This is my second YJ fic. I hope you enjoy as it didn't let me sleep until I wrote it. And reviews are like cookies to authors; we love and cherish them. So please review/ favorite or if you want, just read it! Thanks, lovelies!

I don't own anything in this. :/

Robin has a distinct set of masks.

He would admit it but Batman taught him that revealing a fake aspect of yourself loses trust so he keeps his mouth shut; Canary always goes on and on about how important it was.

So he keeps his Gotham mask -dark and dirty like his city- far away from his Young Justice mask -bright and shining and young- because his team would be really confused if he went silent and motionless for hours, and Gotham wouldn't have a bright bouncing beautiful hero. Sometimes it's hard. Sometimes he feels like brooding and he's honestly just too tired to grin, but he does it anyway; the act must go on. And sometimes he wants to make terrible puns at his villains but he knows that distraction will get him dead.

Then there was his typical rich kid genius orphan exterior useful for Gotham Academy. He makes little smirks and goofs off yet keeps his grades perfect because he is Bruce Wayne's ward and that's expected. His friend Barbara is the only relief; she can be prickly and sarcastic and no, his name will get him nowhere, do you think she cares? And her hair is like fire and she's different from the others, but the different that makes him smile and push her buttons.

And at Bruce's parties, he is polite and charismatic. He charms everyone and no one complains because it's almost like he was raised respectably (and that statement makes his chest ache and he has to bite his tongue) and surely he was meant for this. It only took lives to get him there.

But being around Young Justice is the hardest. They see a kid who can't be serious and just wants to have fun -let's put a smile on that face- but he knows he is old. He has seen things they will never know, felt pain burst through every cell in his body, and he made it out only a little bit scarred. Sure, he isn't fond of penguins and God, does he hate flipping a coin, but he manages not to have breakdowns and nightmares let him get enough sleep to function.

And they complain about homework and training. Wally can't find his favorite snacks in the cupboard -sharp pangs have him curled in a ball- or Artemis has a cold -he's been in subzero temps in barely anything and lived- and these teenagers are obviously children. They are like a young star compared to the whole universe. He's felt hunger and thirst and anguish and yeah, he's tasted all the Earth has except feeling worth something or lasting happiness.

He knows if he threw away all the masks he'd be a small acrobat doing flips through a circus, but if he threw the masks away he'd be vulnerable and you are never vulnerable, Robin. He remembers the bright reds and golds and greens as a child but they protected him from pain about as much as his security blanket. He would remember lions and tigers and elephants with clowns and dead acrobats.

So his whole life is a series of masks, because he can't ever show himself. He knows he has more experience than every member of Young Justice and they coddle him but that's okay because the mask says it is. Then Batman is at his back and they are silently taking down mobsters and they don't make jokes or laugh because Gotham says not to. Gotham Academy says to perform perfectly; Barbara grins and flips her hair over her shoulder because honestly, don't they expect a bit too much? And Dick is somewhere underneath looking out, but he keeps quiet because he's more Robin than Dick anymore, but he guesses that's okay.