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When you are small and still naïve enough to believe in magic and love, you believe in certain “truths”. Like “parents love their children no matter what”, “the world is a safe place”, and “you should always be yourself”. And then you learn that there’s no reality to those ideas.
Parents don’t have to love their children, and you’ll find that if they didn’t really want you to begin with, they aren’t necessarily going to fall for you automatically. In fact, they can avoid you and parenthood with ease. It’s okay, because you’re not an easy child, you talk too much, ask too many questions, demand too much from them. You can’t seem to stop doing those things, no matter how hard you try.
Because your parents are good parents, they take you to the circus once. It’s the best day of your life, so many firsts: balloon, popcorn, a hug. But then the wire snaps, and you learn real quick that nothing can stop a person from falling over fifty feet to the hard ground, nothing can stop bones from snapping and blood from splattering, nothing can stop a child from watching that happen and screaming for gravity to stop and time to move backwards. You can’t stop nightmares from coming after either, even when your parents make sure you know how much of a child you’re being.
You learn in school, from Kindergarten on up, that your peers don’t care much for you either. Peers aren’t required to like you to begin with, but everything you’ve heard and read says that you just need to be friendly and act like yourself and you’ll get friends. But you’re too smart, too serious, don’t watch the right shows, so why would they want to hang around with you anyway?
Worlds shatter easily, it turns out. Your world crumbles, but you hold on. There are no easy truths, no magic potions to make people love, no way to defeat gravity, no formulas for friendship. But there’s hope, you know there is. There’s someone in a cape who can find the murderers, there’s a man who’s willing to comfort a crying child who’s world is also shattered.
When you get older—third grade—you learn a lot about spending time alone. When you’re little and alone, you either learn to deal with it or you’ll die—well, maybe not die, but you’ll definitely not survive. You learn the truths of your world: “if you don’t sleep, you don’t have nightmares”, “it’s possible to love people and know that they don’t return it”, and “what they don’t know can’t hurt you”.
The nightmares don’t stop, turning into what you know to be deemed “night terrors”. You wake up in cold sweats, screaming and crying, until you learn not to scream—your parents hate it when you disturb them, they leave more and more, but sometimes they’ll stay longer if they get a full night’s sleep. So you learn to wake up without screaming, just tears and rapid breathing, shaking so much that you ache. And you find ways to avoid sleeping: long walks through the city, reading books and articles and anything that’ll distract you, taking photographs. You like photography—using light to turn darkness into beauty, the feeling of being totally invisible because no one thinks of the photographer, just the photo. You can avoid things too, because looking through that viewfinder is detachment incarnate, like watching things on a screen.
Photography shows you things too—the secrets everyone hides. You find heroes, working in the dark of night, bringing hope to a broken, cruel place; and you figure out who they are during the day, and you watch them whenever you can. It’s easy to watch them—they’re happy enough, there’s love there; it’s everything you’ve ever wished for but can’t seem to have, and it’s almost enough to see people you admire and care about having it. You have a lot of pictures of them, though you keep those hidden, and plenty of pictures of the city too, these can be on display sometimes. The pictures show your biggest secret too though—there are exactly four of your own family: one from the circus, another you’ve cut from a news article when you were little and afraid you’d forget them, and one you took yourself—a candid shot of them smiling their rare smiles, actually happy (you’re not in the picture, and maybe that’s why).
At school, your teachers ask why your parents aren’t answering calls. Your peers know: “they don’t love you”, “they’re over there because they can’t stand being here with you”, “your parents are selfish”, they taunt whenever the adults can’t hear. Kids are cruel, but they’re honest and powerless. Adults, on the other hand, you learned fast in school, are liars and have no problem ruining your life “for your own good”. So when it’s time for parent conferences, your parents have a last minute meeting; on parent nights, they’re on a date; when they don’t sign your homework (before you learned to forge the signatures), it’s because they forgot during dinner. When you’re little, you make up stories: essays about your summer involve trips to the zoo and vacations; family pictures always feature both parents smiling, but not close to you (the teacher never notices); and your nanny or sometimes your mother is waiting around the corner after school every day. Teachers believe you—it’s easier for them. It’s easier for you too, because your parents never have to worry about trouble at school, never have to be bothered by pesky homework or school stories.
