"Let the kid go," Jason snarled beneath his red helmet, eyes narrowed down the barrel of his gun that was aimed unwaveringly at the thugs in front of him. "Now."

"No," the older thug countered, arrogant and twitching with adrenaline, or cocaine, perhaps, "You let us go, or you're gonna be scrapin' this kid's brain off the concrete."

The kid shivered in the thug's tight grip. God, did Jason hate hostage situations.

His lips curled and he shifted where he stood, wondering how he was going to play this out. The thugs were amateurs - that much he could tell from the wad of cash laying idly by his feet from where they had dropped it in desperation to escape him.

Jason remembered stalking down the dark alley and smirking to himself beneath his helmet as he had watched them scrabble for a way out, rattling the chain fence which blocked the exit and yanking at locked doors along the walls. It's not that he would have done anything truly horrific to them. They were petty criminals - hardly Jason's usual targets.

But Jason had watched them from the rooftops as they had held a gun to an elderly woman's head, and laughed at the rapidly spreading stain on her dress and the piss running down her shaking legs. He had watched them run away, hollering in success.

He had memorised their features and characteristics, knowing that they would crave the same adrenaline high the next night. He had wanted nothing more than to catch up with them at that moment, but once he had calmed the elderly woman and helped clean herself up, the sun had been peaking over the horizon. At the time, Jason had almost felt that the night was a waste, but the elderly woman – Betty Jean – had given him her number in gratitude.

("Ma'am, you really don't have to-" "Don't be stupid, boy. Take it and say no more. You ever need anyone to talk to, you call me, you hear?" "But-" "I said - do you hear?" "…. Yes, ma'am").

He had picked up their trail the next night, determined to avenge Betty Jean, which had led to the current situation in the dead-end alley. Realising their disadvantage, the criminals had panicked. Jason could see the younger thug shaking in his black, steel-toed boots, his eyes, set deep in his face, wandering frantically. The older man had seemed more collected under pressure, but Jason had noticed his nervous twitch and how he rubbed the seam of his threadbare jeans between his fingers.

Loathe to admit it, Jason had gotten cocky. Irritatingly, he knew that Bruce would have hung him up to dry for it, as well. He hadn't cased the scene before he had rushed in, and he hadn't noticed the small figure curled in between the dented metal bins and rusted pipe, not until it was too late. The boy had been closer to the thugs than he had been to Jason, and they had noticed their company before he did.

The kid, to his credit, had tried to make himself as small as possible, unnoticeable, but it had been in vain. The thugs had snatched him up unceremoniously, ignoring his pained yelp, and Jason had growled, unable to do anything, as they had dragged the boy to stand in front of them, shielding them. The whimper the kid made when they had raised the gun to his head echoed in Jason's head. Unbeknownst to the thugs, that action had condemned them in Jason's eyes – elderly people and kids were off limits, and these criminals had broken both rules, so they were fair game.

The boy was small and bony, but instead of hollowed cheeks and sunken eyes, his face was filled out, and round with childish youth. He was flushed pink, and Jason could see the light sheen of sweat painting his forehead, the result of a combination of anxiety and fear. He could see the faint shivers running through the boy's pitiful frame and Jason couldn't blame him – he was dressed in a tatty grey shirt and threadbare sweats on the bitingly cold night. Jason knew a street urchin when he saw one. It took one to know one.

"I'm gonna ask once more, then I swear you're going down," Jason said quietly, "Let him go."

"Or what?" the older thug taunted, "You're not gonna shoot me, are ya?"

"You wanna bet?" Jason growled under his breath. He mustn't have been as quiet as he had aimed to be, because the thugs moved back another step, putting more distance between them.

In response, the kid squirmed in the arms of his captor. The man holding him tightened his grip around the boy, his forearm digging painfully into the kid's neck, restricting his oxygen. The boy gasped and gargled, straining higher on his tiptoes in an attempt to release the pressure on his windpipe.

Jason had seen enough. Taking a calculated risk, he shot one of the criminals in the stomach, quickly pivoting to the man holding the boy and taking a shot at his foot. The man released the kid with a strangled cry, shoving him forward and away, towards Jason.

The vigilante roughly grabbed the boy by the shoulder and pushed him behind him, keeping a firm grip of the boy as he tried to slip from his grasp. He quickly pistol-whipped the men on the ground, dragging one of the men over and dumping him over the torso of the other man to keep pressure on his stomach wound.

He was about to call the authorities and report them, when the boy in his grasp gave as almighty kick to the back of his calf. It didn't hurt, and Jason didn't fight crime every night for the appreciation, but a little respect would go a long way, so he turned to the boy and snapped, "Stop that."

The boy's shirt he held threatened to tear, and Jason knew what it was like to lose the only shirt you owned, so he moved and grasped the boy's upper arms tightly. In response, the kid writhed angrily, trying to free himself, but Jason had made his grip unshakably firm. Jason frowned behind the mask and ordered, "Calm down."

