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Chapter 11: After the Party

Later, after leaving Otto asleep on the bed, she stood on the balcony of the apartment. The late November breeze played with her hair. She pulled a cigarette out of a pocket, and snapped her fingers to produce a flame. A bit cliché, having a cigarette after sex...but then, she had been the one to make it so popular.

She dragged on the cigarette, and didn't bother to turn her head when a dark figure in a purple coat appeared beside her. "Was wondering when you were going to show up," she said.

Oberon leaned on the railing next to his changeling. "You weren't answering. Thought I'd better come down and see what the damage was." He looked her over carefully. There were no outward signs of the hobgoblin, and she seemed perfectly relaxed. Which only meant one thing. "I hope it was with good reason."

Robin shrugged. "They took the girl. Couldn't let them get away with that, now could I?" She took a long drag off the cigarette.

He sighed, and looked out over the city. It was a sight he didn't get very often. "You're getting attached to them," he said simply. It was an observation--one he wasn't terribly pleased with. Robin gave a noncommittal shrug, tapping her cigarette on the railing.

"I suppose," she answered. Oberon fixed his gaze on her, rich brown eyes with a touch of gold reflecting next to dark skin.

"I'm worried," he added, his tone indicating that she ought to be taking this seriously. Robin tilted her head and raised an eyebrow at him.

"I know what I'm doing."

Now Oberon raised an eyebrow. "Need I remind you that you went feral earlier? I know you, Puck. You don't do that for all your mortals."

Robin looked down, rolling her eyes a little. "It's not like I ate anyone," she muttered.

He held her gaze for a long moment. "I don't want you to get hurt."

Robin waved off the concern. "I won't. I never get hurt. They die, I move on. Just trying to enjoy them while they're here is all." There was a touch of bitterness in her voice, but Oberon chose to ignore it. He had a bad feeling that this time was going to be different. Part of him wanted to whisk her off, and forbid her from coming here again. But it would take an outright order to achieve that, and Oberon rather hated forcing Puck to do something that she didn't want to do. He liked to try to be her friend before he was her king, even though he knew, realistically, that he would always be the latter first.

"Just be careful," he said softly. He leaned over, kissed her head, and was gone.

The faerie sighed, finishing off her cigarette. The butt disappeared with the flick of a wrist. She stretched against the railing, and went back inside. She could do with something of a nap herself.

The actuators looked at the faerie as she wandered back into the bedroom, heads cocked. They were silent as they did so. Flo moved towards Robin, glancing in the direction of the balcony with a questioning tilt to her 'head'. They knew someone had been there with her. They wanted to know who. People weren't supposed to get to that balcony. The fact that faeries obviously could irritated the four sentient tentacles.

"Oh relax," Robin said, patting the nearest actuator head. "It was just Oberon. He was checking in on me." Making sure she wasn't planning on leaving more bodies in her wake, more than likely. She shook her head a little as she slid onto the bed, curling up beside Otto. She watched the sleeping man fondly for a moment, running a hand over his head and lightly kissing his temple. Then she closed her eyes to take a nap herself.

When Mouse woke up, it was starting to get dark outside. She lay in her bed a moment, confused as to how she had gotten there. Her kidnapping might have been written off as a dream, if not for the dirt streaks on her shoes and slightly scraped fingers. The child stared at her ceiling, thinking about what had happened. Wondering how it could have all gone so wrong.

She swallowed hard, and rubbed her eyes. Her head felt groggy, her tongue too thick. Her body still ached slightly, from laying still for so long. Mouse slowly pushed herself up to a sitting position. She reached for Tonto, settled him in her lap, and started thinking.

It was habit for her to blame this sort of thing on herself. Mouse didn't know why the man had taken her, or any of that. She only knew that she had been happy, and careless, and stupid. She should have paid more attention. She should have been more careful. This whole thing, somehow or another, was her fault.

Tears started to prickle at the edges of her eyes. Charlie, an old homeless man in Hell's Kitchen, had told her once that there was only so much happiness in the world to go around. There were too many people, and not enough happiness. That's why some people got to live bright, shiny, happy lives, and others, like him and her, had to take what they could get. Because some people just weren't meant to be happy.

Mouse wondered if that's why the bad man had taken her. She had dared to be happy--happier than she was supposed to be. By living with Otto, by moving here...she had tried to change things that should not have been changed. And in doing so, she'd brought trouble for Otto.

In the reasoning of her little girl mind, if she wasn't meant to be happy, and her being happy had brought trouble to the person she loved more than anything, then there was only one thing to do. Silent tears leaked out of her eyes, but Mouse wiped them away. Now that the solution had come to her, she was resolute. She slid off the bed, and pulled her old clothes and boots out of the back of her closet. Changing into them, she carefully folded her newer clothes, leaving them on the bed. She picked up Bob's jar of water, and Tonto, and quietly padded out of her room.

Otto and Robin weren't in the lab or the kitchen, so Mouse assumed they were in Otto's bedroom. She could faintly hear the actuators clicking in there. Moving softly and quickly, she got her bag from Otto's lab table. She removed the library books, stacking them neatly where the bag had been, and put the bag over her shoulder.

