bigger now that she actually takes a look at him - big hulking shoulders, straining against the leather of his jacket. He gives off the impression of being coiled like a snake - lethal, powerful, ready to strike - even though he looks as relaxed as can be sitting there in her window.
He tilts his head at her and says, “Hey-”, drawling in that accent she’s quickly come to realize originates from Gotham’s Crime Alley, “I just saw you watering your plants, and I-“
“What the hell!” Amy half-yells, voice shaking, hand fumbling for one of her kitchen knives. “Is happening! Who are you! Why are you here!”
He holds up his hands in surrender, the effect a bit thrown off by the gun still in his right hand. “Relax-”
“You’re pointing a gun at me!” She shrieks.
He looks down at his hand like he’s surprised. “What? Oh.” He holsters it in the empty holster strapped across his belly and waves a hand flippantly. “I wouldn’t say it was pointed at you, but-”
“Flagging,” Amy points out, then shakes her head and holds up a hand. “Fucking- doesn’t matter. Literally who the fuck are you?”
He tilts his head at her. It feels oddly contemplative. “Are you new? You must be new. I’m Red Hood, the Alley’s my territory. You’re kind of in this weird no man’s land between me and Ivy, we’re working on it. Actually, that’s why I stopped by- she’s got this thing about plants, and your zebra’s looking a little-” he wavers a hand in the air. “Y’know.”
Amy stares at him. “What-”
“It’s in too much direct sunlight,” he says, cutting her off. He picks the plant up, points at the strange coloring. “See how it’s mostly just on one side of the plant? That’s because you’ve got it in the southern windowsill, and we’ve been getting a weird amount of sunlight lately - Batman helped out Weather Wizard with something, I didn’t get the full story, but now he’s forcing sunshine on us, ugh - so it’s drying out the leaves.”
Hood leans further into her kitchen, putting one beat-up brown combat boot on her counter so he can set her zebra plant down in the shade of her coffee maker. He drags gloved fingers over the leaves - Amy would almost call it a fond gesture, if she didn’t know any better.
“There you go,” he says, turning to - smile? - at her. He folds gracefully - much too gracefully, for someone so big - back into his crouch on her windowsill and cocks his head, stares at her unnervingly. “Ivy doesn’t like it when plants aren’t well cared for. I thought I’d save us all the trouble. You really are new, aren’t you?”
“…just moved from Metropolis,” Amy explains belatedly, staring at him in blatant confusion. “And I’m… trying my best.”
“Didn’t say you weren’t,” Red Hood murmurs. If it weren’t for that voice modulator, Amy thinks it would sound almost… gentle.
They stare at each other.
Red Hood inhales sharply, a mechanized hiss like a bus lowering itself to the sidewalk, and nods behind her. “Baking something?”
“Oh, uh- yeah,” Amy mumbles. She manages to drag her eyes away from him for a second to check the timer on her oven. It goes off just as she does, and she startles - head whipping back to look at Red Hood nervously.
He waves a hand in a universal as you were gesture. Amy listens to the timer beep twice, long and grating, chewing on the inside of her lip, before she gives up and turns to hit the off button.
“Do I get to know?” He asks. It’s soft, in a way.
“Um- cinnamon rolls,” she mumbles, shoulders tensing as she turns her back to the vigilante sitting in her window to open the oven. Her hands shake as she pulls on her oven mitts - cerulean blue, patterned with little red and yellow Superman symbols, a gift from her best friend before she’d moved away - and she digs the sizzling dish out of the oven and sets it on her stove atop a cooling mat.
Red Hood huffs a laugh. “I like your oven mitts. Big Blue’s my favorite.”
“Not the Batman?” Amy asks, a touch surprised. She stares down at her cinnamon rolls for a second, debating, before she thinks oh my god what am I doing and pulls two plates out of the cabinet.
Red Hood chuckles darkly. “Not these days.”
Amy hums, dishing cinnamon rolls. She spreads cream cheese frosting with a spoon. “Sounds like there’s a story there.”
She holds out the frosting spoon to him and cocks an eyebrow.
He considers it for a long moment, then slowly reaches for his helmet and releases it with a soft hiss of air. Amy’s breath catches in her throat - she doesn’t know what else she was expecting, honestly, but it wasn’t that - and she turns her face away because she knows how anal these vigilante types get about their secret identities.
“Oh, you’re really new,” he says, amused. Amy’s heart flutters because he sounds so damn young - “It’s okay, you can look. I’ve got a mask on.”
The spoon is taken from her fingers and she flicks her gaze at him hesitantly, takes in the sweaty black curls and the simple red domino over his eyes and brows and upper cheeks, the stubble on his jaw but the glaringly obvious haunt of youth around his temples and hairline. He sticks the spoon in his mouth and hums, appreciative.
“Good,” he says, sounding a touch surprised. Amy tries not to feel offended. He hands the spoon back, clean, nodding. “Yeah, real good.”
“Do you-” she gnaws at her lip a bit more, wonders what decisions she made to get here. He lifts an eyebrow at her, waiting, and she blows out a breath for courage and asks, “Do you want to come in? Just- into the kitchen. For… cinnamon rolls.”
