"I had twins." Your mother mumbles to herself, staring at her daughter Laura. The curtains in the room hide away just one single beam of moonlight, and it's reflecting off of her child's eyes.

"I was going to name him Manny." She adds, feeling her eyes water as she cradles Laura in her arms. her youngest daughter sound asleep in her arms as she keeps it that way by swaying her back and forth.

There's a sad smile on her face as she looks away from Laura and to the closed window. Just a stray beam of light showing the particles in the air that would be normally invisible in the dark.

"Your father had this friend, his name is Manny. He was kind to me when all he did was give John a hard time. I was going to name him after Manny." she pauses, using her free hand to wipe her eye with the back of it. Knowing how much she's screwed up by all of this. Laura is just proof of that. Because she's not her husband's child. That isn't going to stop her from loving her daughter. She's a good mother, but what she did only adds onto the list of things that she's been keeping from you.

She didn't meet your father in a bookstore, she met your father in Newcastle. She knows what happened to you during the one year you were away, and she knows just how much you changed. She knows why you changed, but she may not know the extent. She knows the name Talia Al Ghul, and she's heard the name Leviathan only once or twice.

She knows that you would have grown up with questionabl morals with or without the help of whatever they did to you on that island. John Constantine is your father. You're the daughter of the Hellblazer for crying out loud, of course your life wasn't going to be normal. Especially when she knows exactly why it is that you being his daughter is so important.

And oh god, she hated him so much. She hated John for what he did to you. He knew that one day you'd have to pick it up. If he'd somehow died before you were even ready, you'd be the next Hellblazer. Doing what he does, getting people hurt. She hated him, she hated him. Doing all of this to you, and shoving that burden inside of your chest.

When John constantine dies, there is going to have to be another Hellblazer. John's already died once, and come real close to dying on multiple occasions. John came back by making a deal he shouldn't have even considered. John's been to hell more times than he has fingers to count. And when he dies, all the things that he's locked in there? They'll get out. Their key to the lock would be shattered and undone.

So he made you the key. The gates that keep what he's put away, are essentially tethered to you. As long as you're fine, John can die knowing that what he's dealt with stays dealt with. He can die knowing that all the terrible things he's put away get to stay there. No escape from hell, or purgatory. He made you the key to all of that.

He did this when you were little. Two years old. The younger the person is when this is done, the better of a chance it has of working. The more time there is for the tether to become more potent and stronger. Say it's done to an eighty year old man, and he dies the next day. It wouldn't have done anything. It all revolves around time and the willpower of the person it's locked on.

But there's always a price, right?

You'd be fine. Tethering something like that didn't have any physical effect on you. It wouldn't and it shouldn't. But in order to even be able to let the magic work, it needed a sample of what it was suppose to keep locked away. A sample of something that's been in and out of those gates enough times for it to be recognized to a strong and efficient amount.

He needed something that can bring a person back. And in Newcastle, sure there were a lot of things like that. John could have just had Chaz help. The entire thing with Chaz, though. Is his heart can only stop a certain amount of times before he actually completely dies. That in itself, is another story. One that's always given your mother a headache. Not to mention a bit of a heartache. It's not a good story. The same can go for half of John's encounters with anything else.

But he had to lay low. Stay off of the Hellblazer business for a couple years. So he went to someone that owed him a couple of favors.

Of course, this was Talia. He's helped her out a couple times, only because he made those decisions in his starting years before he realized completely that this wasn't a good idea. He always knew something wasn't so right about her. Half the time she'd act like a complete and utterly different person. Not that he knew her, it's just that on separate occasions he could tell something was entirely different.

One of those favors was to get him just a sample of the Lazarus pit. In exchange for her getting a 'Get out of hell free card'. It's safe to say that when he actually figured out the extent to what the Al Ghul's were doing, he did make good on her deal to her. Keeping her out of hell. But the thing is, she never said anything about purgatory.

So when he found out she died? In his own way, he just hopes things stay that way. He doesn't even want to think about what she would do to you if she found out that John used a loophole as an excuse to put her through something as equally worse as hell.

And this is why your mother hates the things he does.

He puts you recklessly in danger without even thinking too much about it.

And when the time comes that he's in his own danger and you might be threatened? Despite being out of his life? He tosses you over to the one woman who he knows would one day come to know about John's loophole. Knowing that you're the reason the deal was made in the first place, and then connecting it all to you.

"I had twins." She repeats, looking down at Laura once again.

