Maps showed up sooner than she said she would, easy to see even from three blocks down from where you and Damian sat on one of the benches right outside of the bookstore. He didn't argue with your reasoning for wanting to get out of the building, but the slight blur of yellow in the distance caught the both of your attention from what you were wanting to say, onto the fact Maps was coming.

"You didn't have anymore Robin stuff to talk about, right?" You asked Damian, in somewhat of a casual voice. Seeing as this entire vigilante theme is something you're not even surprised by anymore. You can hear Damian inhale as if he's trying to avoid it, but he answers anyways.

"She's well aware, she figured it out just as you had." He replied to you, almost void of emotion in his voice. Your forehead creased as one of your eyebrows raised, giving him a side glance and noticing he was trying to look away from you.

"My father spoke with her about how serious the situation would be if she ever decided to tell anyone, just as I'm sure he'll speak with you once he comes back." Damian added, turning his head to look at you. A dull look on his face, but there was an underlying tone of calmness in it. As if he was saying that it's not a big deal, he wouldn't interrogate you or anything. But you're still pretty sure that being lectured by Batman is pretty scary.

"Yeah? I look forwards to it then." You said quietly, giving off a half smile. Your (e/c) eyes growing soft on him, he only scoffed before smirking. When Maps was told about this, she nearly froze before bouncing with excitement over hearing that she gets to speak to Batman. Sure, scared at first. But she was excited. Damian kinda feels glad that you're not threatened by the idea of it, to you it doesn't seem as big of a deal as it should be.

To you, it doesn't change anything just because his father is Batman. Damian's already made himself without making that part of his personality. When he's Robin, he's usually the first person to bring up that he is 'The son of Batman,' but when he's Damian? That's a different story. He never even intended for you to know in the first place.

The fact that you still treat him to same makes him feel something other than just a sense of gratitude.

"You seem different today." It's said almost as an insult, partly to cover up the fact he doesn't want to seem as though he's smothering you with questions. He places his hand on the bench next to his right leg, just inches away from your own free hand that rests on the wooden bench.

"How so?" You asked, turning your head back over to him, though you knew exactly what you meant. Maybe you and Damian are more alike than you even want to think about, sure you're not as arrogant as he may come off. But you both definitely have a severely terrible habit or tendency to ignore what's literally right there.

"Well first off, you wanted to partake in kissing me-"
"Platonically! Totally platonically." Your voice grows loud and your face grows red, instantly snapping your hands up to your face and covering your mouth. Damian seems to laugh at this, it's obviously not full blown laughter and it sounds more like a quiet chuckle, but it's enough to make you glare at him for a moment.

"Well, I might as well agree that I find the idea of 'platonically' kissing you to be not as much of as annoyance as it would seem." He said in a plain voice, like he was trying not to sound serious about it but it ended up coming out in a deadpan. You only winced at the way it sounded and how off it came across, shaking your head.

"You're terrible at this, you know that right?" You said, letting the wince go and letting the casual smile creep back onto your face. Damian only comes off as confused, but it takes a moment for it to settle in that he's just embarrassed himself.

"We should fence sometime." you change the subject, noticing how Damian had grown uncomfortable with his failed attempt to flirt with you, probably telling himself he's never going to do it again.

"Hmph. As if you'd win." Ah, there it is. The infamous Damian smirk. He usually does this when the topic is about something he's good at. Well, you're good at fencing too. albeit you don't use actual sharp swords. You have one or two, but maybe they're in storage somewhere, or on display in the bookstore as decoration.

"I've participated in a tournament all the way in Germany and won, you might be Robin but-"
"-But, I'd still win." He raises his index finger and turns to look at you again, the smirk seeming to grow wider. You only let out a couple small laughs, raising your hand over his and pulling it down. Leaving your left hand on over his right while they both rest on the bench.

Maps is just now across the street, wearing a yellow jacket over a grey sweater. Blue jeans and comfy looking winter boots, along with her seeming trade marked yellow butterfly clip in her short brown hair. She gives off an excited wave while crossing the street, to which you return by raising up your free hand as if telling her to hurry up and come over already!

"When did she find out?" You asked, Damian just gave another quite answer like he didn't exactly want to talk about the full extent, oh but you'll find out why in a minute.

Since Damian wasn't answering it, maybe Maps would?