Going to the front door, she slid on her boots, and looked mournfully at her coat. She loved that coat...but no, it would be better to leave Otto and Robin's life as she had come. She pulled a worn knitted cap out of the pocket of her old pants, and tugged it onto her head. With Tonto and Bob secured in her bag, she took one last look at the apartment. At the life she just wasn't meant to have. And then she slipped out, the only sound of her departure the soft click of the front door.

Skree!

The physical sound of metal scraping against metal and the mental 'sound' of the actuators screaming at him to wake up jolted Otto out of what had been a very pleasant sleep.

"What?" he demanded crossly. The chatter of voices in his head cleared until he could make sense of it, and he froze.

"Robin? Get up. Larry says Mouse is gone again- she left."

Robin woke up, faster than most humans. She blinked, and shook her head. "Why would she..." But that didn't matter now. She waved a hand, Glamouring her clothes back on and Otto's sweater out of the closet.

"How the hell would I know why she'd do something like this?" he demanded, getting up to pull his clothes on. Robin's Glamour took care of that little task, however.

"Want me to grab her?" she asked. The child wouldn't get far, either way--it was really more a matter of if she would react better to Robin or Otto.

He tugged on a pair of shoes as Flo darted out to grab his coat and Mo fetched his sunglasses. "No, I need to be there too. I'm the one who's supposed to be responsible for her, dammit. Can you track her?"

Robin nodded, moving to the door. "She hasn't gotten downstairs yet. Probably took the back stairs.

She followed him to the hallway, took and quick whiff, and nodded. "Back stairs. Sounds like she just hit the outside door." The child must have been moving, to have already made it to the street.

Otto nodded and headed towards the balcony. Having the actuators afforded him a much quicker method of getting to street level than the stairs or elevator.

He climbed down the building as quickly as he could without causing the actuators to leave too many claw marks. Up ahead, Mo spotted a tiny figure leaving from the back door of their building.

"Mouse!" Otto called, racing to her side. "Mouse, what are you doing?"

Mouse froze at the sound of Otto's voice. She considered running, but Robin was descending in Otto's wake, and the child knew she wasn't fast enough to get away from them both. Just the actuators could catch her without much trouble. Robin would have her before she could blink.

So she turned slowly to face him, trepidation and resolve lurking in her eyes. Couldn't he see that it would be better for him if she were gone? He'd wanted to send her away before--maybe not wanted to, but was going to. Now she could just leave, and he wouldn't have to worry about her bad luck following him around.

Robin came down behind Otto, sending out a minor spell to keep anyone from looking out their windows and seeing the famed Doc Ock chasing down a little girl. It was starting to get dark, but it wasn't dark enough. And they weren't on the rooftops.

The faerie noticed Mouse's clothing though--the fact that she was in her old clothes, none of her new ones. She thought, taking in the sight of her with a sharpness only thousands of years could bring, that she might understand what the child was doing. Children blamed themselves for things, even under the most normal circumstances. Perhaps the girl blamed herself for the kidnapping. Robin thought she could see a protectiveness in Mouse's eyes. And there was only one person that child would go so far to protect.

But this was for Otto and Mouse to work out. She hung back, deciding it would be better to only interfere if necessary. Mouse, for her part, said nothing, as Otto approached her.

Otto crouched in front of her, ignoring the fiery protests from his leg, and took her by the shoulders. "Mouse, please," he said. His voice trembled a little. Restrained fear and confusion made it unsteady. "What's wrong? Why did you try to leave?"

does she not like us anymore we didn't keep her safe we're supposed to protect her is that why why why why Larry trilled and nosed at the child's hand like a sad puppy who couldn't understand why its mistress was leaving it behind.

Mouse stiffened when Otto touched her, tears coming back to her eyes. She didn't want to leave. She just had to. If she didn't, then bad things were going to keep coming. And Otto deserved to be happy. He'd had too many bad things happen to him already. Besides, he had Robin. Robin could keep him happy.

She lightly ran a finger across Larry's head, giving him the softest sad chirp she could manage. She didn't want him to be sad. Squeezing her eyes shut, she shook her head, her hair falling into her face. A few tears escaped, leaking down her face. Why did everything have to be so hard? Her head hurt, she was tired and thirsty, and her stomach felt bad, all queasy and tied in knots.

Otto automatically let her go when she flinched, hating that it was still her reaction when touched unexpectedly. Larry, however, remained where he was, and Flo curled behind her to keep her from bolting.

"Please, Mouse," he said, "I need you to come home. I promise, no one is ever going to try and take you away again."

Mouse kept her eyes closed, hanging her head. She seemed to shrink into herself. Her resolve was failing her, and her body felt so icky that the idea of just going back upstairs seemed so much better than trekking back to the warehouse.

A light rain began to fall. Mouse flinched at the sudden cold drops. The cool air had helped to lift a little of the grogginess from her head, but the rain was almost too much for her. She looked up, and shivered. The light drizzle became harder, the icy rain becoming more of a slushy mix as the temperature dropped a few more degrees.

Mouse stepped closer to Otto, almost instinctively. A few more tears fell free, hidden now by the rain.

