Warnings: breaking and entering, violence, child abuse, child abandonment.


two

Sometimes in the dark, Robin thinks of his mother. He wonders about all sorts of things, what her favorite color was, if she liked pizza without peppers like he did, if she climbed trees like a monkey or broke every computer she touched. He just had so many questions.

He wondered where she was now since it wasn't saving him.

What country was she going to and researching? Did she know his entire body ached some mornings when he breathed too hard?

Probably not. If Father and his fellows didn't care, it was likely she didn't either.

Really, he should be used to it by now.


Chrom is not a detective. Chrom is a bodyguard and a justice heaving wild animal so the second he has a Guilmon at his side, the boy is off. Robin would like it more if he and Shoutmon didn't have to keep up with the guy. On the upside, it gives him an opportunity to scan like you wouldn't believe, to find more Digimon, more friends, more people that care about him compared to say, his adoptive family.

He always wonders what happened to his mother but asking never works out so why do something that lacking in self-preservation?

Being a detective's assistant at least brought in pay, so his father didn't complain any longer. He probably wants to, wants to shake Robin and remind him of his place but Emmeryn refuses to let him leave her and go home. Apparently, the crying fest, as uncomfortable as it was, did its job.

Besides, Chrom is here more to see him, which she considered a boon. She claims he has too much time with his hacker equivalent of a street gang.

"Emm, it's not a gang," he tries to tell her, only for her to laugh and wink at Robin. Robin only blinks and smiles, unknowing, uncertain.

"Well, what else do you call a bunch of kids loitering around and hacking for fun?"

"A team," Chrom says, crossing his arms. This argument happens at least once a week and it never fails to leave Lissa in stitches for whatever reason.

Robin didn't ask about their parents. It wouldn't be fair to even try. They have done so much for him, so much more than really, he deserves. Secrets are the least of what he can not pry into.

Instead, he gets folded into a group of people full of noise. Vaike has an ax in his avatar and Miriel examines him with a Tentomon and Ricken trails behind her, peppering questions behind her skirt and peering up at him like he's the reason that Ricken himself is so short.

Shoutmon rolls his eyes and laughs, clearly at ease. One of them has to be.

"We're all over this EDEN sector," Chrom tells him as he pulls a device from his pocket. "If anyone can find what happened to you, it's us!"

Robin isn't sure that he's all that comforted, especially with the presence of that burly police officer Frederick, but he goes along with it in the end. It earns him some cash after all.


A girl intrudes on them and the girl's name is Say'ri and she is very quiet and very strange. That said, she looks at them all like they could hold the world in their hands.

"Something is up with my father's EDEN account," she says and it's all a lie but she looks terrified down to her bones all the same, no matter how twisted and calm she speaks.

Robin sympathizes. Tiki finds it adorable.

"If she was honest, she'd have a lot fewer problems," she tells him. He raises an eyebrow at her and gets another laugh in return.

As if it's so easy.

"I think she likes me," he mumbles. Emmeryn hears him, and she laughs behind her hand.

Chrom frowns from his orange. "Who does?"

"Someone on my chat," Robin lies without hesitation.

"Hm."

That's the end of it, at least as far as Robin is concerned.


Lissa somehow gets saddled with a giant cat monster. She says it's a lion cub and while they kind of believe her, it's much more entertaining to call Liollmon a giant cat monster.

Chrom thinks so anyway. Chrom also now has a large scratch down his thigh that Guilmon is snarling about.

It's adorable.

"Zealous," Emmeryn says, tracking the Shepherds running through the city internet. Robin is at their heels, not very good at track and field and they're so close, too close to-

Bam.

A firewall.

Robin can't help the sigh that leaves his mouth. "Shoutmon?"

"Hah! Looks like fun!" He, of course, rams into it, weapon in hand. He leaves a singular crack for his trouble.

"I hate firewalls," Sully mutters, reading her own Digimon and stepping beside him. "Ready to keep the trashlord from frying his last brain cells?"

Chrom mutters a few unsavory words. Robin smiles. "Sounds like a plan."

This tends to happen a lot, in retrospect.


Robin wakes up to Chrom's fist close to his father's face. He blinks. Shoutmon is saying something, Robin can't tell what it is, because it's muffled by the Digivice. Either way, Chrom has his other fist poised to swing and something was wrong-

"You broke into my office." Emmeryn's voice is the softest stone he's ever heard. "You could have just knocked if you wanted to see my assistant."

His father raises an eyebrow. He wouldn't answer his phone."

"You haven't paid for the minutes," Robin offers without sitting up.

Nostrils flare. Eyes narrow. "A few weeks apart and you're getting mouthy, I see."

"It's fine when Aversa does it." He doesn't mean to say it but he does mean it when he says it because Aversa is the golden girl because she's still stuck thinking Father can love anyone that isn't his-

Ow. Throb, head pain. Throb.

"I believe, regardless." Emmeryn can make three syllables sound like the King's English he is so jealous."You have still broken in and you will be hearing from my lawyer and my personal guard."

Robin swears he sees Frederick the Wary smile wide enough to crack the man's jaw.

He doesn't mean to do it, but once Validar is taken away from him again, Robin cries like a small child.

Chrom's idea of comfort is to wrap him up in a hug and curl up on the bed-couch. It's the most cramped comfort that he can remember.