Theres a tear in her eye as she remembers the attack that was done on her. The man who did it was no stranger. He was doing it to get revenge on John. It's not going to be enough, and it isn't. Nearly killing his ex-wife. Endangering his daughters, you and Laura. It won't be enough.

A child of the Hellblazer has more capabilities than she was told.

Nick attacked her for a reason, and it wasn't just to hurt her to get to John. And she knows that he's going to come after you next, if not Laura.

Because he has Manny. And there's no way for her to tell if he's dead or alive. The doctor that originally took her ultrasound told her that there were in fact, two babies growing inside her. And when she went to the hospital to only deliver Laura by C-section? All the new doctor said was that there must have been a false reading on the ultrasound.

But a mother always knows, right?

Your mom wants to see you as soon as possible. Because she wants to explain everything to you before you find out on your own. And she knows you're going to have a terribly hard time forgiving her, if at all.

**

"I'm fine, I was um..just watching a movie and the jump scare got me. Sorry to freak you all out, I'm really embarrassed." You stammered out your words, red in the face and a watering left eye. You didn't even realize the police had come in the room until an officer had to come right up to you and make sure you were looking at him.

"You were shaking, are you sure everything's alright? You dind't see anyone out of the window, or hear anybody in the house?" He asked, leaning forwards and getting a good look at you. His green eyes and a face full of freckles staring you down to make sure that you're fine. Probably one of the better cops in Gotham.

"Yeah, no I'm good. Thank you so much for coming in when you did, kinda helps my faith in what you guys do if something actually does go wrong." You mumbled, rubbing the back of your neck and looking in another direction.

"You need anything, give us a shout." He said, bending down and picking up the half closed laptop. Holding his hands around it in a way so he wouldn't drop it, turning it around to take a quick look at the screen. He made a small humming sound with his mouth, assuming that you got so freaked out by your movie that you just closed the tab and flung the laptop.

His eyes settled on the boy on the screen, and he gave you a questioning look.

"You're friends with the Wayne kid?" He asked, slowly giving the laptop back to you. His hands under it while your fingers wrapped around both sides of the top half. You only nodded quickly and went back to trying to figure out what you were about to do before you dropped the laptop.

"I never got how that guy actually has a kid. Well, goodnight Miss (L/n). Please refrain from watching scary movies in the meantime." He said in a sincere tone, all the while smiling to help possibly make you feel just a little better. As you thought, probably one of the better cops.

"Thank you. Have a nice night." You said as he turned around and made his way out of your room, flicking the light off and shutting the door. You leaned over to your bedside table and turned you lamp on, a small light blue hue cast on your room thanks to the color of the bulb. It was a dim light, you couldn't even make out objects on the other side of the room.

You sighed and shook your head, leaning back over and opening the drawer from under the table. Many things you managed to just toss in there, so grabbing a red zip up hoodie and keeping it on for extra warmth over your green tank top is what you did. Even a blanket wasn't enough to keep you warm at the moment, apparently.

You sighed, rubbing both of your eyes with the heels of your hands. You could feel your eyelashes rubbing against the skin around your eyes, and feel the wateriness from before. Leaving red and dark circles under your eyes while you ran your fingers through your already messy hair. God you probably look so bad right now.

You looked back down at the monitor and saw that picture of Damian that you accidentally managed to screenshot. He was mid sentence and he looked mainly concerned. You'd probably assume he'd give you that same look right now if he saw how you were.

You were about ready to paste the image of what you copied earlier onto the screen before you noticed something in the background.

Remember that thing that you thought was a mannequin? Turns out that it doesn't have legs. It's just a torso and a head. You thought this was weird, so you went to go crop the picture into a smaller section and just look at that. But what you found explains it and something else only to a point.

It's a training dummy. One that you've used before, as in target practise. Fencing techniques for the epay style of fencing. Point and jab, mostly to the torso. But this one's beaten to hell, the type of damage to it wouldn't be done just by a fencing foil. You mostly focus on fencing sabre, but you'd recognize the differences anywhere. But that wasn't damage done by a sword. It was a fist from punches.

Now you know Damian has some issues with his anger, and you also know he's very good at controlling it. As far as you've seen, anyway. And you know he knows how to fence. You've just never seen him fence. And you know for a fact that he's athletic and does something to help keep that up. So you're not too surprised to see a training dummy in his room, but there's something that your eyes catch onto that's in a glass case almost completely off of the screen.