You can't help but smile as Maps shows up before the two of you, grinning just as happily as she usually does.

**At your house, with your mother.**

"How could he?" She grunts, pulling over the couch, squatting down with knife in hand. Digging the sharp silver metal piece into the cushions, ripping and tearing out the fabric that comes from the inside of the suede grey split and tear. Ripping out cotton, ripping out other forms of padding.

"I know I screwed up, but this is too far."

"Damn bastard!" Looking up from the couch past the living room, taking a sigh in to what she's done to her own house. Needing it to look like a struggle was put up, everything is thrashed.

The fridge is knocked over, chairs are broken, the fireplace is burning of a dangerously large fire. The windows are shattered, past into the hallway where your bedroom door is ripped off of it's hinges. Laura's bedroom door has a large hole in it, she sits in a highchair in the dining room giggling at her mother's antics. High pitched laughter that sounds more like a shriek, laughing at the destruction that your mother finds a necessity as of the moment.

"You think it's funny?" Your mother asks, a smile on her face as she stands back up and makes her way into the dining room. Cotton attached to the back of her shirt, she gently sets the knife down on the kitchen counter before standing in front of Laura.

"Mommy thinks it's funny too," Pausing and placing her hand on the table of the highchair, the first thing Laura does is reach for her mother's hand and pulls it into her mouth. Casual baby antics, still casually making your mother cringe at the slobbery baby mouth that has her finger. You're basically sixteen, it's been sixteen years since she's had a baby.

So she isn't new to this, but it's been a long time. Sixteen years apart, she can't help but feel guilty about the fact she knows that the two of you won't grow up close.

"Eating peoples fingers now, are we? You can eat all of Zed's fingers if you want, but not mine." She says in a light tone while pulling her hand back, wiping it on her grey shirt. Laura only bangs her tiny hands on the table until she's given something else to stick in her mouth. In this case, she goes to chewing on her own hands. More casual baby antics.

Your mother picks up a pencil from the table next to the high chair, and snaps it in half. Instantly widening her eyes and giving Laura the most shocked face she could muster, fighting the urge to crack at a grin. Feeling her lips twitch upwards when Laura responds is becoming all too much of a feeling that she knows she's going to remember for a while, but not feel for an even longer time.

Laura starts shrieking with laughter, pulling her hands out of her mouth and smacking them together as if she was clapping. Drool dribbling down her chin, your mother just lightly smiles and reaches for a napkin off of the dining room table before wiping her mouth.

Your mother looks at the small pink bow in Laura's blonde fuzzy peach fuzz hair, and can't help but frown.

Blonde hair.

On the dining room table next to her is a stack of paperwork all tied to a divorce lawyer. Your stepfather's signature at the very bottom of it, next to a blank space where your mother's name should be.

He wasn't as discreet with it as he thought, because she had found it in the attic stuffed under a box. She pulled it out and read it in the dining room.

He wants to take you back to Portland with him.

Your mother knows that this is wrong, but part of her is thankful that the Cold Flame threatened her when they did. Threatening her in a time when she was going to be made sign a piece of paperwork that agrees she only gets to see you on the weekends. Agreeing under terms that a lawyer has deemed suitable, that the man who raised you is no less your father than your biological one.

This way, she isn't kidnapping her own daughter to run and hide you all away somewhere safe.

"Alright, pumpkin. Let's put you in clothes that aren't covered in applesauce and drool." Reaching her hands under Laura's arms, referring to her as a pumpkin. Afterall, she was born on Halloween. What other fitting nickname? Absolutely none, that's what.

Laura squeals with delight upon being picked up, resting her head on her mother's chest while being walked into her room. Down the hallway, she can feel Laura chewing on nothing but just moving her mouth against her. Albeit, she knows she's going to have to change her shirt unless she doesn't care about Zed's future snide remark about slobber on her clothes. But what's the point, anyways.

When she carries Laura into her room, she places the tiny baby into a small light purple play pen. A stuffed giraffe animal that's the size of her own head is what she instantly goes to attempt and crawl towards. Grasping at it with just her finger tips, so your mother helps by pushing the toy giraffe even closer to her.

