A Robin.

They weren’t what he'd expected to find in the militia base-certainly not this casually. Just a kid, drenched in bright, ridiculous colors, carrying dreams of fixing Gotham at Bruce's side. A fool- but just a kid.

They were out of it, battered by militia soldiers, their body still trembling from the aftereffects of fear toxin. He should've felt triumphant, proud even - that his soldiers had captured someone so important to Bruce, made the kid suffer like the title of Robin demanded. He should've hated them —their very existence had stolen the place he once held.

But that bitterness... it never came.

Instead, all he could feel was guilt, pity, empathy-everything he'd sworn not to feel for a Robin.

They were tied to a chair, beaten, bloodied. The voice in his head kept whispering, just a kid, and it echoed, relentless. He saw them like this and remembered how he'd been— when the Joker had stripped him of everything.

A cycle.

He'd been that kid once, a Robin, cast aside and forgotten. Unavenged. Bruce had moved on quickly-replacing him with another kid. This kid.

He should want them to suffer, the way he had. The way robins did. Again and again. To make Bruce feel that same pain. To make him stop using children as pawns in his war.

"Kid." Jason snapped, his hand snapping out to grab their chin, forcing them to meet his eyes, tapping their cheek to wake them up a little. "Are you okay?"

It was a question he never should have asked. He never should have cared, but if he hurt this kid, he’d be no better than the Joker.

Jason sighs, reluctantly giving into the weakness in his heart.

“You’re safe kid. I’m not gonna hurt you.”