A black and red suit with a green glove and a green boot. It's only half the glass case, and it's about as pixilated as everything else in the background. But it's the color scheme that strikes your attention. And it just feels like your breath has suddenly turned to ice in your lungs, making it so you can't breathe. Unable to look away, as if the longer you look the more it won't be there.

You ended up saving the picture as it was cropped like that, before pasting the new one of the insignia of the design on the chestplate there now. Cropping past everything else, not wanting to see the mask of that monster that killed Robin in that video prior that couldn't let you sleep.

You just cropped the insignia into the photo. Trying to shake everything about what you just saw out of your head. What would Damian be needing with a suit that looks like Robin's? You know the answer to that, you're not stupid. But you still want more proof before anything.

The insignia was pixelated too, but there was another image in the triangle. It looked like a bunch of lines and something in it, you couldn't tell. You decided to enhance it, brightening the colors and contrasts until the image in the middle became more noticeable.

In the triangle was a small spider web with an eye in it.

And as if you were staring at something else whlie looking at the picture, ti clicked why you knew what this was.

A hot piece of metal, almost like a branding iron. You remember seeing that image at the end of a short metal rod and remember hearing someone telling you to hold still. Seeing that image as not a pixelated image on screen, but a hot red smoking piece of metal.

Instantly that odd burning pain comes back in your back, and you're fidgeting to make the uncomfortable feeling go away. You don't understand it, why are so many things giving you weird feelings? They're almost like flashbacks, the small images and scenes you see play out in your head in the form of nightmares.

You close the file, deleting the image.

You ended up going back to the one picture with Damian that had a suit in the background, deciding to enhance it. The audio file of Robin talking is really how you're going to understand everything. And that's just so close to done being digitally changed, to a point you can fix the frequencies and make his voice sound as if he wasn't forcing it to sound different.

That was definitely a Robin suit. You pulled up an image from online and compared it. Red tunic made out of what seemed like kevlar, matching black sleeves and black pants. The green combat boots with the red laces. The green gloved gauntlets with the bladed fins.

You kept all that open, going to the audio file and minimizing it to a point where you could see Damian's suit, Robin's suit, and listen to the recording all at once.

"Now isn't the time for this, I'm going to let you go and you need to grab my hands." It was the only phrase in the entire audio clip that wasn't distorted and ruined by the water. You didn't even know how easy it should have been to do this, but it took you a long time to actually work yourself up to making the pitch a little higher until it sounded familiar.

"Now isn't the time for this, I'm going to let you go and you need to grab my hands." A little higher, just a smidge.

"Now isn't the time for this, I'm going to let you go and you need to grab my hands." You spent even more time readjusting the sound differences, getting rid of background noise. Getting rid of any strange other noises in the audio. Just cropping out everything but Robin's voice.

Until it started to sound more and more like Damian's.

You just sat there for a solid ten minutes staring at everything while the audio replayed. It all makes so much sense, the bruises on his body that he has no real reason for, all of the excuses he seems to not completely think through. Everything that he's said to you that seems like it doesn't exactly pan out is making more sense now.

So that would mean Bruce Wayne is Batman. That's what Robin meant when he said that this wasn't just his secret.

"Oh my god." You mumbled to yourself, eyes growing large as you started typing in notes. Explanations for everything, how this is even possible. But then when you think about it, it actually makes sense. It wouldn't be impossible for Bruce Wayne to pull this off. And it wouldn't be impossible for a fifteen year old to do these things. Especially one with the proper training. Damian's body, how he's so athletic and good at almost everything in school. Why he's so advanced in everything, why he has a different point of view on everything. It all makes sense now.

And if Damian's Robin, and this is all just one hell of a coincidence? It explains why he's so reluctant to be close with you.

And now you see why.

Damian Wayne is Robin, and this isn't something you just expect him to tell you. You know that the two of you shared somewhat of a moment and kissed, hell you even passed out with your head on his chest and he had an arm around you while he finished the movies. He stayed there and watched them because it was something important to you that you suggested he should take the chance to enjoy. And he did.

You care about him, and he's made it somewhat obvious that he cares about you too. So of course this isn't something he's just going to tell you. Just you knowing puts you in just as much danger as you being involved with him. You didn't understand it at first, you just thought he'd never been around someone like this. Well, you've never been around somebody like this either. But it just explains all so well why everything that's happened whlie you were in Gotham happened.

And with one final thought, you winced while whispering in a toned quiet yell.

"I kissed Robin?!"