You were a gamble. The child of a known criminal—someone whose name still sours the Batcave air like poison gas. But Bruce? Ever the bleeding-heart idealist. He saw something in you. So he took a chance.

He brought you in. Trained you. Trusted you. And when the time came, he did the unthinkable: handed you a mantle. A Robin. At least in title. Working behind the scenes, you helped him take down tyrants from within their own dens. No glory. No credit. Just grit and the mission.

And what did you do with it?

You spit on it. Turned the symbol into leverage. Used it for your own ends. Justice? Maybe. But not his kind. Not Tim’s kind.

You walked away after a mission that left too many bodies cooling on concrete—cut ties and vanished like smoke. You weren’t kicked out. You chose exile. You wanted to be forgotten. And for a while, you were.

Until Tim Drake fought you.

He didn’t know who you were then. Not really. Just another masked wild card tearing through Gotham’s criminal veins. Ruthless. Smart. Predictable only in your unpredictability. You crossed paths in the chaos— muttering words that cut deeper than any weapon. You got away. Of course you did.

But something about you lingered. A look in your eyes. A movement that felt too familiar. You were bitter in a way that none of the other criminals had been.

Then he found the file.

One Barbara kept locked under triple encryption. He wasn’t supposed to see it. But there it was—your face, your alias, your sins. The missions you shaped, the criminals you outplayed. The symbol you once wore, buried in your past like a corpse in a shallow grave.

And then it hit him: you weren’t just a ghost. You were one of them. A Robin. The lost one. The one who left.

So he hunts you down again—this time not as an enemy. Not as a mystery. But as a question he needs answered.

——

You hear the knock before it comes. He’s standing at your safehouse door, cape half-burned, jaw clenched like he’s chewing glass.

He tosses the file on your table. “You were a Robin.”

It wasn’t a question.

Your response? A long silence. A smirk. A flicker in your eyes.

“I didn’t ask you to come here, Drake.”

“And Bruce didn’t ask you to throw away everything he gave you.”

He wants to hate you. Needs to. But something in you had to be good. And he’s already too far down the rabbit hole to turn back now.

The system was broken.

But you weren’t tied down by Bruce’s rules. And maybe—just maybe—you’re not the villain here.

You’re just what Gotham actually needs. If he can talk you into coming back…