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Robin, as a mantle, is the god of those who never lose hope. Of the ones who keep getting back up, who keep trying to help, no matter what life throws at them.
It's a child's god. The bright colors against the dingy greys of Gotham's skyline, a symbol for children to cling to, to remember is just for them. A sign that there's someone out there looking out for them, that they too can be beacons in the darkness.
But the problem with children is… they grow. The hope fades. Their colors dim. So too, with Robin. Each young god who takes up the mantle eventually grows out of it, as they grow into their power. As they mature into who they will eventually become.
The first Robin, so bright and joyful, grows into something sharper. Something whose optimism and hope is tempered by cynicism and betrayal. He grows into a new mantle, that of the Nightwing. The god of those who fight when the fight is hopeless. Who hold onto their smiles when all they want to do is scream. Those who stand against the darkness, holding onto their flickering light as hard and fast as they can.
The second Robin becomes something else entirely. Gods cannot die, this is known, but their essence, their very being can be destroyed. Twisted, warped into something…. else. The second Robin returns to Gotham as the Red Hood, something closer to the gods of old: vengeful, wrathful, hungry for the blood of those who wronged him. He becomes the god for those who are beaten and bloodied, for those who are betrayed and abused, for the ones who rage against the world for how little it cares.
The third Robin -who never had much faith or hope to begin with -changes the least as he grows. The Red Robin becomes the god for those who are never good enough. For those who try, and try, no matter how often they're told they will never matter. The ones who hide their pain behind a too-fake smile, always striving for more, for someone to notice.
The current Robin, the fourth to wear the mantle, still holds onto it. While he fights for all the children of Gotham, while he answers the call of any child… His strongest followers are the ones who are both too young, and old enough. Too young to watch a scary movie, but old enough to work with a gang. Too young to drop out of school, but old enough to take care of little siblings for days. Too young to make their own decisions, but old enough to be punished for their parents choices.
All of them flock under the banner of the Bat, of course. Of Gotham's distant, cold protector, the unflinching god of Justice. Not a god for victims, not a god to be worshipped, but a god to be feared. A god that one prays to only in the most dire of circumstances, by people who don't believe except when their lives are on the line, and they have nothing else.
Justice isn't kind. It isn't caring. It is cold, and pitiless. Merciless. It hands out judgement for crimes committed, and fights lawlessness and chaos. It supports order.
And under The Batman's ever watchful eye, his children -his sons -guard over the city by night. The Nightwing. The Red Hood. The Red Robin. Robin. All descend upon the city as darkness falls, each to the prayers of their followers.
The Nightwing flies to a police officer's side, a young officer desperately trying to save a young woman from her abusive husband holding her and their daughter hostage.
The Red Hood rides his way to the worst part of the city, where he finds a teenager desperately struggling to draw breath under the large hands choking the life out of him.
The Red Robin flits to Gotham University, to the side of a student who is just so… so tired. Who doesn't want to fight anymore, who just wants a little bit of peace.
Robin darts towards a child, standing between his little sister, and their angry father, too small to make a difference, but too big to stand aside and watch any longer.
In an hour, the three ex-Robins and the current Robin meet on a rooftop, across from the old Clocktower.
As is usually the case, the Red Hood is covered in blood, his black boots caked in viscera and bits of entrails when he stomps his way onto the roof. Steam seems to pour off him in waves, the ever-present rage burning him alive from the inside as his footsteps leave charred remnants in their wake.
The Nightwing, perched on top of an old air filtration vent, hops down to fuss, as is his right as the oldest of the brood. The shifting blue of the bird on his chest ripples with the frustrated and helpless tears of his followers, as he glides over, laying his black gloved hand on the Red Hood's fiery red bat symbol.
Neither speak. The moment passes between them, the same as a hundred, a thousand, a million other moments like it pass. It swims and dances between them, taut and vulnerable, ready to shatter into an untold number of moments before and after.
"Must you, Hood?" comes the still-cracking-with-puberty-voice of Robin, as the youngest swoops onto the roof. He brushes some imaginary dust off his hands, ignoring the blood under his nails, as he pushes up between his brothers. "Everything smells like a burning tavern when you get like this."
The Red Hood glares at the young god, eyes burning black as coal, before he reaches out with one hand -as big as Robin's head -and shoves the boy. Not hard enough to hurt, but enough to make him rock on his feet.
"That's rich, coming from the one who smells like a chocolate bar doused in apple juice," comes the Red Robin's voice, as he grapples onto the roof. Despite the pleasant, almost song like quality of his voice, both the Nightwing and the Red Hood turn towards him sharply, bright blue eyes and dark red eyes staring at him in equal measure.
For his part, Red Robin just shifts uncomfortably from foot to foot. "It's fine," he mumbles, weakly rolling his eyes as he climbs up on top of the same vent the Nightwing abandoned.
The eyes watching him don't flicker, or waver, other than the way the flames dance in twilight and the waves lap against the shore. It's well known, in Gotham, that the youngest ex-Robin struggles sometimes. That unlike the older two, he doesn't have the Sisyphean crusade or the burning rage to sustain him. That unlike Robin, he doesn't have the hope and optimism to keep him going.
It's part of his domain, after all. The struggle to keep going, against exhaustion and thanklessness, against loneliness and unfulfilled desire. There's no fire burning, no consuming righteousness. Just a need to be useful, to be better.
But it's his burden to bear. His followers' hopelessness what drives him on. Like the Nightwing's followers' tears in the face of the darkness, or the Red Hood's followers' rage in the face of betrayal, or Robin's children's cries of fear.
They are what they've been made to be. They are what their followers have cried out for.
One by one, they climb to their various perches. This roof -or dozens, hundreds, thousands like it -are familiar spots, and they've all found their places.
The city's changed around them. From the Nightwing's earliest days as Robin, almost a hundred years ago, to the latest Robin's appearance fifteen years ago, the city is constantly changing. Constantly becoming something different, something more, something less, something new, something refurbished.
They've perched like this for a thousand nights, ten thousand, an infinite number of nights that promises to only stretch further into the eons. They stand and keep watch, waiting for the prayers of one of their own to call them off, waiting for the moment they can become what they are, and show themselves again.
It's quiet now. It won't be for long.
It never is.