Chapter Text
Before.
The streets of Gotham always smelled faintly of smoke. Even in the quieter neighbourhoods, the tang of burnt rubber and gasoline clung to the air, the city’s own signature. Duke Thomas didn’t notice the stink tonight. He was too busy swinging his mother’s hand back and forth like a pendulum, each swing lifting him off the ground for half a step before his sneakers scuffed the pavement again.
His stepfather, Doug Thomas, chuckled at the sight. “You’ll tire her arm out, Duke.”
Elaine Thomas only smiled down at her son, adjusting the grocery bag she carried in her other hand. “He’s fine. Let him burn off some energy.”
It was late, but not too late. The kind of evening where shopfronts still glowed and laughter carried faintly from open windows. Duke liked these nights. Gotham felt softer when the lights were warm and the shadows weren’t so sharp. For once, he wasn’t afraid. His parents were on either side of him, and that was all he needed.
Then the shouting started.
Half a block up, a man in a torn jacket shoved another against the brick wall, yanking at his wallet. The victim cried out, someone else screamed, and the sound cracked through the night like glass.
Elaine froze. Her arm tightened around Duke, pulling him back against her hip. “Don’t look,” she murmured, though her own eyes stayed locked on the scuffle.
But Duke always looked.
The mugger raised his knife, the blade catching the glow of a streetlamp. Duke’s stomach flipped. Doug shifted his weight, like he wanted to step forward but knew better. That was when it happened—a blur of red and yellow and green dropping from the fire escape above.
The figure hit the pavement hard enough to rattle the loose grate nearby. Cape flaring, boots planted, fists clenched.
Robin.
He was smaller than Duke expected. A boy, not a man, maybe not even a teen. Not Batman, but something sharper, more reckless. He didn’t hesitate. He darted forward with all elbows and knees, the kind of fighting that looked like a schoolyard brawl but landed with the force of something trained.
The mugger swore, lashed out, but Robin caught the man’s wrist and twisted, sending the knife clattering onto the pavement. A kick to the ribs, a punch to the jaw, and the fight was over almost before Duke could process it. The mugger groaned on the ground, and Robin stood over him, grinning like he’d just won recess.
Duke’s mouth dropped open.
He wasn’t scared.
He wasn’t supposed to feel safe in Gotham—not in the Narrows (where they lived), not on the streets, not when crime lurked around every corner. But right now, staring at the boy in the cape, he felt something better than safe. He felt sure.
“You’re shorter than Batman,” Duke blurted.
The words sliced through the silence like a thrown knife.
Robin froze mid-step, head snapping toward him. Elaine made a horrified sound and tried to pull Duke behind her, but it was too late.
For a long, heavy moment, nothing moved. Then, to everyone’s surprise, Robin laughed. A real laugh, sharp and unguarded, like no one had made him laugh in weeks, and he strode over towards them.
Duke watched him advance with stars in his eyes.
“Shorter?” He crouched down just enough to meet Duke’s wide stare, eyes gleaming behind the mask. His tone turned mock-offended. He held up a hand to compare their height. “Kid, I’m taller than you’ll ever be.”
Duke grinned, utterly unfazed by the mask, the weapons, the cape. “Bet not.”
That earned him another laugh. Robin shook his head like he couldn’t believe it, then straightened in one smooth motion. “You got a smart mouth, you know that?”
Elaine pulled Duke another step back, her voice softening despite her nerves. “Thank you,” she told the boy in red, yellow, and green. “For stopping him.”
Robin shrugged, like saving people was just something he did every day. Which… he probably did. But his gaze lingered on Duke, the grin fading into something more thoughtful. The kid wasn’t trembling, wasn’t hiding. He was beaming, like meeting Robin had been the best part of his night.
He hadn’t expected that.
Robin gave a quick wink—a reflex, maybe—before firing a grappling line skyward. The hook caught, the rope went taut, and Robin rose in a streak of motion.
“Bye!” Duke shouted, hand lifting in an enthusiastic wave.
For half a heartbeat, it looked like Robin wouldn’t answer. Heroes didn’t wave back. That wasn’t what they did.
Then, just as he disappeared into the skyline, his hand twitched outward, a half-return of the wave.
Duke’s grin stretched wider.
Jason was smiling as the rooftops swallowed him whole.
The next time Duke met Robin came on a rainy Wednesday, almost eight months later. Duke was seven now, loose-toothed and perpetually scuffed, and the Gotham Public Library had become the place he could be the version of himself that teachers liked: quiet, focused, not asking ten questions in a row. Elaine liked it because the big room felt like a church. High ceiling, soft echoes, a correctness that floated down from the books stacked in orderly rows. Duke liked it because when he looked up, he could see the glow in the old chandelier and imagine it was the moon.
