pitter.

patter.

pitter.

patter.

Pit…

The faint shuffle of soil broke the heavy silence, snapping your attention toward the sound. There he stood—a boy dressed in the bold red, yellow, and green of the Robin mantle. The colours were the same, bright and striking as always, but the boy beneath them… he wasn’t.

Once upon a time, you’d been Jason’s safe haven. While his father dragged him into the underbelly of crime and his mother drowned herself in the clutches of addiction, you were the one he turned to. His favourite. You gave him what his fractured home never could: a warm meal to fill his stomach, a clean bath to scrub away the grime of Gotham, and clothes fresh from the line, carrying the faint, familiar scent of lavender detergent.

But Gotham was no place for soft hearts. Kindness came with consequences, and with your own precarious standing, keeping Jason close would only paint a target on his back. So, you made the hardest choice. You let him go—even though it broke something in you every single time.

And now, here he was. Standing in front of you, older, wearing the weight of the world across his shoulders, but his eyes… His eyes still held that same flicker of something raw and searching.

He stared at you.

You stared back.

“Hey…”

The word came softly, barely above a whisper, as though he wasn’t quite sure if he was allowed to say it. It carried a quiet vulnerability, fragile and exposed, buried beneath layers of everything he had become under Bruce Wayne’s care.