But the kid didn't hear him, or didn't want to, because he thrashed harder, and Jason could hear a faint, pitiful whine rising from deep in the boy's throat as he clawed at the vigilante's padded glove to no avail.

Grunting in frustration, Jason easily secured both the boy's wrists in one hand. With the other, he reached up and unsnapped the clasps on his helmet, briskly tugging it off and throwing it to the side with a clang. He flipped up the white lenses on his mask and gripped the boy's chin, maintaining eye contact. The boy stilled.

"Calm down," he repeated, his voice firm, but not unkind, "I'm not going to hurt you, kid."

He held the boy's gaze, trying to project honesty and sincerity through his eyes and posture alone. He wasn't sure if he quite managed it, but the kid unclenched his tight, coiled muscles and loosened his stiff posture nonetheless, nodding hesitantly after a moment.

Jason eased his grip on the boy's wrists but didn't release him. "You gonna run if I let go? You saw what I did to those guys over there."

It wasn't quite a threat, more of a warning, a precaution, but the boy shook his head violently as if it were, eyes wide and breaths coming short and quick. The boy was still obviously scared out of his wits, but he agreed to not run, and Jason took things as they came, so he unhanded the kid, stepping back.

True to his word, the boy stood, instead of bolting away. Jason could see the fine tremors in the boy's legs that perhaps explained that – he wasn't sure the kid would have gotten far without tripping or falling. The kid kept his eyes trained on the vigilante's face, as if scared to look away, and Jason smirked, hearing as the boy's breath hitched at the sight of it.

He didn't particularly like terrorizing the boy; it made him feel dirty, and made his chest feel uncomfortably tight, as if something had shifted inside his torso to push against his lungs. But he found himself respecting the kid's courage in the face of potential danger, and the look of wavering false confidence in the boy's eyes reminded him of what he saw in the mirror every time he looked.

"Follow me," he ordered, unthinkingly. He paused for a second, waiting for regret and disbelief to flood through him, but it never did, astonishingly, and at that moment, Jason couldn't have brought himself to care – the sun was rising and he was tired.

Jason retrieved his helmet and pushed passed the boy, walking down to the entrance of the alleyway, keeping his eyes forward and not looking back. Without saying a word, the boy followed.

"You got a name, kid?" Jason asked, shoving his hands in his pockets, out of the frigid, night air. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he found himself wondering – and, perhaps, vaguely concerned – about how cold the kid was. He kept walking.

After leaving the alley, the kid had caught up, and since then had been walking silently by his side, shoulders hunched in over himself, feet moving fast to keep up with Jason's longer strides. Jason had called in the location of the unconscious thugs and decided, with his mattress in mind, to head to his latest safe-house – his home, for the coming weeks. By that point, the boy still hadn't said a word, so Jason hadn't bothered to ignite a conversation and had kept walking.

Halfway through their travels, they had moved to the rooftops. The city was awakening, its citizens rising; Jason hadn't wanted any questions or enquiries into the boy's state of dress nor his own, regarding the mask and helmet that swung idly by his side. The kid seemed more centred and relaxed than he had ever been. Perhaps it was because he was physically and emotionally exhausted, but Jason didn't know.

He had easily climbed up a fire escape to the roof, and he had reluctantly found himself quietly impressed by the small boy as he silently clambered up behind him without a protest, nimble and agile. He had left the boy to his own accord as he had marched across the rooftops, but there had been times when Jason didn't trust the boy's abilities, or the gaps between the buildings were too wide, and the vigilante was forced to throw him bodily to the other side or merely carry him over.

The first time, the boy had tensed as fast as lightning at Jason's touch, but had eased up after a moment of Jason not moving. For some reason, it rubbed the vigilante up wrong to just pick the boy up without his consent or acknowledgment, so he had waited for the slow nod before he had heaved the kid up into his arms.

It wasn't much of a hardship - the boy was light, small and skinny. To Jason, it often felt like he was carrying a bag of bones, as the boy's paper-thin skin allowed his ribs to stick out and dig into his forearm, and feeling the evidence of the boy's obvious malnourishment made him feel uncomfortable and irrationally angry.

They were nearing his latest safe-house – an old, abandoned train passenger car near the railway track, partially hidden by the long, reed grass and perfect for laying-low – when Jason had spoken. It was deafeningly silent while he waited for an answer.

"Richie," the boy said, quiet and soft. Jason could hardly hear him over the rumbling of the city, but he did. He hummed, noncommitting.

"I'm Jason," he offered. He had considered giving a fake name, or even an abbreviation, but the boy was already going to be staying in his safe-house for the unforeseeable future, and didn't see the point. He probably wouldn't have remembered anyway, and outed himself to the kid sometime soon.

"Where's your parents?" he asked idly. He didn't really care if he got an answer or not to that particular question, but the silence between them was uncomfortable, and he wanted something to distract him from the cold.

"Dead," the kid said quietly after a moment. His steps didn't falter.

Jason paused, then snorted in dark amusement. "Same," he offered drily.

They didn't speak for the rest of the journey.