He sprawled on the kid’s carpet with his math workbook open and his pencil chewing a notch into the paper. The deal was clear: ten problems without whining, then he could pick one comic, only one, from the spinner rack by the checkout. Elaine drifted three aisles over, reading the backs of history books like they were gossip. Doug had already extracted a newspaper from its long dowel and was frowning at the crossword as if it had personally offended him.
The library smelled like paper and repair glue, and a hint of lemon from a mop that had been here before they arrived. A cart squeaked somewhere. The overhead clock ticked in patient clicks. Even the kids who forgot to whisper were slowly, gently pressed down by the hush. It was a rare space in Gotham where the noise and fear checked itself at the door.
Duke was just about to figure out where the extra three came from in problem seven when the doors banged open.
Two men stumbled in hard enough to make the brass handles shudder. They were dressed like everyone else in the neighbourhood, frayed coats, scuffed shoes, but they moved wrong, too fast and rabbit-eyed, the way people moved when they were being chased, or when they should be.
One of them clutched a black duffel. The zipper had split a tooth and hung crooked. The other was clutching a rusty crowbar with a horribly fresh-looking dark red liquid coating one end.
The room recoiled. Parents reeled children close like kite strings. Mr Castillo, the retired teacher who lived near Duke’s building, lifted a hand without standing and said, “You can’t—” only to flinch back when the taller man snapped, “Shut it.”
Ms Patel, the librarian with the always-kind eyes, moved from behind the desk as if stepping between the men and the nearest cluster of kids could make a difference.
Duke felt his heart speed up. He knew the shape of a bad moment now: the way sound thinned, the air went tight, the adults tried to make new rules out of their bodies. The smart thing was to get small behind a table. He started to, then stopped because the tall windows to his left flashed red for an instant.
He froze. He knew that colour before he knew why he knew it. Red and yellow and green and motion.
The door banged a second time, and then Robin hit the vestibule at a run.
He didn’t come in like Batman would have, all silent inevitability and shadow. Robin came like a thrown rock— loud, fast, and aimed. He shoved the door with his shoulder, cape snapping around him, and the taller man barely had time to swear before the boy was on him. Shoulder to sternum, momentum doing the work. The crowbar slipped from anxious fingers, rang against tile, and skittered beneath a table of paperback romances.
It left a trail of red on the floor.
The second man yanked the duffel in panic, pivoted for cover and chose the stacks. He tried to vanish into nonfiction. Robin didn’t even look. He planted a boot on the low railing of the mezzanine stairs, used it to vault up onto the inner balcony, and ran the rail like a balance beam. Librarians shouted, children squealed, and Duke realised he had stood up without meaning to, his workbook sliding off his knees into a fan of pages.
“Sit,” his mother hissed from the end of the row— reflex more than reprimand. Duke couldn’t. He watched, vibrating, as the man fumbled between shelves G–J, crashing into geography. An atlas hit the floor with a tragic thud, almost smacking him in the face.
Robin cut left, then right, keeping above him like a hawk shadow. When the man broke for the open space between stacks, Robin went airborne. He dropped from the balcony in a blur, knees tucked, hit the guy chest-first, and they slid together in a scattering spray of dropped pamphlets. The duffel burst open on impact. Zip ties, duct tape, a loop of thin chain, and an incredible amount of paper bills scattered across the floor.
Everything went loud at once.
Ms Patel shouted for people to stay calm. A baby cried; an older kid cried because the baby was crying. The taller man on the floor made a sound like a punctured tyre. His partner tried to scramble to his knees and got an elbow to the jaw for the trouble.
And Duke— Duke grinned. His heart was hammering, yes, but not with fear. It was that same certainty from months ago, blooming through his ribs. He scooped up a few of his papers and craned to keep Robin in sight as the boy hero used a shelf to pull himself upright and planted one boot on the duffel like he was pinning a wild animal.
Robin’s head turned, scanning for the next threat, for the next bad choice someone might make, and that was when Duke heard himself say, too loud, “Hey!”
Heads swivelled. His mother’s hand closed around the air where his hoodie had been an instant before. Robin’s attention snapped to the kid on the carpet.
“You’re Robin!” Duke announced, as if arriving at the obvious solution to a problem.
Somebody behind him whispered, “Is that the same one?” as if there were batches of Robins like library copies.
Robin blinked once, staring at Duke with a mildly bemused expression, and put a gloved finger to his lips.
“Shh,” he said. “Library. People are reading.”
Duke frowned, offended on behalf of acoustics. “You were loud first.”
The domino mask he wore only covered his eyes and therefore did nothing to hide the way Robin’s mouth quirked. He shook his head and came over anyway, step light now that the men on the floor had started groaning in the universal language of done. He crouched, cape pooling, and cocked his head as he inspected Duke on his level. For a heartbeat, Duke had the weightless sense of standing on the edge of something important again.