"That's my girl," he murmured, himself oblivious to the slushy precipitation. He scooped her up, hugging her tightly. Not all of the wetness on his own face was from the rain. "Come on, let's go back inside."

Casting a glance over his shoulder at Robin, he took Mouse back upstairs and into the apartment. He settled her on the couch and went to make a cup of hot chocolate for all three of them. Larry hung back in the main room to keep an eye on Mouse.

don't want her running off again no not again didn't like it the first time

Mouse sat obediently on the couch, hugging her knees to her chest. Robin ran a soothing hand over her head, then followed Otto into the kitchen to see if she could help.

"You alright?" she asked softly, laying a hand on his arm.

Otto ran his fingers through his hair, making it stand on end. "I'm fine," he said. "I just don't understand why she would run off like that. Did I do her a disservice by not being there when she woke up? God, I don't know..."

Robin rubbed his arm. "It's not your fault," she said. "Children have a funny way of blaming themselves for things. I imagine she probably thinks the kidnapping was her fault and that you'd be better off without her."

The faerie reached up, smoothing his hair back into place. "Even if you'd been with her when she woke up, she'd still be feeling the shame and guilt that she's feeling now." She sighed, and grabbed the kettle from the stove. "Don't be surprised if she lapses into her old ways."

Otto sighed and measured out cocoa mix into the three mugs. "But it's not her fault!" he protested, just loud enough that Mouse would be able to hear him if she were at all listening. "Some sick bastard was trying to get to me, for whatever reason. It's not her fault."

God, now he remembered why he hadn't cared if that second reactor blew up. Because there were people like that in the city.

Robin nodded in agreement, pouring hot water into the mugs. "I know that. And you know that. Convincing her of that will be an entirely separate matter." There was no way of knowing exactly what was going through the little girl's mind. Though Robin suspected there may have been more to her reasoning than guilt.

Robin pulled some milk out of the fridge, and gave it a sniff. With a shrug, she poured a little into a bowl, and pointed a finger at it. It became whipped cream--real, proper whipped cream, to be spooned into the hot chocolate. Sticking the milk back into the refrigerator, she watched Otto stir the mugs slowly.

"It'll be alright," she said softly.

He'd run his hand through his hair again, so that it stood up once more. "I hope so," he said. He'd never considered a future where Mouse would try to run away from him, from their home. The act of doing so just seemed impossible in connection with his ideas of Mouse.

He handed the mugs to Robin for the addition of whipped cream- the existence of which brought a dry smile to his face- and took two out to the main room. Sitting next to Mouse, he handed one to her.

"Do you trust me, Mouse?" he asked.

Mouse looked up from where her head had been tucked into her knees. She nodded, not hesitating with such a simple question. She wrapped her hands around the hot mug, grateful for the warmth. Though when she took a sip, the sweetness of the hot chocolate made her stomach churn even worse.

She pouted a little--she wanted the hot chocolate, but it made her feel even more sick. Setting it aside, she relooped her arms around her legs, watching Otto carefully. Of course she trusted him. Trusting Otto was like breathing--it was just something she did. Leaving had nothing to do with not trusting him. It was just that she wanted him to be happy, and if not safe, then at least better off than he would be with her.

He took a sip of his cocoa, trying to buy a little time while he sorted out how he wanted to say this. Larry noticed that she didn't seem to want hers and looped around her shoulders, careful to not rest any significant portion of his weight on her.

"I need you to trust me when I say this," Otto said. "What happened is not your fault. It has nothing to do with you. Those men chose to try and hurt me by going after you. It's their fault that you're scared and upset right now, not yours. Does that make sense?"

Mouse looked at him. She wanted to believe him--that desire was clear in her eyes. But doubt lingered there as well. If bad men kept hurting her, then didn't it mean that she deserved it? One or two nice people in her life didn't mean that she wasn't still being bad somehow.

She was thirsty, but the hot chocolate was too hot and sweet for her. She slipped off the couch, and went to the kitchen for a glass of milk. Bringing it back to the couch, she slid back into her former position, drinking half the glass down quickly.

"Oh Mouse," he said quietly, resting a hand on her shoulder. "You don't deserve any of that. You don't deserve to have people keep trying to hurt you. Anyone who tells you otherwise is wrong." Poor little Mouse... She shouldn't be blaming herself for what adults did to each other.

Mouse tightened her grip on her cup. The milk helped the fuzziness on her tongue, shrinking it back down to normal size. Her throat wasn't so dry now.

But she couldn't help wondering over his words. Otto was the smartest person she'd ever known. Maybe even the smartest person in the world. But couldn't he be wrong about this? Maybe it was her fault, and he was just too nice and good to realize it. Maybe it was something only bad people saw, like Devon.

Mouse curled into the corner of the couch, a soft whimper escaping her. She didn't want to think about any of this right now. The milk felt good on her throat, but her stomach still felt queasy, and even the thought of food just made it worse. She hadn't eaten anything that day, and that combined with the aftereffects of the sedative made her just feel sick. She really just wanted to crawl into Otto's lap until she felt better, but she couldn't bring herself to do it.