“Depends,” he says, and jerks his chin at the kitchen knife she picked back up somewhere along the way. A grin curls over his lips. “You gonna stab me?”
“I mean, I won’t promise not to,” Amy says, but she does slot the knife back in its block. She points a finger at him, trying for stern, hoping it’s not thrown off by the way her hand is still shaking. “But you have to stay cool, okay? This is my kitchen - no violence allowed.”
Hood holds his hands up in surrender, ducking his head. “Cross my heart, Ms-”
“Amy,” she mumbles. She steps back to give him some room, pressing herself back against her stove. It feels safe, the knife block within easy reach, and she curls her shaking fingers hard around the warm edge of the oven.
Hood tuts as he climbs in through her window, deftly avoiding the appliances littering her kitchen counters. He ends up leaning back against the opposite counter, legs crossed at the ankles, not even two feet away from her. He looks so strange, so out of place, standing in her homey little kitchen, stooped and curled in on himself like he’s trying to make himself smaller - for himself or for her, she’s not sure.
“Pro tip,” he says, taking the cinnamon roll on a plate she hands over. “Don’t tell Gotham crime bosses your real name. Or invite them into your apartment for cinnamon rolls - or at all, really.”
“Crime boss,” she repeats, lifting one eyebrow. She digs at her cinnamon roll with a fork, watches with amusement curling in her gut when Hood ignores the utensil entirely and just brutalizes the desert with his gloved hands. Crime boss, her ass.
“Mm,” Hood says through his chewing, a smear of cream cheese on the corner of his lip. He licks his lips, pink tongue darting out, and, man, if Amy was ten years younger and a smidgen less sane- “I run a gang in Crime Alley. God, this is fantastic .”
Amy bites her lip to hold back a laugh. “Yeah, you’re real scary.”
He touches a cinnamon-covered hand to his chest, lips quirking sarcastically. It leaves a little dimple of cream cheese on the bat splashed across his chest but he doesn’t seem to notice. “I’m touched, Ms. Amy.”
Amy smiles at him. “I don’t know anything about you, Hood, but I’m glad someone’s looking out for my plants.”
He clears his throat, suddenly not wanting to meet her eyes. “Anytime.”
Hood finishes his cinnamon roll first and diligently washes his plate in the sink, shoulders tense but hands gentle and sure.
“Um…” he says, fingers tapping against the counter. Amy still can’t see his eyes, of course, but she can tell he’s looking anywhere but at her. He clears his throat - sheepish, of all things - and puts his helmet back on. His voice comes out mechanized again when he says, “Thanks. For the… yeah.”
Amy cocks her head at him, smiles. “Thanks for the plant tips.”
“Anytime,” he says again, then pauses just before ducking out. "Hey. This city- it can get to you, yeah? Be careful. And... utilize the city's resources - sign up for Wayne Insurance when you get a chance."
"I can take care of myself, Mr. Hood."
"Yeah," he says - low, wistful, sad, "Just- watch your back, okay? Good people, they... get lost, here."
Amy's eyes narrow. "Is that a threat?"
He seems to smile, shark-like, and says, "Now you're thinking like a Gothamite."
A beat, then, "You know what? Never mind. You'll figure it out", and then he’s crawling out the window and swinging off into the night.
Amy wheezes as soon as he's gone, all of the pent-up tension exiting her body at once. She sinks to the floor and puts her head in her hands, nearly hyperventilating.
“Oh my god,” she mutters, shoving her head down between her knees. Her hands are tingling. “Oh my god. That did not just happen.”
Once she can breathe again, Amy goes to her computer and searches up Red Hood . News articles pop up of heads in duffle bags, killing sprees that fizzled out as the years went on, rules about not dealing to minors and a sudden decrease in crime stats in Crime Alley after he first showed up.
“Yeah,” Amy mutters, clicking on a picture of the Red Hood kneeling in front of a small child, holding out a lollipop. “Real scary.”
She goes to bed and tries to put the whole thing behind her.
About a week later, she opens up her kitchen window to listen to the rain that’s finally started to fall after the week of continuous sunshine.
It opens with ease, sliding like butter.
“Huh,” Amy mutters to herself. She tests it a couple times, slides it open and closed, and it does so obediently without even a screech of complaint. “What-?”
She sticks her head out the window, looking for - something, she doesn’t know what - and her jaw drops when she sees the large, crimson red bat spray painted on the brick walls of her building, right between her kitchen and living room windows.
Stay away, it warns - a threat to anyone who sees it. This is Hood’s territory.
Amy smiles, ducks back into her kitchen.
“Hm,” she thinks, looking at her zebra plant. It’s doing better, these days - losing that red tinge around the edges. She smiles at it.
She makes a little tradition, from then on - when the weather station predicts that rare bout of Gotham sunshine, she makes cinnamon rolls and leaves one on a plate in her unlocked kitchen window before she heads to bed.
It’s always gone when she wakes up, plate washed and drying in the rack.