“You again?” Robin said, but not like an accusation. More like a hello disguised as surprise.
“You remember me?” Duke said, somehow both hopeful and sure. There probably weren’t that many kids who heckled heroes, after all. Not in Gotham.
“I don’t forget kids who roast me about my height,” Robin muttered. The deadpan should have landed sharper than it did. He looked down and began gathering the rest of Duke’s scattered worksheet pages, tapping them into a neat stack with a tenderness that made something in Duke’s chest float.
He held them out to him.
Duke tucked the papers under his arm like they were precious treasure and dug into his backpack. “Look!” he said, producing a wrinkled sheet like a magician revealing the final card.
Robin’s eyes narrowed. “What is it?”
“My drawing. Of Batman and Robin.” He unfolded it across his math. Two rectangles with capes under a lumpy bat signal, stick legs bravely planted, a city of squares for buildings. Batman had box-shoulders and pointy ears. Robin’s cape trailed long enough to be dramatic. The proportions would bother someone else. Robin made a noise that might have been affronted. Or amused.
“You should’ve drawn me taller,” he muttered.
“Nope,” Duke said, merciless.
Robin sighed like a person who knew he was losing a bit he shouldn’t have started. Somewhere behind them, the cavalry finally arrived— two officers who looked relieved to find the situation mostly over.
Ms Patel pointed and whispered with the crispness of a woman who secretly ran the city. One of the officers trod carefully around a minefield of overdue slips that had escaped a drawer. The taller crook wheezed. The shorter one muttered something about a lawyer.
For a moment, the chaotic room pulled back from the two of them.
It felt like when you draw a circle with your foot around something you want to keep. Duke could smell fabric and sunshine-warm dust from Robin’s cape and the faint tang of something metallic on his gloves. He could see where one boot sole had peeled at the edge, the kind of detail you only notice if you’re very close and the person in front of you is a person and not only a hero.
“You gotta be careful in Gotham, alright?” Robin said. It came out firm because it had to. The city ate brave for breakfast. He knew that better than most.
Duke didn’t flinch or look away.
“You’re around,” he said confidently, factually. “I’ll be fine.”
Robin tilted his head. The line of his mouth lost its quirk.
Something shifted in Jason that he would never admit out loud.
Jason didn’t let this part in, usually. He wasn’t supposed to. The job worked best when patrol was a string of incidents, not people. People got in. People stayed. People made your chest feel weird for hours after, like you’d swallowed a sparkler.
A small hand waved in his periphery. A little girl in pink glasses thumbed a paperback clutched to her chest, lifted the book.
“Is this okay to check out?” she whispered to no one and everyone.
Ms Patel came back to life and said, “Of course, sweetheart,” and the spell broke the way all spells do: gently, completely.
Robin stood. He flicked the safety off his grapple without looking and fired through the open skylight window that librarians insisted wasn’t decorative but absolutely was. The line thunked home. He was about to go when he noticed the crumpled drawing still lying half on the kid’s homework. He nudged it with a knuckle, memorised the ridiculous cape (which was, for some reason, bright pink?), and said, “Next time, make the cape shorter.”
“Nope,” Duke said again, relentless, grinning like he’d discovered the secret to true happiness.
Jason hesitated—half a breath, half a thought—because he had a dozen things to do next and none of them were this. Batman was waiting for him. He lifted his hand and, instead of the habitual salute, gave a full, deliberate wave. It felt dumber than any backflip he’d ever done. It felt truer. The kid’s face lit up with unfiltered joy, and he enthusiastically waved back.
Jason felt it echo in his chest. He fired the line and went up, the rope humming, boots thudding lightly to the balcony rail before he let the momentum carry him out the open window to the rainy afternoon.
Behind him, the library began knitting itself back together. Ms Patel’s voice found its soft authority as she told people there was nothing to see, which was wrong, of course— there had been something to see, and Duke catalogued every second. Officers zipped the duffel, handcuffed the men, and ushered them out through a side door so the children wouldn’t have to watch. Someone produced paper towels for some coffee that had been spilt and the red trail on the floor.
Elaine reached Duke in three long strides, hands on his shoulders, eyes bright with adrenaline she’d learn to call anger. “Are you okay?” she asked, already searching him for scrapes that weren’t there.
“I’m fine,” Duke said, but softer than before, as if too much loudness would break the memory. He held up the drawing. “He said my cape should be shorter.”
“Your cape?” Doug said weakly, trying to be stern and only managing baffled. “We’re going to talk about shouting in public places.”
Duke nodded dutifully, then added, “He told me to be careful.”
