Chapter Text
Constantine had accepted the… rather unexpected invite to the Wayne Manor. He was one of few members who knew the identity of Batman himself. It sort of came with the whole… magic aspect of his life, being buddy buddy with people’s souls was kind of his thing.
He’d noticed the Dark Knight’s dark aura as soon as he’d walked into a Gotham Gala a few years ago for… research purposes. He'd been told their drinks were divine and wanted to prove the rumor for himself. (And hot damn the rumor was right.) The Prince of Gotham himself happened to be stood next to him at the bar. While John wasn’t surprised to feel Batman’s looming presence in the room, he was very surprised to brush hands with the billionaire playboy sitting next to him and nearly have a goddamn heart attack.
John knocked lightly on the manor door before shoving his fists back into his trench coat's pockets. Gotham was too fucking cold for the warlock’s personal preference. However, based on Bruce’s natural habitat, John guessed it would likely be colder inside.
After a moment, the old butler answered the door. “Ah, Sir Constantine. My apologies, that it took such a lengthy time to answer the door. The attic is a great distance from here for my aging legs.” The old man reached for John’s hat and coat and looked slightly upset when John only offered his hat. “Master Bruce is waiting for you downstairs. I trust you can find your way.”
“Uh, thanks.” To be completely honest, John had never stepped foot in the Batcave before, and he had no fucking clue how to get in there.
He’d find a way.
After about 30 minutes, 4 spells, and approximately 12 thousand rooms (Seriously, Bruce’s house looked nearly as big as Constantine’s, and that was saying something. Whether that was a good thing or not, John couldn’t tell.) he’d narrowed the entrance down to a clock in something that seemed to be an office. A few spells after the initial ones that led him here, he unlocked the door to reveal a dark staircase.
“Oi, you got a problem with lights?” John hollered into the darkness, only to be met with his own echo.
Traveling deeper into the damp stone hall, he thought it would probably be useful to conjure up his own light. The bright white illuminated the rocky surface around him, making him feel somehow more claustrophobic than before. And the further he got, the more he realized his initial theory was right, it was freezing in here.
Once the cave finally opened up into… well, a cave. It was strangely more homey than he expected. Amongst the cases of capes and cowls there were half-read books, a few loose coffee mugs strewn about, and a few drawings pinned on various corkboards which were otherwise crammed with blueprints and gameplans.
There was one thing that stood out to him more than anything.
In the middle of the room, estranged from the other glass cases, was a suit that looked like all the others. Well, other than the fact it was practically torn to shreds and stained a rusty marron nearly all over.
It was like all the other Robin costumes he’d seen in the papers before. It had seemingly skin-tight, red, padded pants that were bordering on leggings, a long yellow and black cape, a red shirt with sleeves that probably went down to the wearer’s wrists, the classic yellow belt, and a black domino mask that levitated above, with no visual supports.
But it was wrong, all wrong.
The bottom of the child-sized pants were shredded at the bottom, the cape could barely be considered a cape anymore, it was charred on most of the edges and looked as if it had been torn apart by several wild animals, the shirt had gashes through the thick material where it sported an extra dose of he guessed were bloodstains, the belt was held together by sheer force of will, and the mask was missing half of its material, only one of the white lenses remained in the ragged fabric. The only thing that remained intact, although still splattered with oxidized blood, was the dulled yellow R that John recognized as the Robin’s symbol.
Looking down near the floating, seemingly untouched boots, he noticed there was a golden plaque adorning the stone base of the glass. It read: ‘Jason Todd, a Good Soldier’
John had wondered what happened to that kid. He probably should’ve checked the news for once. He’d heard that Robin had been replaced again about five years ago but… he hadn’t thought… this was why.
“Constantine,” Bruce half-welcomed, half-barked.
John nearly jumped out of his skin, he hadn’t realized how entranced he was with the case. “You wanted my help?”
“You took a while,” Batman observed.
“Your butler told me to find this place on my own, of course it took a second,” John shrugged, breaking his eyes from the hollow ones the case held before him.