The actuators were having none of the 'huddled in a corner' routine. With a chirp and a brisk manner more evocative of Mary Poppins than a set of metal tentacles with minds of their own, Flo and Larry gathered the child up and deposited her on Otto's lap. He gave them a sarcastic look, which they returned, and he stroked Mouse's hair.

"It's not your fault," he murmured again. "It's never been your fault. Bad people like to blame other people for what they themselves do."

Mouse closed her eyes, and snuggled against Otto's chest. She let him take the cup of milk from her when her grip on it slackened. She always felt safe when Otto held her. But this time was a little different, even if she wasn't exactly sure why.

This time, when tears came to her eyes, she didn't try to stop them. They came free, big silent tears, streaking down her face. The tears of a tired child, crying because they just can't really stop. For Mouse, it was a buildup of years of pain and frustration and sadness, breaking free at the acknowledgment of truly being loved.

He grimaced a little, thinking at first that he'd upset her. Gradually, he thought he became aware of a different 'tone' of her crying. Larry confirmed it- there was indeed a difference in the way she was crying, as compared to true sadness or fear.

let her cry Flo suggested, lightly preening the girl's hair. So he did, sitting there with his arms around Mouse, murmuring quiet little nothings, letting her cry herself out and make a big soggy patch on his coat. The coat could take it, it was designed to be waterproof. Whether or not it was runny-nose-proof, on the other hand, would be determined shortly. This actually wasn't new to Otto. There had been several times when he'd done just this for Rosie when she was deeply upset over something. Mouse was just a little smaller.

Mouse sniffed as her tears started to dry up, running her sleeve under her nose. In a weird way, she felt a little better. Granted, her head hurt again, and her nose was all stuffy and runny, and she still felt like she might be sick. But on the inside, she felt a little better. A little calmer. Something unknown to her had settled itself, and she relaxed.

He hugged her tightly and kissed the top of her head. "That's better," he said. At his direction, Mo and Harry snaked into the kitchen and poured a glass of club soda. They added a little bit of white grape juice, then brought the concoction back and offered it to Mouse.

"It should help your stomach," Otto explained, brushing her hair from her damp face. "Are we alright now? No more trying to run off?"

Mouse accepted the glass, giving it a cautious sniff. Oh well...if he said it would help. She nodded her agreement--no more trying to run off. Then she sipped the club soda carefully. It did seem to help a little.

Robin had watched them from the doorway to the kitchen, nursing her own mug of hot chocolate. Now she abandoned it, found a pack of saltine crackers in the cupboard, and carried them over to the couch. "Here," she said, handing them to Mouse. "Ought to get something solid in you before you try to eat anything else." It would keep her from getting sick later.

Mouse smiled at the faerie, accepting the sleeve of crackers but not opening them. She took another sip of the soda, and rested her head against Otto. Maybe things would be okay now.

"That's my girl," Otto said fondly. Two crises in one day, both thankfully averted. Two crises more than he really wanted to deal with. He quite hoped they were done with crises for a while. Was a quiet existence truly too much to ask for?

He cocked his head slightly as Flo relayed something to him. "Someone was here earlier?" he asked Robin, curious.

Robin rolled her eyes. "No one likes a tattletale," she told Flo. She sat on the coffee table, legs crossed under her. "Yes. Oberon stopped by for a moment while you were asleep. Just checking in on me--he knew I'd...he knew what I'd done, and wanted to make sure everything was alright. He couldn't get anything through our connection, because of...well…us. He just wanted to make sure a hobgoblin wasn't running mad through New York City." It wasn't the clearest of explanations, but there was only so much she could say with Mouse here.

Mouse, for her part, drank more of the club soda, watching the adults carefully. She took out a cracker, chewing on it, careful not to shed crumbs around.

Flo made a grating sound and turned away from Robin, like a teenage girl ignoring her mother. Otto did not especially care for the idea of strange faeries stopping by his apartment, but he could hardly argue with Oberon's logic. Robin, as he'd seen, could be lethal, and if she ever decided to go on a spree...

But after she was done being lethal... damn. If the actuators hadn't woken him, he'd still be asleep.

"Alright," he said, taking a sip of his cocoa. "I just don't care for people I haven't met swinging by my apartment, that's all."

Robin shrugged, laughing a little. "Sorry. But Oberon doesn't exactly do the concept of "mortal boundaries." When you've lived as long as we have, property passes hands far too often to worry about such things. To us, it's just all the earth. We go where we need to go."

But she smiled at him, leaning forward to trace circles on his knee. "But I'll pass along the message anyway."

He smiled fondly at her as Mo looped around her shoulders. "Thanks," he said. "I'd greatly appreciate that. So hard to sleep when just anyone might drop by, you know?"

Flo nudged his arm. don't be silly have us to watch for you

True. The actuators didn't usually sleep like living creatures did. They would go into standby mode to conserve energy, but sometimes they did that in shifts. Someone was usually 'awake'.

Robin rolled her eyes, and leaned forward off the table to give him a kiss. Mouse couldn't help but grin, and shoved a cracker in her mouth to hide it. She liked seeing the two of them like this. Maybe Robin would stay with them all the time. That would be nice. They could be a proper family then.

