I don't want to die.
Despite his effort to hold it back, a tear slipped past his tightly closed eyelids and pooled at the bottom of his mask before it eked onto his face. He shook and flinched back as a gloved fingertip gently brushed it off his cheek.
"Shh."
He fought to even his breath, but with the duct tape so tight across his raw, chapped lips, he struggled to do so. The gloved hand lifted from his face and brushed softly through his hair, caressing the dark strands in an unwanted gesture of comfort.
The hand left, and an icy dread flooded his veins, even as his pulse jumped to an even more rapid pace.
One of the things he hated the most in the world was not being able to see. Of course, there were other ways of seeing. He had been trained by the best to hone his other senses when blinded, but there was something about not being able to see that was claustrophobic and terrible. He needed to know what was happening.
But in that moment, he couldn't bear the thought of opening his eyes, even though he could. He knew the sight that awaited him. He knew exactly what he'd see if he dared to look. And he didn't want the last thing he saw before he died to be that face.
They're coming. Someone is coming. They always come.
"Shh."
His sensitive ears picked up the ringing of metal on metal, a quick sharp sound that began to repeat over and over. He struggled against his restraints even though he knew there was no getting out of them. A whimper threatened to escape him, but he clamped it down.
Don't give him the satisfaction. Is this really how you want to go? Is this what you want them to remember you as? A scared little boy who couldn't even look his murderer in the eye?
Robin took a steadying breath, clenched his fists tightly, and opened his eyes in the fiercest glare he could muster beneath his mask. He wouldn't shed another tear, wouldn't let another sound escape him. He was Robin, he was Batman's partner, and he would face his killer like the hero he was.
Robin didn't flinch away as the figure in black turned towards him, sharp surgical knives glinting in his gloved fingers. The boy wonder looked him in the eye, giving him the darkest look he could.
I'm not afraid of you.
Bruce Wayne smiled down at him as he raised the knife.