The Boy From Gotham
He was perfect.
He was from Gotham, the embodiment of the "survival of the fittest" maxim.
He came from working with The Batman where you work well or you get fired. He came from Gotham, where you live or you die.
We thought anyone who could come out of a place like that smiling was a strong choice for a leader. But we forgot something else about Gotham. Things work differently there; when a villain comes out of hiding, they like to start off with a bang and keep accelerating. If you don't catch them either you die, or countless others do. That's where Robin's obsessive nature comes from. In Gotham, passion is the force that keeps the super-villains in check and the other criminals in fear.
But that's not necessary on the west coast. Not in a simpler, less psychotic city like Jump. Granted, we still have abnormally high crime rate and an attraction for meta-villains (which is why Robin came here in the first place), but it also has different classifications of villains.
There's the low-brand kind like Mumbo and Mad mod, who can be taken down in one go with little to no harm done (which seems to satisfy Robin's "get them in fast and at all costs" mantra), and the serious kind like Slade and Brother Blood who set out for higher purposes like world domination, not just general havoc, money, and gang power like in Gotham. Not to say that our city is harder to control—not a single one of us besides Robin would willingly fight on the Batman's turf. With our baddies you just have to wait it out sometimes, let the solution come to you as it always did. Maybe it's something about being kids or even just being the good guys, but luck always seems to run in our favor.
Robin didn't quite understand this at first. He tried to push Slade's capture too hard and too fast instead of letting Slade simply fall into our waiting hands. He got sloppy. He made mistakes.
And no matter how much we had looked up to him before then…
We were nobodies, but Robin—this was The Robin. And he didn't even know how famous he was outside of Gotham. Inside, he and Batman are so hated by everyone—except the people they save—that they're shunned and ostracized and too deeply repulsed to ever feel appreciated. Robin was not used to the admiration, the fans, and the photo-op attempts in Jump. He was modest and secretive and tried to hide in the shadows, even with his poster-boy potential. That was another thing that made him great: it made him wanted; it made him perfect.
And then there was the smile. And the quips and the puns and the overall happiness that radiated from him. His 1966 attitude infected us and we infected the people and the people were happy. And the happiness spread into the streets where there was no hope and it gave them hope. And the happiness stopped the crimes and the villains because villains are forever wanting to be in complete control, but they can't be when the people are hopeful that they will be saved.
And when Robin started slipping, we were worried and the people knew something was wrong. But that damn smile covered it up and made them happy again. All the emotions and turmoil and anger and frustration that infected Robin were covered by his perfect smile and the people were settled even if we were not.
We tried to confront his problems, but he covered them and we let him. We let him destroy himself because he was our leader and we trusted him and he was perfect.
When we found out he wasn't, our entire world crashed around us.
He had stolen. He had committed crimes simply to discover the motives of the single man who created the instability in him. Yes, he was from Gotham, where you do whatever is necessary to accomplish your goals, but stealing? Our perfect hero, our perfect leader, our perfect emblem, tainted by his crime, and yet he seemed unaffected by it. Upset that we were upset, and upset that it failed, but upset by the crime…?
And what next? Would he start torturing criminals to get information? Start killing perhaps? After all, he was from Gotham. Could we fully trust him?
Batman was the most controversial member of the JLA—not even a full member, actually, more of a consult. Why was this? Were there secrets we weren't told? Skeletons in the closet we didn't know about? Not enough is known about Batman or Robin to really know them. After all, how can you fight men whose superpower is strategic thinking? Perhaps Batman covered all his crimes and pretended to be a hero? And if that was the case, then who was this boy under a small, domino mask that we called our leader? Could he be trusted? Was he perfect?
And then there was that night. It was just one night, we had to keep telling ourselves; it felt like a week:
Robin had gone practically insane in the warehouse, losing control over the Slade-bots.
Robin had attacked an innocent man for information.
Robin had dropped off the face of the earth while we were underground.
Robin had reappeared bearing the colors of a sinner.
And we thought to ourselves, "What have we done?"
We let in this strange teenager with secrets and sins and a past with the law. Maybe there was a reason he had been chased by the police. Maybe there was a reason he wore a mask. Our secrets were one thing. Our secrets could be discovered or told if need be. But Robin's tracks were too well covered to find out, and he had already established that he couldn't tell us his secret identity because of Batman, so…
Who is Robin?
He had made mistakes. He had disappointed us. He had proven to us that he was only human and not the idol we had taken him as.
He was not perfect, and we would never see him as perfect again.
Critique and grammar/spelling changes wanted!
I always wondered why Robin never went all psycho-detective on any of these super-powered teenagers he lived with or trusted. Then I remembered that he had his own secrets to keep.
P.S. I think I started channeling John Steinbeck's writing style in the middle there. If there's even anyone that understands what I mean…