Description
Chapter 11: After the Party

Later, after leaving Otto asleep on the bed, she stood on the balcony of the apartment. The late November breeze played with her hair. She pulled a cigarette out of a pocket, and snapped her fingers to produce a flame. A bit cliché, having a cigarette after sex...but then, she had been the one to make it so popular.

She dragged on the cigarette, and didn't bother to turn her head when a dark figure in a purple coat appeared beside her. "Was wondering when you were going to show up," she said.

Oberon leaned on the railing next to his changeling. "You weren't answering. Thought I'd better come down and see what the damage was." He looked her over carefully. There were no outward signs of the hobgoblin, and she seemed perfectly relaxed. Which only meant one thing. "I hope it was with good reason."

Robin shrugged. "They took the girl. Couldn't let them get away with that, now could I?" She took a long drag off the cigarette.

He sighed, and looked out over the city. It was a sight he didn't get very often. "You're getting attached to them," he said simply. It was an observation--one he wasn't terribly pleased with. Robin gave a noncommittal shrug, tapping her cigarette on the railing.

"I suppose," she answered. Oberon fixed his gaze on her, rich brown eyes with a touch of gold reflecting next to dark skin.

"I'm worried," he added, his tone indicating that she ought to be taking this seriously. Robin tilted her head and raised an eyebrow at him.

"I know what I'm doing."

Now Oberon raised an eyebrow. "Need I remind you that you went feral earlier? I know you, Puck. You don't do that for all your mortals."

Robin looked down, rolling her eyes a little. "It's not like I ate anyone," she muttered.

He held her gaze for a long moment. "I don't want you to get hurt."

Robin waved off the concern. "I won't. I never get hurt. They die, I move on. Just trying to enjoy them while they're here is all." There was a touch of bitterness in her voice, but Oberon chose to ignore it. He had a bad feeling that this time was going to be different. Part of him wanted to whisk her off, and forbid her from coming here again. But it would take an outright order to achieve that, and Oberon rather hated forcing Puck to do something that she didn't want to do. He liked to try to be her friend before he was her king, even though he knew, realistically, that he would always be the latter first.

"Just be careful," he said softly. He leaned over, kissed her head, and was gone.

The faerie sighed, finishing off her cigarette. The butt disappeared with the flick of a wrist. She stretched against the railing, and went back inside. She could do with something of a nap herself.

The actuators looked at the faerie as she wandered back into the bedroom, heads cocked. They were silent as they did so. Flo moved towards Robin, glancing in the direction of the balcony with a questioning tilt to her 'head'. They knew someone had been there with her. They wanted to know who. People weren't supposed to get to that balcony. The fact that faeries obviously could irritated the four sentient tentacles.

"Oh relax," Robin said, patting the nearest actuator head. "It was just Oberon. He was checking in on me." Making sure she wasn't planning on leaving more bodies in her wake, more than likely. She shook her head a little as she slid onto the bed, curling up beside Otto. She watched the sleeping man fondly for a moment, running a hand over his head and lightly kissing his temple. Then she closed her eyes to take a nap herself.

When Mouse woke up, it was starting to get dark outside. She lay in her bed a moment, confused as to how she had gotten there. Her kidnapping might have been written off as a dream, if not for the dirt streaks on her shoes and slightly scraped fingers. The child stared at her ceiling, thinking about what had happened. Wondering how it could have all gone so wrong.

She swallowed hard, and rubbed her eyes. Her head felt groggy, her tongue too thick. Her body still ached slightly, from laying still for so long. Mouse slowly pushed herself up to a sitting position. She reached for Tonto, settled him in her lap, and started thinking.

It was habit for her to blame this sort of thing on herself. Mouse didn't know why the man had taken her, or any of that. She only knew that she had been happy, and careless, and stupid. She should have paid more attention. She should have been more careful. This whole thing, somehow or another, was her fault.

Tears started to prickle at the edges of her eyes. Charlie, an old homeless man in Hell's Kitchen, had told her once that there was only so much happiness in the world to go around. There were too many people, and not enough happiness. That's why some people got to live bright, shiny, happy lives, and others, like him and her, had to take what they could get. Because some people just weren't meant to be happy.

Mouse wondered if that's why the bad man had taken her. She had dared to be happy--happier than she was supposed to be. By living with Otto, by moving here...she had tried to change things that should not have been changed. And in doing so, she'd brought trouble for Otto.

In the reasoning of her little girl mind, if she wasn't meant to be happy, and her being happy had brought trouble to the person she loved more than anything, then there was only one thing to do. Silent tears leaked out of her eyes, but Mouse wiped them away. Now that the solution had come to her, she was resolute. She slid off the bed, and pulled her old clothes and boots out of the back of her closet. Changing into them, she carefully folded her newer clothes, leaving them on the bed. She picked up Bob's jar of water, and Tonto, and quietly padded out of her room.

Otto and Robin weren't in the lab or the kitchen, so Mouse assumed they were in Otto's bedroom. She could faintly hear the actuators clicking in there. Moving softly and quickly, she got her bag from Otto's lab table. She removed the library books, stacking them neatly where the bag had been, and put the bag over her shoulder.

