"Who are you and what are you doing here?" His mom had, foolishly, let this man in their home because he had told her that he was an acquaintance of the old man. That meant one of two things. Probably the former since there was something about this man that had Terry's hair standing up. The man looked like he was in his late twenties, he had black hair that had a a single streak of white hair in it, and his emerald eyes, somehow, looked far older than the age he looked.

"My name is Jason Todd." The man then paused. His green eyes searching Terry's face for reaction. Slag. There was a reason why kept the full cowl despite how many times he modified the suit.

"When you first came on the scene Barbara told me that they was a new Batman in Gotham and I didn't believe her. Dick has been hating Bruce for years now, Tim wasn't able to move on from being turned into Junior, and Damian had a blood lust that never could be tamed despite Bruce's best efforts. A few weeks after telling me that a new Batman was on the scene she figured who it was and Barbara told me it was you. I thought you would wash out in a year or Bruce would take the suit from you," the old man had taken the suit a few times but that have never stopped Terry from stealing the suit. After all that was how Terry became Batman in the first place not that the former Robin knew this.

"After a year I realized you weren't going to wash out. That you would be like rest of us. You had fallen over Bruce's spell," Jason's lips lifted up in a twisted smile. "Haven't you wondered why the children that had once loved him all have turned their backs on him? What makes Bruce so dangerous is that he makes you want to impress him and we never could. We all were never good for his standards and that lead to us all resenting him one way or another. The original Commissioner Gordon was right. Bruce had not right in taking children out in the field no matter how much we wanted to help. No matter how talented we were."

"You're wrong." Jason raised an eyebrow that nearly touched his only white streak of hair on his head. "I didn't take on the mantle on his mantle to impress him. When I was younger I did some bad things not caring at all what it did to my family and I landed to juvie. Being Batman is my way of becoming a worthwhile human being again in my eyes and nobody else's. So no I'm not trying to earn the old man's approval and I haven't been since day one. If I had, I would have asked to use his suit instead of stealing his suit from under his nose and doing what needed to be done. I'm not a Robin or a Batgirl and maybe that is why I different from you all. Now leave I need to go do my job and I don't want you in my house."


A/N: I own nothing but my love for the batfamily.

One of the things that makes Terry my fifth favorite in the Batfamily (Alfred, Stephanie, Tim, Jason, Terry) is that he stole the batsuit and avenged his father's death then continued being Batman because he wanted to be a worthwhile person again instead of just wanting to get Bruce's approval. Which, yes, I do believe Terry wants Bruce's approval (and Terry does care for Bruce - not in romantic sense) but it's not the main reason why Terry keeps being Batman. Which I think is important when I later learnt, when I watched Justice League's Epilogue, that Bruce is Terry's bio father. Title is from AFI's song Prelude 12/21.