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Robin knows, when the Justice League ties him to a chair and brings out the Martian, that he deserves it.
He deserves to be hurt, because he watched his parents fall and did nothing.
He deserves to be hurt, because he hurt people, and that’s how it works.
(He knew, a long time ago, that it wasn’t his fault. But that was washed away, along with his memories of laughter and light and soft touches. All he had left was Robin, which was more curse than blessing. How could he be Robin without his mother? Without the things that made him Dick Grayson? Robin was meant to be light, to be magic. But it’s been a long time since Robin was either of those.)
Robin desperately doesn’t want a telepath in his head. But the Justice League is mad at him. That’s not new: he’s been in their custody for a little under a month, now, and he knows that they are disappointed in the amount of information he’s been able to give them. Or, more accurately, the lack thereof.
This is a punishment, plain and simple. Robin doesn’t need to be punished, he’s being good, telling them everything he knows. But they think he’s lying to them.
He knows better than to lie.
Batman beat that out of him a long time ago.
J’onn doesn’t necessarily like digging information out of their enemies. But they’ve given Robin enough chances and, if they want any chance of stopping Batman, they need the intel he’s keeping from them.
The boy is bound to a chair. J’onn wishes they had been able to use the Lasso of Truth, but that only makes people answer the questions you ask. Batman would have trained the boy on the art of evasion, carefully giving him truths to tell that were not the complete truth.
Robin’s eyes widen as J’onn approaches. He flinches back, but it doesn't stop J’onn from gently touching his fingers to the boy’s forehead.
The first thing J’onn sees inside of Robin’s mind is, well, Robin.
Robin as a child. Robin is standing in front of him is this blurry non-place, smile wide. He’s wearing the Robin colors — but instead of skimpy booty shorts, his outfit looks like a leotard.
“Hello!” Tiny Robin says.
J’onn tries to walk past Robin. The boy moves to block his path.
“You don’t want to do that,” Robin says, bright smile wavering. “It’s better out here.”
There are two structures in the whiteness: a manor and a circus tent.
“You should go to the tent,” young Robin says. “You can meet my elephant. Her name’s Zitka.” The kid pauses, lips pursed. “Well, she’s not really mine, but everyone knows she likes me best.”
“I’m afraid I cannot,” J’onn says. He’s navigated through many psyches before, and he’s fully aware that the place his answers will be found is always unfortunately the last place his host wants him.
“Okay,” the child says. His smile is gone, face far too serious. “You’re not welcome in the tent afterwards. Only good things are allowed there.”
With his warning given, young Robin turns on his heels and retreats to the red-and-white tent, disappearing inside. Without the child, the empty expanse seems even more foreboding.
Alone, J’onn walks towards the manor looming in the distance.
The manor is… unsettling. The air is still and quiet, but closer to the quiet of a tomb than that of a library. The gothic architecture seems to twist in the darkness, shadows stretching and writhing.
The first sign of life in the manor is the same boy as before, except not. He’s pale and thin, almost wraithlike.
He catches a glimpse of J’onn and runs down the long dark hallway. J’onn chases after him and the boy slips through a heavy wooden door. J’onn plunges in after him.
There are three people in this room. The boy is still here, but he’s not looking at J’onn anymore. Instead, his gaze is glued to the forms on the ground. Blood spreads on the ground beneath the bodies, staining the boy’s knees and hands.
A scream rises from the boy on the floor. His bright leotard is coated with blood that dries rapidly from red to brown. The boy reaches forward to touch the woman’s face but a dark shadow falls behind him.
The man — Batman, Bruce Wayne — pulls Robin up. He puts him in something like a fireman’s carry as the boy thrashes and screams, the kicks of his thin legs doing nothing against his kidnapper’s bulk. He goes to the door at the end of the room.
J’onn follows.
This Robin is a little older, eyes a little emptier. He’s shirtless, and J’onn sucks in his breath at the stripes that mar his back. They’re so fresh — J’onn’s willing to bet they’d be hot to the touch.
The boy’s hair has grown out a little. The ends fall into his eyes.
“Let’s try this again,” Batman says. His voice is cold, even.
A slight shudder runs through Robin’s body.
There is a man in front of Batman and Robin. He seems more wound than flesh, though J’onn thinks he recognizes him from the League’s files. One of Batman and Robin’s victim’s.
Batman hands Robin a knife.
The boy’s expression is absent of emotion, his jaw set — but there’s a tremble to his hands. J’onn knows Batman noticed. He’s sure Robin knew too.
J’onn looks away when Robin brings the knife down. This isn’t anything they didn’t know already, anyway. No need to watch.
This time J’onn leaves the room alone, instead of following after Batman or Robin. The room he enters has a much more familiar Robin, the teenager strapping knives to his body with swift, steady hands.
Finally, J’onn thinks. No matter what Robin is now, he was a child in those memories. It made J’onn sick to watch them — he had children, once. Human children and Martian children are not too different.
But that doesn’t matter now. J’onn is here to collect the information that Robin is keeping from them. The plans, the codes, the weaknesses.
He waits for Robin to log into the giant computer, to punch in a password and access the files.
But he doesn’t.
J’onn leaves the room, enters another. Batman giving Robin instructions.
Another. Robin sneaking a glance at the computer and Batman smacking him to the ground.
J’onn goes through doors and doors. Robin is never given access to the computer. Never told more than the bare minimum.
J’onn has seen enough. There’s nothing to be gained from making Robin relive any more of this — even after a decade of tutelage or captivity or whatever you want to call it, Robin was not kept in Batman’s confidence. He doesn’t know anything the Justice League could use.
It takes a second after J’onn leaves Robin’s mind for him to notice the state of the teenager. Robin’s eyes are blown wide. He’s shuddering in the restraints, silent tears dripping down his face.
He’s breathing far too quickly.
Diana is trying to get him to breathe in time with her, but every time she speaks he just hyperventilates faster.
“Untie him,” J’onn orders, horrified.
Diana only hesitates a moment before cutting the ropes.
Robin flinches back, almost toppling the chair. J’onn reaches out to steady him and Robin tenses, shaking so badly that J’onn can feel it just with the light touch on his arm.
“We’re not going to hurt you,” J’onn assures him.
The boy just stares at him, looking just as scared as he did when he was eight-years-old and his parents were dead on the ground.
If J'onn were to go back into Robin’s head now — not that he would, after what he saw — Robin would be thinking that they don’t have to pretend. That he knows this is what he deserves.