Elaine’s mouth went tight. “Good advice,” she said. She looked up toward the skylight as if she could see the boy in a mask. “It’s not his job to keep you safe.”
Duke considered that, battered pride folding into thought. “No,” he agreed. Then, with the maddening certainty of seven. “But he will anyway.”
His stepfather huffed and surrendered, the way adults sometimes did when kids were both wrong and right. “Finish your homework,” he said, because the world went on. He smoothed the pages Robin had stacked. His hand shook a little, and he hid it by tucking a pencil behind Duke’s ear. “Then one comic. One.”
Duke bent back over problem seven with the concentration of a person who had to earn a thing he already knew he was getting. The room found its equilibrium again. The baby stopped crying. Someone laughed, quietly, at the absurdity of a crowbar beneath a table of paperback romances. Outside, rain lifted from a drizzle to a shimmer, turning the library’s steps into a mirror.
When Duke looked up again, the work was done and the spinner rack of comics spun invitingly.
At checkout, Ms Patel stamped the card with satisfying finality and leaned down. “You were very brave,” she said, a compliment dressed as a caution.
Duke shook his head. “He was brave. I was loud.”
“Sometimes that’s the same thing,” she said, and the stamp thunked again, as if the moment needed a sound to seal it.
On the roof of the library building, Jason watched the police car pull away with a restless energy he tried to deny. He was wet to the elbows and angrier about it than he should have been. Batman would say the entry had been messy, the drop too showy. He could already hear the note in Bruce’s voice that meant disappointment, accompanied by a talk about restraint.
You were loud first, the kid had said. Fair. He was loud. He was a firecracker in a city that needed thunder, and sometimes the only way to keep a bad thing from happening was to crash into it hard enough that people looked up. He flexed a gloved hand. The knuckles stung in the good way. He thought of the drawing, of the cape long enough to trip over, and snorted, because what kind of hero complains about being too short in a crayon universe?
He glanced back through the skylight and saw a small boy return to his math with the solemnity of a knight resuming his post. Jason felt the urge to drop a sticky note down there that said Nice drawing, kid, and shook his head at himself. He had places to be. He had a city to argue with. He had a man in a cave to disappoint with excellent results.
He turned away at last, cape shedding rain like a dog shaking water, and took off across the seam of roofs toward the next shout.
Down below, Duke waved at nothing in particular on his way out—the ceiling, the air, the idea of a yellow, green, and red suit—and didn’t mind at all when nothing waved back, because sometimes the important part was knowing it could.
The corner store was the kind of place Gotham had built a thousand times over and forgotten about just as fast.
It smelled faintly of old coffee and mop water, a scent that clung to the cracked linoleum floor and the dusty racks of groceries. Fluorescent lights hummed with a tired insistence overhead, the sort of sound that faded into the bones of the place until you noticed it again and wanted to cover your ears. The aisles were narrow, shelves stuffed unevenly with canned beans, dented boxes of cereal, and bags of chips that leaned sideways like they’d already given up. A rack of tabloids by the door curled at the edges, headlines screaming about Gotham’s latest scandal, but the ink had bled from humidity until even the lies were tired.
The bell above the door was no better— it never rang the same way twice. Sometimes it screeched too loud, sharp enough to make the cashier wince. Sometimes it gave nothing at all, as if the metal tongue inside had forgotten its purpose. A lot of things in Gotham forgot their purpose.
Duke liked the store anyway.
He was eight—almost nine(!), he liked to remind people, because nine sounded much more grown up—and the man behind the counter always slipped him an extra piece of candy if he remembered to say please, remembered to say thank you.
Politeness mattered here. Respect mattered, too, in ways it didn’t always at school, or on the street. And tonight, his parents had asked him to grab milk and bread, and he’d puffed his chest out with pride when he marched out the door. Running errands alone meant trust. Trust meant independence, and independence was its own kind of currency. He wanted as much of it as he could get.
He balanced his backpack on the counter while the cashier rang him up, the straps still damp from mist in the Gotham air. The man hummed under his breath, a song Duke didn’t recognise, something soft that seemed out of place under the buzzing fluorescents. A poster in the window beside them promised a lottery jackpot big enough to change anyone’s life. The numbers glared in red and yellow, but the edges of the paper curled and tore as if even the poster didn’t believe in its own promise.
The bell jangled.
Duke didn’t notice right away. He was focused on his change, counting it with the seriousness of a banker, tongue caught between his teeth. His mom had drilled him on math at the kitchen table: never let anyone short you, always double-check, take your time. He stacked the coins into neat piles, proud of the tiny clink they made against the counter.
But the air shifted.
He felt it before he understood it, the way he had once at the library when the men with the duffel bags had come in, whispering too sharply, moving too fast. A crackle of wrong, like static before lightning. The hairs on his arms prickled.
