Alfred holds the boy’s hand steady in his own, as they move the tubing of icing along the top of the cake: it was a decent enough job for a double layer, cream filled confection, and Alfred was pleased, his voice warm: “That’s it. Just a touch of pressure, not too much.” He steps back, wiping his hands on his apron as he moves around the Wayne Manor kitchen with ease. An animal in his natural environment.

Bruce stands behind the boy, watching Alfred, his expression barely contained: the smile tugs at the edges of his lips, from where he sits, sneaking a green bean from the casserole to the side of him.

Kate has been invited to Wayne Manor, which feels a bit odd, but then again, she always feels a little bit like a fish out of water on a day like today. She paces in the library a little, stares out at the just-about-to-bloom garden for a long moment or two.

Ramsey has what is definitely the worst icing handwriting but delights in this task, since Alfred uses the metal icing tops, which seem far more legitimate than Momma Julie’s store-bought plastic ones. Although, of course, Ramsey loves his stepmother too, and has ensured that a giant bouquet of flowers — bought on Peter’s credit card — will arrive at their Canadian home.

Bruce comments, as he watches Ramsey, a diffused sense of pride making the edges of his words honey-warm, sunshine bright: “Your cursive is getting better.”

Alfred leans in, as he walks past Bruce, “..but your stealth could use a touch up, sir—you’ll ruin your appetite,” and he pushes the casserole away from the man, patting him on the arm as he walks to the oven.

Kate wanders out of the library. She’s spent enough time now living in this place that she no longer gets lost in the main corridors, has little fear of their dark corners, and she can smell dinner cooking all the way from here through some alchemy of Alfred’s. Kitchen. Coffee. This she can do.

( unmixed and heroic joy )

Kate dozes off on a QT breakroom sofa.

Ramsey sits beside his mother, playing what is surely the seven-hundredth game of Zelda today.

Kate stirs a little, and as she wakes, realizes she’s started to drool. It’s a good thing she sorta technically owns these sofas now. “Ugh, Ram, how long was I asleep, honey?”

Ramsey glances over at his mother, then at the clock on the wall behind her. “Couple’a hours,” he mumbles, clicking a button that causes an oversized sword to start causing damage before he actually looks back over at the screen.

"Oh geez. Oh my god," says Kate. "You could have woke me up so we could go home, it would have been okay." She gathers, somehow, that Ramsey is either okay with sitting there playing with his 3DS or doesn’t care enough about where he is yet. She’d thought the latter was getting better, what with him wanting to be in LA, but…she doesn’t know. What needs to happen, really, is she needs to be able to ask. As Ollie said, Ram is clearly her son, and he’s reacting almost exactly as she has—and had, at his age.

Ramsey shrugs, frowning at the little blinking ‘charge battery’ light. “It’s okay, I didn’t want chili for dinner anyway.” He breaks a few pots, gathering up all the coins, and asks, without looking at her: “Did you and Pa and Mr. Bruce break up?”

Kate is startled, then clears her throat, gently. “You better save that, dulcito. And no, actually, we didn’t break up at all. Did someone say something?”

Ramsey looks up at her, for a long moment, then nods. “Okay, that’s good. I didn’t know.” He saves the game, shutting his console with a satisfying click. “Do you think we could have pozole from somewhere instead of chili?”

Ramsey shakes his head. “No, but Pa moved back home.”

( schism )

Hoodie moves when the scent is gone. He doesn’t linger where Kyle is, now that the magician had removed what he’d needed. There was no point. He leaves the knucklebones scattered across the floor, not bothering to pick them up as he shifts across space and time, buoyed by the power that is growing. The scent still lingers, there is still hope, and the promise of revenge whets his appetite.

Hoodie is, while the Magician and her Lantern mend what has been broken, across in San Franscisco, speaking to Diana, daughter of Hippolyta. Hoodie is, while the populace grows more and more content in their feasting—their FEASTING— tearing the sheet of metal from the armor he’d been denied access to, and when it peels back, like the soft skin of a grape, the hunt is on again and Hoodie—He—

Hoodie is, while the Magician and her Lantern mend what has been broken, across in San Franscisco, speaking to Diana, daughter of Hippolyta. Hoodie is, while the populace grows more and more content in their feasting—their FEASTING— tearing the sheet of metal from the armor he’d been denied access to, and when it peels back, like the soft skin of a grape, the hunt is on again and Hoodie—He—

Hoodie races across space and time on the currents of pure human energy bubbling under his fingers, his teeth bared and straining. Straining, because the boy has left. He can smell him.

