𝐖𝐡𝐲 𝐃𝐨 𝐖𝐞 𝐅𝐚𝐥𝐥?

𝐬𝐢𝐱.

━━━━━━ ⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅ ━━━━━━

━━━━━━ ⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅ ━━━━━━

PARK ROW WAS ONLY CALLED SUCH BY THE PRIM AND PROPER. Most just referred to it as Crime Alley. Penny found out very quickly that it was not called that for no reason. Her first night, spent in the abandoned tailoring shop, was filled with the sound of gunshots and screams. When asking Barbara why the great Batman did not help, she was informed that even the Dark Knight had given up hope for Crime Alley.

Red Hood was Park Row's designated vigilante, but his solutions were simply more violence. Penny had planned to stay out of it. To not intervene.

That all changed when she was walking home from school one night and a hand slapped down on her forearm. She was dragged into an alleyway and slammed against the wall. Three men surrounded her, two of them aiming guns at her head. Penny could smell the alcohol on their breaths as well as hear their irrational heartbeats. Her spidey-sense was going haywire.

"Where do you think you're going, little girl?" The man holding her against the wall interrogated. Penny recoiled as his face got entirely too close to hers.

"Well, I was planning on going home." She responded with a glare. The man seemed shocked at her blatant disrespect, but could not prevent the laughter that bubbled from his mouth.

"Brave, huh?" He asked. "I hate to be the one to break it to you, kid, but Batman ain't gonna be here to save you."

"I don't need him." Penny snarled before head-butting the man square in the face. He stumbled backwards, blood gushing from his now broken nose. Before one of the two men holding the gun could fire a shot the vigilante with the red helmet dropped down from the roof above. The weapon's aims were now on him. Red Hood was prepared to take on both men, but before he could Penny leaped onto the back of one of the attackers and pulled him to the ground. His weapon was sent flying to the side. Swiftly, Penny knocked him out. It was an out-of-character action for her, but it was the only solution at the moment. With Red Hood so close and with no mask to protect her identity she could not risk webbing the men to the walls.

Suddenly, a gunshot rang out and the man Red Hood was fighting was lying on the floor with a bullet in his brain. When the vigilante turned to Penny she stumbled backward, unaware if he would deem her a threat or not.

"Are you alright?" He asked, his voice muffled slightly by his helmet.

"What did you just do?" Penny questioned, mortified. She and guns never got along, ever since the death of Uncle Ben she was terrified of them and what they could do. Red Hood was confused at her question, looking between the dead man and her.

"Dealt with him." He responded grimly.

"And you couldn't have just knocked him out? You had to kill him?" Penny interrogated.