“Over here,” Bats ordered, leading him over to the massive set of monitors on the far side of the room and bringing all of them to life at the press of a button. “I’ve been getting reports of various murders that even I can’t keep up with. At each of the crime scenes there have been symbols resembling runes from what I can make out. The murders have been prominently found on six major streets throughout the city, but 78% of them are originating from…”
John can admit it, he zoned out not even half way through Batman’s whole spiel, choosing to explore the cave a bit more with his eyes. Just as he did so, he noticed a small figure coming into view, climbing on top of a ledge used to overlook both the cave and a few weapon frames, and staring straight at Constantine with skeptical, squinted eyes.
He tried to focus again, he really did, but with the shadow’s eyes buried in the back of his head, it made it nearly impossible. John thought of staring back, but decided he’d rather not get caught by Batman staring down his possible teammate instead of listening to his lecture.
But after a while…
It.
Got.
So.
Damn.
Creepy.
John tried to discreetly raise an eyebrow and side eye the kid, locking eyes with him for a moment, before Batman cleared his throat and John looked back at the graph-filled screen, still clueless as to what the man was blabbering about.
The figure seemed to be surprised at John’s gesture, because its eyes widened and it dropped down to the ground before continuing to spectate from the shadows. One of its eyes seemed to be pure white, while it was hard to make out the other without alerting Batman to his inattention, it was certainly darker.
He could make out one thing for sure though, since it glinted ever so slightly in the little light that reached the kid-shaped silhouette, it was a golden R, not much different from the dozens of others that surrounded them in the uncountable cases.
After a few minutes more of this, took a deep breath and calmly spoke, interrupting Batman’s current sentence.
“... would’ve called Zatana, but she is currently occupied in her own–”
“–Look I’m sorry Bats, I really am– but you have to tell your bird to stop staring at me.” John pointed to the lurking shadow over his shoulder.
Batman blinked, clearly caught off guard by the request. “...What?”
“Robin,” John clarified, “I can feel his eyes digging into the back of my skull.”
“Robin is out of town,” Batman explained, “He won’t return for another few weeks.
John raised an eyebrow. “Then who the fuck is that?” He looked back at the stalker’s hiding place, only to find… no one there. “What the fuck? I swear there was someone there two bloody seconds ago.”
Batman looked between John and the empty spot he’d pointed at and lifted his eyebrow higher. “Do you need… water?”
“What?” John looked around for a moment, scanning the room. “No, there was definitely someone there.”
“Oracle,” Batman looked to the ceiling, “Do you see anything?”
A woman’s voice crackled through the intercom, “Just you two. That spot is covered by three cameras and they’ve been clear for the past 15 minutes.”
John widened his eyes and whipped his head around the cave once again before–
“There!”
A tiny head poked out from a stack of three metal containers, eyeing the duo intensely from its hiding place. John ran straight towards it and shoved the top box off of the pile, sending its contents scattering across the floor.
The boy’s eyes turned into circles and he pushed off from the bottom crate, landing on his back with a thud and a light “oof”.
“The hell do you want, kid?” John questioned, leaning over the shellshocked boy.
The kid didn’t speak a single word, he just looked at John like he was tripping balls and needed to go to an emergency room. After a few seconds, he began to open and close his mouth, lost for words.
“Constantine!” Batman snapped, grabbing him by the shoulder and spinning him around until he was face-to-face with the fuming man. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Are you– He’s right–” John turned his head and noticed the kid was gone again. “I’m not on drugs this time I swear.”
“Maybe you should leave. I’ll retry Zatana–”
“–No, I’m fine,” John insisted, “It’s probably some vision, I’ve been getting them a lot recently. Some after affect of a nightmare, that's all.”
“Are you... well enough to continue?”
Just before John had the chance to nod his head, the boy reappeared from behind the Bat and looked John up and down suspiciously. Now that the kid was in full light, he realized that… he was translucent and looked like he had the shit beaten out of him before he got here.
And he just stood there, staring into John’s eyes with a haunted look.
Oh shit. John realized, he’s wearing the uniform from the case.
The uniform was exactly like the one encased in glass in the center of the cavern, red, stained, and torn, hanging off the pale skin underneath like vines off a mountainside. As for the gnarly skin that it still clung tight to in some spots, it had deep gashes or purple bruises covering nearly every inch of its surface.
“Batman…” he said slowly. “Don’t be alarmed or anything… but I think your dead son has been living in this cave for… I’d guess nearly five years at this point.”
"What."