Hoodie removes the fruit stolen from his uncle’s garden from within the pockets of his sweatshirt—that is where his hands have travelled, everytime— and leaves it upon the plate and waits. Waits.

Damian has snuck out of his prison for the second time this day. He glares up at the gray sky as if its caused him some great grievance, while he cracks the pomegranate open with his small fingers. The movements are precise, powerful. The boy picks out a few of the precious, staining seeds and places them on his tongue. Without a moment’s haste, he crushes them between his back teeth, not yet graced with twelve-year molars. The pomegranate was an appeasement, it seemed, for the longevity of his stay. The boy accepts it without hesitation.

( six seeds )

…you wake up in Grampa’s penthouse, on the couch. You are wearing one of your favorite sun dresses. Beside you is Ramsey Robinson. Thor is licking his hand, and Kiki is standing and pacing, standing and pacing, whining slightly.

Rose Wilson trots downstairs, occupied in texting until she sees you on the couch.

"Oh. So you guys are all back" she says, sounding slightly disappointed. "Next time your parents should tell me if you’re gonna be gone for a while, geez." Rose heads into the kitchen, muttering. "I coulda gone to get my chocha waxed or something…"

——————————————

"ROSE!!!" Lian screams and hops off the couch as if it’s on fire. She screams again and hugs Kiki. Then one more time, as she hugs Thor. Both dogs tails are wagging in excitement now, and Lian looks at Ramsey, who seems to be waking up.

"RAMSEY, WE’RE HOME!" she bawls and runs to her room, and checks. Everything is there - all of her beautiful angel babies (she can take inventory just by sight alone), her posters, her binder full of her songs, her tambourine, her dinglehopper, her fourteen books - all of it. She jumps and makes a squeak like her Aunt Mar’i and then tumbles down the stairs, catapulting herself onto Rose.

"Get OFF," Rose says angrily, even though she just sits there on the stool and keeps playing Angry Birds. Lian purrs and hums and then finally asks:

"Where’s Papa?"

By the time Ramsey registers what’s happening and where he is, Lian has already bounded off the couch and up the stairs to her room. Ramsey, on the other hand, slides bonelessly off the couch, straight onto the floor, and wraps his arms around Thor’s chest. He buries himself in the flush of lighter fur that goes around the dog’s neck down his chest, and for a few minutes, Ramsey cries. Thor smells like the shampoo Lian insisted they should wash the dogs with months before they were thrown into Cachement, and he doesn’t mind when Ramsey sobs and hiccups against him.

After all, that’s what best friends are for. And Thor missed his boy, too. Androids dream of electric sheep, but robotic dogs only dream of endless fields of tennis balls and their smiling owners.

Vaguely, Ramsey remembers the weight of his cell phone in his pocket. There are no missed calls, no frantic Skype messages. Just a snapchat of his little sister’s blonde curls and gap-ridden toddler’s mouth pressed between his father and stepmother, all their cheeks depressed against one another, all smiles and best wishes.

The message that flashes across the screen reads: "Hope you’re having a great day, Ram!"

Ramsey quickly saves the picture before it can delete itself, then goes to look through his phone’s photo albums for it. He finds it easily enough, the last in the list, or at least, he thought it would be…

The boy blinks and clicks the thumbnail right beside it, the new last picture in the album. There, as if scanned perfectly, is the watercolor of the Child dancing on the apple tree stump.

Ramsey smiles.

---

The room is spinning when he wakes up. He’s not sure exactly where or why it’s spinning, but it definitely is spinning. Every time he blinks, the wall and ceiling turn, so he decides that leaving his eyes closed is the better option. It isn’t until he realizes that he’s actually in a room and lying tucked into a comfy bed that Dick figures maybe it’s worth it to try and open his eyes again.

It all looks very familiar, despite the spinning. There’s a poster for the Flying Graysons, a calendar he hasn’t seen in a while of old cartoons, a console with games he hasn’t played yet, and a light blue ceiling above him. He looks down at himself, tucked into the covers, but still naked. Well, at least one thing is right here.