“Empty the register,” a voice snapped.
Duke’s head jerked up.
The man in the doorway wasn’t like his dad or the neighbours or anyone you were supposed to trust. Not that you were ever really supposed to trust anyone in Gotham.
His shoulders hunched like he’d forgotten how to stand straight. His eyes were too wide, pupils swallowing colour, darting around as if the shadows themselves might betray him. A knife glinted in his hand—not big, but sharp enough, the kind of blade that looked new compared to the frayed cuffs of his jacket. Under the fluorescent lights, it gleamed wickedly.
The cashier froze, his hands rising to show he was unarmed. His humming stopped. His eyes darted to Duke, the only other person in the store, wide and panicked, and he gestured for him to move.
Duke’s chest tightened. He knew what he was supposed to do. His parents had talked about it after the library incident. Duck, hide, wait. Survive. He shuffled backwards towards the aisles and away from the counter, and his knees bent automatically, body preparing to fold down, to make himself small.
His change was abandoned on the counter.
The man strode across the store and tilted the knife. Not toward the register this time. Toward the clerk’s throat.
Something in Duke lit up hot and wrong, like a match struck against stone. His backpack was heavy on the floor next to him, stuffed with schoolbooks that had weighed him down all the walk here. Without thinking, he yanked it up, muscles straining, and hurled it across the space.
The pack hit the man square in the ribs with a thud.
It wasn’t enough to knock him down, but it was enough to shock him. The knife wavered, just for a heartbeat, and the thief snarled, twisting toward the boy who had dared. His gaze pinned Duke in place, eyes too bright, mouth twisted with a fury that seemed bigger than the room.
Duke’s heart slammed against his ribs. That was a bad move. A really bad move.
The cashier’s eyes were wide with fear, fear for Duke, and he reached under the counter as if to grab something.
The knife lifted.
SLAM.
The front door slammed open so hard that the glass in the frame rattled. A blurry shape crashed through, cape snapping like a banner.
Robin landed hard, both boots slamming into the thief’s chest and driving him backwards into a rack of canned beans. Metal clattered as cans toppled in every direction, rolling across the floor like startled animals. The knife skittered harmlessly across the tile.
The man groaned under the weight of his own bad decisions. He didn’t get up.
The cashier yelped and ducked, dropping whatever it was he’d been reaching for, but Duke couldn’t move. He pressed himself against the shelves of cereal behind him, pulse hammering.
Robin’s head snapped toward him, mask gleaming under the harsh lights.
“You’ve got guts,” the vigilante said, voice sharp and edged. “But don’t be an idiot.”
Duke’s breath came fast, but his smirk snuck out anyway, unstoppable. “Isn’t that what you do?”
Robin opened his mouth. Shut it again. The corner of his jaw flexed, like he was grinding his teeth. “…Touché.”
Sirens wailed faintly in the distance— someone must have sounded the alarm. Blue lights flickered against the window glass. Robin crouched over the groaning thief like a hawk ready to strike again if the man twitched. His cape pooled around him, shadows within shadows.
Then, with a sigh that sounded older than his years, he stood and crossed to the aisle where Duke had been hiding. He crouched so his mask was level with Duke’s face.
“You could’ve been hurt,” he said, quieter now. “Don’t try that again.”
Duke nodded because he wasn’t stupid enough to argue with someone like Robin, but the grin betrayed him anyway, wide and unrepentant.
Robin glanced around the mess, spotted a crumpled bill on the floor— money the thief had dropped in his scuffle. He smoothed it between gloved fingers and slapped it onto the counter. “Stolen from a thief. Technically legal.”
The cashier made a strangled noise of protest, but Robin ignored it. He grabbed a candy bar from the rack, snapped it loose, and pressed it into Duke’s hand.
“Here. On him.” He jerked his head at the groaning man on the floor.
Duke tore the wrapper before Robin could change his mind, chocolate smudging his fingers. He chewed fast, sugar hitting his blood like a jolt. Through a full mouth, he mumbled, “You’re my favourite hero.”
Jason stilled. For all the things he was quick at—quips, kicks, rooftop sprints—he was slow at this. Praise landed wrong on him, heavy, sticking in places that didn’t feel comfortable.
“…Yeah?” he said at last.
“Yeah,” Duke insisted, grinning wider. “You’re way cooler than Batman.”
Robin barked a laugh, sharp and surprised, and dragged a hand over his cowl like he didn’t know what else to do with it.
“You’re a weird kid,” he muttered, but his voice had lost its edge.
The thief groaned again, dragging Robin’s attention back. The vigilante hauled him upright with practised ease, zip cord already in his hand, and tied the man’s wrists tight. He shoved him toward the door just as the sirens drew close, blue and red flashing like a heartbeat against the store’s broken window.