Going to the front door, she slid on her boots, and looked mournfully at her coat. She loved that coat...but no, it would be better to leave Otto and Robin's life as she had come. She pulled a worn knitted cap out of the pocket of her old pants, and tugged it onto her head. With Tonto and Bob secured in her bag, she took one last look at the apartment. At the life she just wasn't meant to have. And then she slipped out, the only sound of her departure the soft click of the front door.

Skree!

The physical sound of metal scraping against metal and the mental 'sound' of the actuators screaming at him to wake up jolted Otto out of what had been a very pleasant sleep.

"What?" he demanded crossly. The chatter of voices in his head cleared until he could make sense of it, and he froze.

"Robin? Get up. Larry says Mouse is gone again- she left."

Robin woke up, faster than most humans. She blinked, and shook her head. "Why would she..." But that didn't matter now. She waved a hand, Glamouring her clothes back on and Otto's sweater out of the closet.

"How the hell would I know why she'd do something like this?" he demanded, getting up to pull his clothes on. Robin's Glamour took care of that little task, however.

"Want me to grab her?" she asked. The child wouldn't get far, either way--it was really more a matter of if she would react better to Robin or Otto.

He tugged on a pair of shoes as Flo darted out to grab his coat and Mo fetched his sunglasses. "No, I need to be there too. I'm the one who's supposed to be responsible for her, dammit. Can you track her?"

Robin nodded, moving to the door. "She hasn't gotten downstairs yet. Probably took the back stairs.

She followed him to the hallway, took and quick whiff, and nodded. "Back stairs. Sounds like she just hit the outside door." The child must have been moving, to have already made it to the street.

Otto nodded and headed towards the balcony. Having the actuators afforded him a much quicker method of getting to street level than the stairs or elevator.

He climbed down the building as quickly as he could without causing the actuators to leave too many claw marks. Up ahead, Mo spotted a tiny figure leaving from the back door of their building.

"Mouse!" Otto called, racing to her side. "Mouse, what are you doing?"

Mouse froze at the sound of Otto's voice. She considered running, but Robin was descending in Otto's wake, and the child knew she wasn't fast enough to get away from them both. Just the actuators could catch her without much trouble. Robin would have her before she could blink.

So she turned slowly to face him, trepidation and resolve lurking in her eyes. Couldn't he see that it would be better for him if she were gone? He'd wanted to send her away before--maybe not wanted to, but was going to. Now she could just leave, and he wouldn't have to worry about her bad luck following him around.

Robin came down behind Otto, sending out a minor spell to keep anyone from looking out their windows and seeing the famed Doc Ock chasing down a little girl. It was starting to get dark, but it wasn't dark enough. And they weren't on the rooftops.

The faerie noticed Mouse's clothing though--the fact that she was in her old clothes, none of her new ones. She thought, taking in the sight of her with a sharpness only thousands of years could bring, that she might understand what the child was doing. Children blamed themselves for things, even under the most normal circumstances. Perhaps the girl blamed herself for the kidnapping. Robin thought she could see a protectiveness in Mouse's eyes. And there was only one person that child would go so far to protect.

But this was for Otto and Mouse to work out. She hung back, deciding it would be better to only interfere if necessary. Mouse, for her part, said nothing, as Otto approached her.

Otto crouched in front of her, ignoring the fiery protests from his leg, and took her by the shoulders. "Mouse, please," he said. His voice trembled a little. Restrained fear and confusion made it unsteady. "What's wrong? Why did you try to leave?"

does she not like us anymore we didn't keep her safe we're supposed to protect her is that why why why why Larry trilled and nosed at the child's hand like a sad puppy who couldn't understand why its mistress was leaving it behind.

Mouse stiffened when Otto touched her, tears coming back to her eyes. She didn't want to leave. She just had to. If she didn't, then bad things were going to keep coming. And Otto deserved to be happy. He'd had too many bad things happen to him already. Besides, he had Robin. Robin could keep him happy.

She lightly ran a finger across Larry's head, giving him the softest sad chirp she could manage. She didn't want him to be sad. Squeezing her eyes shut, she shook her head, her hair falling into her face. A few tears escaped, leaking down her face. Why did everything have to be so hard? Her head hurt, she was tired and thirsty, and her stomach felt bad, all queasy and tied in knots.

Otto automatically let her go when she flinched, hating that it was still her reaction when touched unexpectedly. Larry, however, remained where he was, and Flo curled behind her to keep her from bolting.

"Please, Mouse," he said, "I need you to come home. I promise, no one is ever going to try and take you away again."

Mouse kept her eyes closed, hanging her head. She seemed to shrink into herself. Her resolve was failing her, and her body felt so icky that the idea of just going back upstairs seemed so much better than trekking back to the warehouse.

A light rain began to fall. Mouse flinched at the sudden cold drops. The cool air had helped to lift a little of the grogginess from her head, but the rain was almost too much for her. She looked up, and shivered. The light drizzle became harder, the icy rain becoming more of a slushy mix as the temperature dropped a few more degrees.

Mouse stepped closer to Otto, almost instinctively. A few more tears fell free, hidden now by the rain.