The door opens and someone walks in and Dick could see that if only the room would quit spinning.

"Oh! I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were home."

"…Alfred?"

Ramsey rolls over in his sleep, curling more tightly against Kate’s side, murmuring something unintelligible in his dreaming before sitting up suddenly for no real reason. His dark hair is puffed out around his head and from underneath a mess of curls and thick eyelashes he drowsily looks over and up at his mother’s reclining figure. “Ma…ma,” he begins, sounding almost drugged, before he throws himself around her waist, burying his face in her stomach. “Mama!”

Kate has been reading, not quite able to get up out of bed for more than a moment or two. Someone’s left a mass market paperback of The Massacre at Fall Creek by her bedside—whether it was a person or one of them, she doesn’t really know or care—and so she’s been reading, off and on, finding her attention gets easier to corral with every passing hour.

Kate notices Ramsey moving, and if she weren’t half dizzy herself yet, would probably be alarmed by the way he sounds. She reaches down, strokes his hair gently. “Mi’jo.”

Ramsey is very likely teary-eyed against the sheets around Kate’s lower body, but his voice is too muffled to make heads or tails out of it. “Mama ah mithed ooh,” he murmurs, little shoulders relaxing as her fingers thread through his hair. He looks up—yes, those are tears making his brown eyes into little watery mirrors—and his lower lip quivers slightly. “Did they put a machine in you, Mama?”

Kate can just feel her eyes well up too at his first statement, but she bites her lip, clears her throat, smiles softly down at him just a little. “I missed you too, niño,” she says quietly. “I tried to get back to you as soon as I could.” She frowns a little, then, trying to figure out how she can tell him without breaking the…curse or whatever it is on her that keeps her from talking about it. She doesn’t want to scare him even more. “I don’t think so,” she says finally, biting back a cough.

Kate pauses, brain finally catching up, as she remembers what she saw, and she reaches to graze her fingers against the bandage Ramsey’s sporting still. “Sweetie…”

( like never before )

Found pasted up against the backwall of the bookshelf in the Longhouse. It is partially hidden behind old paperbacks from the 70’s.

When he first finds the paper up behind the old children’s novels, Ramsey doesn’t give it much thought. He’s nine years old, not even in fifth grade yet, and stuck in an unknown place without his mother. His cognitive processes are not that advanced.

The second time he sees it, as he’s removing the next in the Hardy Boys series he’s been reading when Lian gives him breaks from Cacheena-watching (because the doll apparently needs a supervisor or else she’ll go missing, an idea Ramsey can’t even begin to process in its entirety), he takes it from where it’s posted. He reads it, twice, and then tucks it into his pocket. He doesn’t think about the meaning because for his situation it cannot hold a higher meaning.

His mother is gone and his step-brother has appeared from nowhere. Ramsey spends a long time underneath a table in the Longhouse reading the comic, thinking about it. At first he thinks it’s Transformers—that Gallant is going to turn into some sort of sentient big-rig and, at nine years old, that sounds pretty appealing. At least big-rigs can escape wherever they’re at.

Ramsey follows his stepfather, everywhere. He can’t help it, he’s a child autotuned for adult assistance—in his very nature he wants to be compliant to his parents, and with one missing and two far, far away, he only has one left.

He notices the first bump under his skin the next time he reads the paper. Right where the doctor gives Gallant the injection, a hard knot like something lodged beneath his skin. His mother is not there to look at it.

Ollie begins talking to himself. Heaving up needles and mud and apples. Ramsey watches, behind trees, behind buildings, behind anything that can hide his small form. There are many things that can hide his small form in this place.

The bumps multiply. They’re hard on his bone, immovable, like spines coming from the marrow itself, seeping through to harden just under his skin. He touches them, counts them, daily, and daily their numbers change. One to two to ten to twenty. All over his body. No one asks. No one cares. They are all talking to themselves, whispering to themselves, all of them have the machine in them too, and Ramsey can’t see a reason to disobey when he’s never disobeyed before. If the adults can’t stop it, then maybe it shouldn’t be stopped.

Cacheena is missing, his mother is missing, one of the small paring knives from the kitchen is missing.

Ramsey sticks it under his skin to see what the machine has made for him.