"Newcastle is really cold, I'll pack you some warm clothes." She says, pulling out a white snow jacket fit for a child between two and three months old, a couple onesies and at the very least eight pairs of socks. All tossing them next to a diaper bag on the ground, that lays next to a small brown cardboard box.

"Little boots for little feet." She mumbles, picking up the small brown boots that just barely fit in each palm of her hand, faux soft fur on both the inside and the out. It makes her eyes crinkle as she gives the small shoes a soft look, putting them on the pile after taking it off the top of the light green dresser that had pink flower paintings all over it.

She keeps doing this until she feels tears running down her face. Dripping down her chin and past her collarbones.

She knows that she isn't going to spend Christmas with Laura, or her first birthday. Or anything else between any of that. If she's lucky? The next time she'll see Laura again is when she's three.

But she isn't going to do to her exactly what was done to you. There's no way she would ever allow that to happen to Laura.

She's silently sobbing, holding one of Laura's onesies to her chest. Tears endlessly streaming down her face with no indication that they're going to stop anytime soon. She's not going to be able to be with her daughter. She's not going to be able to hear her daughter's first words. She's not going to be able to watch her daughter take her first steps. She's not going to be able to take pictures of her doing goofy things. She knows she won't be in most of Laura's early childhood memories. She knows that Laura will refer to Zed as her mother.

She knows that when she meets Laura again, she'll be confused. She knows that when she meets Laura again, it won't be a long time. She'll leave again. Not unless the Cold Flame ends their plans in trying to take Laura, when they already have her brother. Manny.

She knows that Laura and Manny won't grow up together.

But she knows she's doing something so much more terrible than what's going on in her head right now.

She's forcing you into the middle of this, taking you with her when she goes to get Manny back, without even telling you everything that you need to know.

Because she can't stand the idea of what you'd think of her if you knew. Why is she so afraid of this? Because she's already felt it happening. You weren't there in the hospital as often as you said you'd be. Lea was there even more than you said you would. And though Lea kept telling your mother that you'd come?

You barely did.

While your mother breaks down and allows all of her worries to rush over her at once, she fails to notice that someone has come into the house and made their way to Laura's room.

Standing in the doorway, Lea watches the woman who she views as a mother fall apart.

She doesn't say anything, but the only thing she thinks is that you should be here. No, that you need to be here.

"Where's (Y/n)?" Her voice is quiet, and it causes your mother to turn around and look at Lea. Your mother, wearing a grey shirt and jeans. The collar of the shirt is soaked with tears that had run down her chin, and it only hurts Lea even more to see how far it's escalated.

Your mother quickly drops the orange and blue onesie and rubs her eyes with the back of her hands, forcing on a plastic looking smile and shaking her head, "She's just out right now with a couple friends, Lea." Your mother replies, hair stuck to the sides of her face and eyes red from crying and rubbing them.

Lea stands there in round sunglasses to hide her own eyes, not that she'd been crying. But she has a couple issues of her own as of the moment. Still wearing the black combat boots and black jeans from the night before, all with a changed light orange shirt that reads Girl Gang, under an open denim jacket. Her own hair is a mess, though it's hidden by her usual black and blank baseball cap. Casting a shadow over her eyes, as if the glasses weren't even there. In her pockets are her hands, fingerless gloves. A single brass knuckle out of the set lays away from her hand on the other side of her palm resting inside her pocket. Something she got from Collin, but barely had any urge to use.

"She's at the bookstore, isn't she-"
"Lea, don't."
"No, this isn't okay! She should be here, right now!" Her face scrunches into a bitter form, eyebrows knitting together as her eyes narrow into a harsh glare, not directed towards your mother.

"Lea, calm down. We can go into the dining room and I'll make some tea, does that sound alright?" Your mother takes a step forwards towards Lea, hands easing in front of her to show her open palms.

Lea can't believe this. She's not even her daughter, she hasn't been anyone's daughter in a long time. The only person that she thinks counts is your mother, and it just angers her so much with everything that's happened lately.

It's not fair. To anybody.

Bottling everything up for so long, your mother knows that something bad is going to happen when Lea storms out of the house, muttering something about dragging you back here by force if need be.

Knowing that Lea will get there before her, your mother calls the store and doesn't stop calling until someone who works there answers, hopefully Julian. So she can tell them that you need to leave or just give Lea what she wants in the moment she does whatever it is she'll do.