Duke lifted his hand and waved, no hesitation.
At first, Robin didn’t look back. He shoved the thief into the waiting cops outside, his cape catching the light.
But just before disappearing into the night, Robin glanced over his shoulder. He lifted his hand in a quick wave.
Duke’s chest swelled until it felt too big for his body. He waved harder, arm aching, until the cape finally vanished into Gotham’s shadows.
Later, when his parents asked why the milk carton was dented, he only shrugged.
“Gotham happened,” he said.
And he grinned.
Gotham never slept; it just changed masks.
Down on the street, the city wore its weeknight face— bars half-full, buses shouldering past puddles, laundromats and corner stores glowing. Sirens threaded the dark. Neon hummed. Steam rose from vents and collected against brick, and everything smelled faintly of wet metal and old tyres.
Up on the rooftop, the noise thinned to a steady breath. Duke liked that. He liked the wind, too, the way it pulled at his hoodie and combed through his hair, the way it made him feel a little taller. He sat on the ledge with his legs dangling, sneakers swinging over a twenty-foot drop. The tar still held the day’s warmth, though the air had gone cold enough to make his knuckles sting.
He wasn’t supposed to be here. His parents thought he was asleep. He’d propped a pillow under the blanket and slipped out the window at the end of the hall, climbed the fire escape, quiet as a mouse.
A scuff of gravel came from behind the rooftop access door, so soft most people wouldn’t have heard it. Duke did. He didn’t turn.
The faintest scrape of metal as a grappling line retracted. Robin stepped out of the roof’s shadow, mask catching the glow of the billboard across the street.
It had been a long time since Duke had last seen him up close. A year. Maybe just over. He was taller now than Duke remembered. He was broader, too. He’d grown up. The yellow lining of the cape flashed as he moved.
But… he also seemed more weary. Like something was weighing on him.
Duke’s mouth got ahead of his brain. “You look tired.”
For a heartbeat, there was only wind. Then Robin laughed— quiet, honest, like he was surprised by the sound himself. “Guess I do.”
His voice was a bit deeper now, too, and it cracked as he spoke, going high for a second before dropping back into his new, deeper voice.
He crossed the roof without hurrying and sat on the ledge beside Duke, the way someone sits with a kid they know and trust. His cape settled and then, with a mind of its own, kept fluttering at the edges.
From here, Gotham looked like a spilt jewellery box. Red and white beads of traffic crawled along the avenue. A diner sign buzzed red, losing letters every other second so it read DI—ER, DI—ER. Somewhere below, a couple argued two octaves apart; somewhere farther, glass broke and a chorus of “hey, hey!” rose and fell.
Robin braced his elbows on his knees. Up close, Duke could see the scuffs carved into the leather of one glove, the split seam near a knuckle. He didn’t look hurt. He looked worn. The difference mattered.
“You still giving teachers hell at school?” Robin asked, the corner of his mouth quirking like he already knew the answer and wanted to hear Duke say it.
Duke twisted a thread loose from his cuff and felt heat crawl up his neck. He wondered how Robin knew about that. He’d never even told Robin his name; how would he know about Duke’s troubles at school?
His first instinct was to say no, sir. His second was to say it depends on who you ask. He picked a third.
“I’m being brave.”
Robin smirked. “Brave, huh. That what they’re calling it now?”
“Mom calls it attitude.” Duke tried to sound casual and landed closer to defiant. “Dad calls it a phase. Teachers call it disruption. But I’m not… I’m not letting people talk to me like I don’t get to answer back. That’s not disruption. That’s being a person.”
Robin made a small noise, not quite a laugh.
“Stay that way,” he said after a while, smirk softening. “Don’t let them break you. Gotham needs kids like you.”
Something inside Duke loosened, a knot he hadn’t noticed until it slackened. Nobody talked to him like that. People told him to be careful, to be quiet, to stop making it worse. People told him to breathe and count to ten, and think about the consequences. Robin said Stay that way.
“Okay,” Duke said, biting back a grin so he wouldn’t look too much like a kid. This was Robin. And Robin was so grown-up! Duke wanted to be just like him when he was a grown-up too!
They sat like that for a time that wasn’t long but felt like it.
The city kept moving. A police car moaned through the light, not hurrying. A bus sighed and shouldered out from the curb, glowing faces turned toward windows. A man on the corner below them danced for no one, shoulders rolling, hat tipped to an audience that had other places to be.
Duke wanted to ask the question that had been lodged under his ribs since he’d observed how heavy Robin seemed. He watched the billboard throw red over Robin’s cheekbone and made himself speak.
“You’re gonna be Robin forever, right?”