"That's my girl," he murmured, himself oblivious to the slushy precipitation. He scooped her up, hugging her tightly. Not all of the wetness on his own face was from the rain. "Come on, let's go back inside."

Casting a glance over his shoulder at Robin, he took Mouse back upstairs and into the apartment. He settled her on the couch and went to make a cup of hot chocolate for all three of them. Larry hung back in the main room to keep an eye on Mouse.

don't want her running off again no not again didn't like it the first time

Mouse sat obediently on the couch, hugging her knees to her chest. Robin ran a soothing hand over her head, then followed Otto into the kitchen to see if she could help.

"You alright?" she asked softly, laying a hand on his arm.

Otto ran his fingers through his hair, making it stand on end. "I'm fine," he said. "I just don't understand why she would run off like that. Did I do her a disservice by not being there when she woke up? God, I don't know..."

Robin rubbed his arm. "It's not your fault," she said. "Children have a funny way of blaming themselves for things. I imagine she probably thinks the kidnapping was her fault and that you'd be better off without her."

The faerie reached up, smoothing his hair back into place. "Even if you'd been with her when she woke up, she'd still be feeling the shame and guilt that she's feeling now." She sighed, and grabbed the kettle from the stove. "Don't be surprised if she lapses into her old ways."

Otto sighed and measured out cocoa mix into the three mugs. "But it's not her fault!" he protested, just loud enough that Mouse would be able to hear him if she were at all listening. "Some sick bastard was trying to get to me, for whatever reason. It's not her fault."

God, now he remembered why he hadn't cared if that second reactor blew up. Because there were people like that in the city.

Robin nodded in agreement, pouring hot water into the mugs. "I know that. And you know that. Convincing her of that will be an entirely separate matter." There was no way of knowing exactly what was going through the little girl's mind. Though Robin suspected there may have been more to her reasoning than guilt.

Robin pulled some milk out of the fridge, and gave it a sniff. With a shrug, she poured a little into a bowl, and pointed a finger at it. It became whipped cream--real, proper whipped cream, to be spooned into the hot chocolate. Sticking the milk back into the refrigerator, she watched Otto stir the mugs slowly.

"It'll be alright," she said softly.

He'd run his hand through his hair again, so that it stood up once more. "I hope so," he said. He'd never considered a future where Mouse would try to run away from him, from their home. The act of doing so just seemed impossible in connection with his ideas of Mouse.

He handed the mugs to Robin for the addition of whipped cream- the existence of which brought a dry smile to his face- and took two out to the main room. Sitting next to Mouse, he handed one to her.

"Do you trust me, Mouse?" he asked.

Mouse looked up from where her head had been tucked into her knees. She nodded, not hesitating with such a simple question. She wrapped her hands around the hot mug, grateful for the warmth. Though when she took a sip, the sweetness of the hot chocolate made her stomach churn even worse.

She pouted a little--she wanted the hot chocolate, but it made her feel even more sick. Setting it aside, she relooped her arms around her legs, watching Otto carefully. Of course she trusted him. Trusting Otto was like breathing--it was just something she did. Leaving had nothing to do with not trusting him. It was just that she wanted him to be happy, and if not safe, then at least better off than he would be with her.

He took a sip of his cocoa, trying to buy a little time while he sorted out how he wanted to say this. Larry noticed that she didn't seem to want hers and looped around her shoulders, careful to not rest any significant portion of his weight on her.

"I need you to trust me when I say this," Otto said. "What happened is not your fault. It has nothing to do with you. Those men chose to try and hurt me by going after you. It's their fault that you're scared and upset right now, not yours. Does that make sense?"

Mouse looked at him. She wanted to believe him--that desire was clear in her eyes. But doubt lingered there as well. If bad men kept hurting her, then didn't it mean that she deserved it? One or two nice people in her life didn't mean that she wasn't still being bad somehow.

She was thirsty, but the hot chocolate was too hot and sweet for her. She slipped off the couch, and went to the kitchen for a glass of milk. Bringing it back to the couch, she slid back into her former position, drinking half the glass down quickly.

"Oh Mouse," he said quietly, resting a hand on her shoulder. "You don't deserve any of that. You don't deserve to have people keep trying to hurt you. Anyone who tells you otherwise is wrong." Poor little Mouse... She shouldn't be blaming herself for what adults did to each other.

Mouse tightened her grip on her cup. The milk helped the fuzziness on her tongue, shrinking it back down to normal size. Her throat wasn't so dry now.

But she couldn't help wondering over his words. Otto was the smartest person she'd ever known. Maybe even the smartest person in the world. But couldn't he be wrong about this? Maybe it was her fault, and he was just too nice and good to realize it. Maybe it was something only bad people saw, like Devon.

Mouse curled into the corner of the couch, a soft whimper escaping her. She didn't want to think about any of this right now. The milk felt good on her throat, but her stomach still felt queasy, and even the thought of food just made it worse. She hadn't eaten anything that day, and that combined with the aftereffects of the sedative made her just feel sick. She really just wanted to crawl into Otto's lap until she felt better, but she couldn't bring herself to do it.