The world you build has pretty clouds, green grass, and clear water. But there’s always rain with the clouds. The grass hides swamps and mud so well, tripping you up as you go. And the water is salty. But you’ve created a world, and that’s something to work off of. There’s always the possibility of improvement in a stable environment.
When you become a teenager, you learn new truths: “parents who give you every advantage in life, even if they’re always absent, are good parents”, and most importantly “Batman needs a Robin”. But also “it’s harder to lie to the people you love”.
You get through middle school and into high school, and you finally have friends (sort of). They’re jealous: you have gymnastic lessons, karate lessons, tutors whenever you need them, even your own credit cards. You never mention that you haven’t seen your parents yet this year (they missed your birthday by accident), or that sometimes you ache with this need for someone to hold you, hug you, touch you, be near you, anything. “Man, your parents must be awesome,” they exclaim in jealous tones. You laugh and nod and agree.
There are good things though, mixed in with the bad. You realize before anyone else that something’s happened, something’s changed. Robin’s gone and now Batman brings less hope and more fear than the city has seen in years. And as much as you never want to be visible to them, you have to do something to fix this. But no one wants to listen and fix things, so you have to do it yourself. It’s a dream come true and a nightmare all in one. You’re working with the people you’ve watched for years, doing things that you’ve always wished to do. But you only got here because someone who was loved and belonged in this position has been killed—you’re filling in a dead boy’s suit…and you wonder if you’re trying to fill in his life too.
His life was hard, yes, but the last few years were wonderful, and you’re pretty sure he knew how lucky he was—you sure do. People ask where you’re going, what you’re doing, how you are. They ask about your day and seem to actually be interested. There’s always food waiting when you’re hungry and people are always patting you on the shoulder, ruffling your hair, sitting right next to you. Some of it does hurt: no one ever asks where your parents are or if they care about what you’re up to, Dick doesn’t remember meeting you years ago (it’s okay though, his parents died that night, okay?), and both Bruce Wayne and Batman resent your presence (again, understandable, because he just lost his son and now you’re wearing the suit that was his). But if you’re asked, everything is okay, your parents are just really busy right now, and Batman needs Robin. Only one of those is a lie. Your parents come home, tell you they’re proud of you—you’re not sure how they could be, because they don’t know anything about you, you realized this right after they stopped talking to you.
The ecology of your world shifts—there are meadows now, with animals; cities with people who are friendly; rain that clears up sometimes. There’s hope for a more hospitable climate in your life.
You learn something else, really quickly after all this starts: “parents may not love their child, but the child almost definitely loves them”. It turns out that you love them very much and it still hurts that they don’t seem to care much. And then, just like that, they’re gone: mother dead and father braindead.
The world crashes to an end, shattering into pieces as all sorts of truths come to light and everyone starts to see what you hid with those clouds and the grass.
Alfred and Dick are angry with you for not telling the whole truth, while Bruce is angry at everyone. You’re angry that they’re stuck dealing with your mess, but whenever you try to say so, reassurances are made: “it’s no problem”, “it’ll be alright”, and “we care about you, okay?” So you don’t argue and just ride these waves, pretending to not feel guilt as you slide into their lives and settle into the routines. It’s surreal, having everything you’d wanted so much and you can hardly believe it.
You have to build a new reality now. There’s the truth you have memorized still: “if you don’t sleep, you don’t have nightmares”. That’s still true, but now there’s people who sit up with you in the middle of the night. You can create something from this—a world where there is love and where you’re not alone when you wake up from night terrors. It’s a brave new world, but far more hospitable.
When your dad comes back, you learn more truths: “fathers can create illusions that let them feel proud”, “it’s possible to miss some things more than you ever have before”, and “worlds can always shatter further”.