The city’s noise went thin around the edges— still there, just muffled. Robin didn’t move for a second. He had the stillness of someone who could go without blinking longer than you might think, the kind of stillness that made other people talk to fill it. Duke didn’t. He waited.
Robin breathed out. Up this close, Duke could hear the sound leave him. Then he turned his head, and even a domino mask couldn’t hide the way something sat heavy behind his eyes.
“Something like that.”
It came out wry, a smile with a limp. Not a promise. Not a no. Duke didn’t like it. He wanted the comic-book answer, the forever that meant forever. He wanted the cape to be a kind of armour that time couldn’t pierce. He wanted… he didn’t know how to ask for what he wanted, not without sounding small.
He tried anyway. “Is that like… ‘forever until you’re old’ forever? Or ‘forever until you’re Batman’ forever?” He risked a sideways glance, saw the grin tug again, tired and real.
“Kid,” Robin said, and the way he said it had zero condescension in it and somehow all the affection. “If I start answering that, we’ll be here till the sun comes up, and neither of us brought coffee.”
“I could get some,” Duke said automatically, and surprised himself with how much he meant it. “My parents won’t notice. Okay, they will, but—”
Robin held up a hand, palm out. “I’m not telling you to go anywhere.”
He didn’t answer Duke’s question.
Duke pulled his hoodie tighter around him.
“Can I ask you something else?” he said.
“You already are,” Robin said, voice dry with fond exasperation.
Duke grinned. “Do you—” He stopped, tried again. “When you’re down there, and it’s bad, and people need help, how do you know which thing to do first?”
Robin didn’t answer immediately. He tipped his head as if listening.
“You learn to tell the difference between someone who’s loud and someone who’s in danger,” he said finally. “Sometimes they’re the same. A lot of times, they’re not. You learn to trust the hairs on your neck.” He flexed one gloved hand. “And you use the fact that you’re a kid.”
Duke blinked. “How?”
“People underestimate you.” Robin’s mouth tilted. “They look past you. That’s power if you ride it right.”
“I don’t like being looked past,” Duke said, and the words came out harder than he intended.
“I didn’t say you had to like it,” Robin said. “I said you could use it. And then you make sure they can’t look past you again.”
Robin shifted, winced almost invisibly, and rolled one shoulder. Duke caught it. “You’re hurt,” he said.
“Not the kind that matters,” Robin said.
“What kind is that?”
“The kind you can’t sleep on.” He glanced at Duke and added, “Don’t tell your teachers I said that.”
“I won’t,” Duke said solemnly. He’d carry this whole night like a secret code.
Robin blew out a breath and sat up straighter. The weariness was still there, but it didn’t look like it had him by the throat anymore. He tapped a finger against the ledge, as if counting beats only he could hear.
“You never told me your name,” he said, like it had just occurred to him and also like he’d been waiting for the right time to ask.
Duke blinked. He had the sudden, stupid urge to make up something cooler, and then he felt silly for thinking his name needed to be cooler when it was already his. And he was pretty sure Robin already knew it anyway, and was just asking for his benefit. How else would he know about Duke’s school?
“It’s Duke.”
“Duke,” Robin repeated. “Good name.”
“My mom picked it,” Duke said, and was startled to hear himself add, “She says it’s a strong name for a strong kid.”
“She’s right,” Robin said, no hesitation.
“Do you get… do you get to keep yours?” he asked. “I mean— Robin. Is it yours, or is it like a… a shirt you grow out of?”
Robin’s mouth did that tired-smile thing again, edges up, centre steady. He was quiet again. He was… strangely heavy tonight. Duke hadn’t seen him like this before.
“Some things you keep because you choose them every day,” he said. “Some things keep you because somebody else needs them to.” He shrugged, not quite helpless. “Either way, you don’t wear it to be seen. You wear it so other people feel seen.”
Duke didn’t fully understand, but he didn’t need to yet.
“You should head home,” Robin said, not unkindly. “Before home notices. And you should stop making a habit of sitting on rooftops in the Narrows at night. It’s not safe, kid.”
Duke’s shoulders slumped reflexively and then straightened because he didn’t like the way that slump felt. “I will,” he said. “In a minute.”
Robin adjusted his cape. “A minute,” he agreed.
The wind pulled a loose flyer off a vent and sent it skating across the roof toward the ledge. Duke snagged it one-handed and glanced at the print— LOST DOG in block letters, a blurry photo of a brown mutt with hopeful eyes. He folded the paper without thinking, a neat square, and tucked it into his pocket. It felt like the kind of thing you kept just in case you saw a dog that looked like it needed finding.
Robin stood, easy and fluid despite the split seam and the tiredness he’d admitted. The ledge felt emptier even before he moved away. He thumbed the catch on his grapnel and sighted along the barrel toward a concrete lip on the building across the street. The line snicked with satisfying certainty.