The actuators were having none of the 'huddled in a corner' routine. With a chirp and a brisk manner more evocative of Mary Poppins than a set of metal tentacles with minds of their own, Flo and Larry gathered the child up and deposited her on Otto's lap. He gave them a sarcastic look, which they returned, and he stroked Mouse's hair.

"It's not your fault," he murmured again. "It's never been your fault. Bad people like to blame other people for what they themselves do."

Mouse closed her eyes, and snuggled against Otto's chest. She let him take the cup of milk from her when her grip on it slackened. She always felt safe when Otto held her. But this time was a little different, even if she wasn't exactly sure why.

This time, when tears came to her eyes, she didn't try to stop them. They came free, big silent tears, streaking down her face. The tears of a tired child, crying because they just can't really stop. For Mouse, it was a buildup of years of pain and frustration and sadness, breaking free at the acknowledgment of truly being loved.

He grimaced a little, thinking at first that he'd upset her. Gradually, he thought he became aware of a different 'tone' of her crying. Larry confirmed it- there was indeed a difference in the way she was crying, as compared to true sadness or fear.

let her cry Flo suggested, lightly preening the girl's hair. So he did, sitting there with his arms around Mouse, murmuring quiet little nothings, letting her cry herself out and make a big soggy patch on his coat. The coat could take it, it was designed to be waterproof. Whether or not it was runny-nose-proof, on the other hand, would be determined shortly. This actually wasn't new to Otto. There had been several times when he'd done just this for Rosie when she was deeply upset over something. Mouse was just a little smaller.

Mouse sniffed as her tears started to dry up, running her sleeve under her nose. In a weird way, she felt a little better. Granted, her head hurt again, and her nose was all stuffy and runny, and she still felt like she might be sick. But on the inside, she felt a little better. A little calmer. Something unknown to her had settled itself, and she relaxed.

He hugged her tightly and kissed the top of her head. "That's better," he said. At his direction, Mo and Harry snaked into the kitchen and poured a glass of club soda. They added a little bit of white grape juice, then brought the concoction back and offered it to Mouse.

"It should help your stomach," Otto explained, brushing her hair from her damp face. "Are we alright now? No more trying to run off?"

Mouse accepted the glass, giving it a cautious sniff. Oh well...if he said it would help. She nodded her agreement--no more trying to run off. Then she sipped the club soda carefully. It did seem to help a little.

Robin had watched them from the doorway to the kitchen, nursing her own mug of hot chocolate. Now she abandoned it, found a pack of saltine crackers in the cupboard, and carried them over to the couch. "Here," she said, handing them to Mouse. "Ought to get something solid in you before you try to eat anything else." It would keep her from getting sick later.

Mouse smiled at the faerie, accepting the sleeve of crackers but not opening them. She took another sip of the soda, and rested her head against Otto. Maybe things would be okay now.

"That's my girl," Otto said fondly. Two crises in one day, both thankfully averted. Two crises more than he really wanted to deal with. He quite hoped they were done with crises for a while. Was a quiet existence truly too much to ask for?

He cocked his head slightly as Flo relayed something to him. "Someone was here earlier?" he asked Robin, curious.

Robin rolled her eyes. "No one likes a tattletale," she told Flo. She sat on the coffee table, legs crossed under her. "Yes. Oberon stopped by for a moment while you were asleep. Just checking in on me--he knew I'd...he knew what I'd done, and wanted to make sure everything was alright. He couldn't get anything through our connection, because of...well…us. He just wanted to make sure a hobgoblin wasn't running mad through New York City." It wasn't the clearest of explanations, but there was only so much she could say with Mouse here.

Mouse, for her part, drank more of the club soda, watching the adults carefully. She took out a cracker, chewing on it, careful not to shed crumbs around.

Flo made a grating sound and turned away from Robin, like a teenage girl ignoring her mother. Otto did not especially care for the idea of strange faeries stopping by his apartment, but he could hardly argue with Oberon's logic. Robin, as he'd seen, could be lethal, and if she ever decided to go on a spree...

But after she was done being lethal... damn. If the actuators hadn't woken him, he'd still be asleep.

"Alright," he said, taking a sip of his cocoa. "I just don't care for people I haven't met swinging by my apartment, that's all."

Robin shrugged, laughing a little. "Sorry. But Oberon doesn't exactly do the concept of "mortal boundaries." When you've lived as long as we have, property passes hands far too often to worry about such things. To us, it's just all the earth. We go where we need to go."

But she smiled at him, leaning forward to trace circles on his knee. "But I'll pass along the message anyway."

He smiled fondly at her as Mo looped around her shoulders. "Thanks," he said. "I'd greatly appreciate that. So hard to sleep when just anyone might drop by, you know?"

Flo nudged his arm. don't be silly have us to watch for you

True. The actuators didn't usually sleep like living creatures did. They would go into standby mode to conserve energy, but sometimes they did that in shifts. Someone was usually 'awake'.

Robin rolled her eyes, and leaned forward off the table to give him a kiss. Mouse couldn't help but grin, and shoved a cracker in her mouth to hide it. She liked seeing the two of them like this. Maybe Robin would stay with them all the time. That would be nice. They could be a proper family then.