Your dad is proud, he says, of your academic performance (he means that you have a girlfriend and teachers love you), he’s going to do better, he swears. You believe him, because you want so very much for him to love you as much as you love him. Even when he starts to date, then marries Dana, you believe his promise. And so you get to watch as he drifts right back into old rhythms, heart sinking even as he talks about how close you two are becoming.
Being Robin is your escape these days, because you’ve become family to them now (they were always family to you). You have a purpose and you have friends you can trust with pretty much everything. It’s actually safe to count on these people and you can trust their promises. You can trust that when Batman (or Bruce) says he’s proud, it’s about a real thing and he means it very sincerely. It gets so bad at home some days that you miss being out and fighting crime, you miss the late nights and the hard work, you even miss the fights that don’t end so well for you. It’s worse to miss all this, because you’re not missing things that never were, you’re missing things that you’ve actually had, and that’s so much worse than just imagining.
Your world is slowly rebuilding, restabilizing, falling back into orbit. And then it breaks apart, again and again, until you’re sure there’s nothing left but dust. Someone finally calls you out for replacing your predecessor, and the fact that it’s the said predecessor (your hero) who does this makes it all the harder. Honestly, you almost wish he’d actually killed you, instead of leaving you to feel the guilt all over again.
Then your friends die, even though you did all you could to stop it. All the people you’ve come to love and trust the most are dead all at once. It’s worse, because you don’t have the option of grieving openly—that life is hidden, off-limits to the other part of your life. And so you can’t tell your teacher that you didn’t do your homework because you were so tired and numb that you didn’t care, or your dad that you don’t want to go out for dinner because all you want to do is reread the texts you’ve saved and try to memorize their voices and words to fill your aching heart. Then, a few weeks later, you’ll regret that forever, because your dad dies—is murdered, terrified and choking in his last seconds as you listen, unable to save him either.
The world shatters and shatters. Blow after blow, and you want to know why: why they had to die, why your dad waited ‘til he was dying to say “I love you”, why you’re still alive after all this death. You try to pull the pieces back together, try to believe those repeated promises: “It’ll be okay”, “You’ll get through this”, and “We’re here for you”. But you can’t get the pieces to stick (maybe you have the wrong glue), no matter what you do to try and fix it. You become an official part of this family, and then it turns out Bruce has a “real” son. Damian is angry, and you could understand and even sympathize, but you’re too busy trying to not let him get to you, even while you agree with his declarations about you being unfit, a poor substitute for both Robin and a son. There’s no winning there—even though Bruce claims to pretty much dislike the boy, Damian is his biological son. Damian stays…and then Bruce dies.
Your world is pulverized, nothing left anymore. You’ve made every attempt at building the family you’d wanted, every attempt to believe the different promises and “truths” given by the people you love. There’s only two of them still alive now, but you’re no longer even certain that they want you around anymore. Alfred might, but he’s an employee too—he’s paid to like you. Dick thinks you’re insane, not fit to be Robin now (not worthy, Damian adds whenever he can). There’s no place to start rebuilding now, not even enough solid ground to plant a flower.
There’s nothing to lose, nothing to gain. What do people do when there’s nothing left of their world? You imagine that some planet hop and settle in a new world, while others drift off into the vacuum of space. You’re the first kind of person, it turns out, no matter how much you want to become the second. You fight and cling to things no matter what, adapting to the new pain and fear, surviving. This time it’s harder to survive. But you find something to fight for—a clue that you’ve all been duped, that maybe your world isn’t destroyed as thoroughly as you’d thought—Bruce is definitely alive. It’s not quite ground, just a handful of soil, really, but you’ve built off of less—your entire childhood was a collection of stardust and the ashes of previous worlds.
When you are a small child, alone and scared, you look instinctively for someone to help you, for parents to reassure you. But when there are none, you have to find a way to ground yourself. In a house so large that you could just float away, you need to build some sort of foundation to keep yourself standing. It’s not easy, this world building, but it’s necessary. Some people are meant to find new worlds, after all.