Duke’s chest stung all at once, a prickling across the inside like a cold wind blowing the wrong way. The night shrank in anticipation of movement.
“You’re gonna be Robin forever,” he said, softer now, less of a question and more of a statement.
Robin looked back over his shoulder. The mask made it impossible to read everything, but the set of his mouth was clear: fond, rueful, fixed. “Something like that.”
It was worse than a no and better than a lie.
Robin lifted the grapnel and fired. The line caught, taut as a guitar string. He took three long running steps and leapt clean, cape flaring like a held breath release.
Duke raised his hand without thinking. He hated goodbyes; they made him feel like a door was closing and he wasn’t sure if he was on the right side of it.
Robin swung out in a perfect arc, a pendulum drawn by a patient hand. Halfway through, he tilted in the air, one hand still on the line, and lifted the other. The gesture was quick, but it happened. He waved back.
Then momentum took him, and he vanished past the roofline across the street. The grapnel line hummed once and went quiet, swallowed by the distance. The city, which had paused for Duke without realising it, resumed its noise.
Duke stayed on the ledge, hand still lifted, then lowered it slowly. His palm had gone cold. He rubbed it against his knee, more out of instinct than need, and stared at the spot where Robin had been.
He sat until the mist forgot itself and turned to a light, mean drizzle. He watched a cab refuse to move for a cyclist; he watched the cyclist slap the trunk with a palm and shout words Duke wasn’t supposed to say. He watched the diner skip another letter so it read DI—E, and for a minute, he was sure that if he stared long enough, he could will the missing neon to flicker back on.
Duke stood and flexed cold-dead feet in his sneakers. His legs tingled.
He went back the way he’d come, careful on the ladder rungs, quiet through the window. He lifted and pulled the bedroom door so it wouldn’t groan. He stood at the edge of the rug and listened to the apartment’s nighttime sounds. The radiator’s sigh, the distant dishwasher, the small snore that meant his stepdad had fallen asleep with the TV low.
He didn’t turn on the light. He didn’t need it. The city’s leftover glow made a grey square on his wall, and that was enough. He lay on his side and pulled the blanket to his chin. His hoodie smelled like damp brick.
Morning came.
In the kitchen, his mom stood with a spoon in a pot, making oatmeal taste like something it had no right to. She looked over and narrowed her eyes, the way moms do when they’re counting the ways you might have disobeyed and comparing them to the number of ways you look like you did.
“You slept?” she asked, sceptical.
“Like a rock,” he said, which felt like a lie and also kind of true.
His stepdad folded the paper and cleared his throat. “Quiz today?”
“Two,” Duke said, and took his bowl to the table. The spoon was too hot. He blew until it wasn’t.
At school, the hallway smelled like floor cleaner and secondhand perfume. Camden from three doors down spotted him and tried a shoulder-check. Duke absorbed it without moving and raised an eyebrow. Camden laughed too loudly and then said, “My bad,” like he’d practised it.
He probably had.
In science, Duke circled C because it felt right. In English, he wrote about a city being a person and a person being a city and how sometimes the job wasn’t to fix the whole thing but to hold your corner until someone else could catch their breath. Ms Green read over his shoulder, pen suspended. She didn’t write “tone?” This time, she just raised an eyebrow, almost looking impressed, and then tapped the paper twice, which meant keep going.
At lunch, a seventh grader cut in front of a sixth grader, and the sixth grader deflated like a balloon. Duke said, “Hey!” voice thick with intention. The seventh grader looked at him, weighed the work of pretending not to hear a fifth grader telling them off against the work of hearing, and then backed up three steps. The sixth grader didn’t look grateful. He didn’t look anything. That was okay. Duke wasn’t doing it for points.
On his walk home, Duke checked every alley in case a brown mutt looked lost. None did. He kept the flyer in his pocket anyway. It made a papery square against his thigh.
That night, the urge to climb back up tugged at him, but he didn’t go. He stood at the window and let the cold come in around the frame and watched the diner sign sputter.
A few nights later, he dreamed of a signal in the sky that wasn’t the right shape. He woke up sweating and didn’t know why. He drank water at the sink in the dark to try and make it go away.
One night, much later, Duke would hear a piece of news that made his stepdad go quiet and his mom stand still the way people stand still when a glass falls and they can’t stop it from shattering. He would feel that prickling in his chest again, the wind going the wrong way. He would stare at the TV screen, and the news displayed there, a blurry picture of Robin accompanied by words he couldn’t—no, refused—to read. He would sit on the bed and fold forward and let the world be a soundless room for a while.
But not now. Not yet.
Right now, Duke was focusing on being brave. On being strong.
Gotham needed kids like him. Robin had said so. That was enough for Duke.